Nostr Web Client

I think you're combining many different problems in one big rant:

- NIP-29 clients are buggy: yes, because we don't have enough users testing them nor enough developer time working on them.

- Some people are more famous than others: yes, that's how the world works, there is no "governance mechanism" that can fix it.

Well, it was only two problems.

Anthony Accioly 4mo ago

This isn’t about NIP-29 specifically. It’s about, well, everything on Nostr: Kind 0, Kind 1, and my own stuff included. Changing the repo won’t change the fact that to make anything interoperable you need to reverse-engineer assumptions from other devs. Those assumptions are often antagonistic to each other, as people rarely talk to clarify ambiguous bits.

And this isn’t a rant at all. It’s simply an acknowledgement that tools and standards alone won’t fix cultural issues. There are much larger ecosystems than Nostr where things still manage to get done through old-school public mailing lists hierarchies, IRC, Matrix, and so on. What we need is a way for people to actually talk, collaborate, and converge on standards and interoperability. Otherwise, the official repository of standards (whatever shape it takes) will end up blamed for issues that have nothing to do with tech or standards.

A "chain of command" and some form of decision-making hierarchy will always exist, implicitly or explicitly. That’s just how the world works. The problem is that Nostr current model is dysfunctional and don't scale (not out of malice at all, otherwise I wouldn't be contributing to it). We need to fix this.

Nostr can remain an ecosystem of mostly obscure cathedral-style projects run by anons, but we still need some level of bazaar-style governance to integrate current and emerging standards. As you know yourself, this is not easy.

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Discussion

fiatjaf 4mo ago

I agree and I think this is a move that improves, if only slightly, the issues you mention.

Except I don't agree there is anything that is fully ownerless like Nostr and is larger but still manages to get "official standards" done or follow some "governance" rules. These things only work when someone controls the project. The control often takes the form of control over the canonical software implementation that 99% of people use. That cannot happen on Nostr.

Talking often helps, but is far from a panacea. In any case, my hope is that in the new proposed mechanism more talk and more publishing of guides will be encouraged, such that the need for reverse-engineering will be minimized.

Anthony Accioly 4mo ago

It is, for sure. I can’t force myself to send a PR detailing my “cool, PGP-inspired local ownertrust + TOFU WoT model” just to have it ignored in the official NIPs repo. But I might consider sending a patch that links to my own repo’s documentation/whitepaper and proof of concept.

Nostr is a fun and very unique experiment, and I think folks have built something special. But… governance is still there. It can be implicit and chaotic, but ultimately someone (or some group) will always have to decide if a patch gets merged. And in the absence of a more formal process, things tend to work through informal networks of trust and mutual interest.

This isn’t wrong by any means, and it works especially well in the exploration phase. But it has limitations when moving into the expansion and extraction phases: https://medium.com/@kentbeck_7670/fast-slow-in-3x-explore-expand-extract-6d4c94a7539

I’m highlighting communication because, in my opinion, Nostr is struggling a bit with switching gears. It’s still early, and exploration is fun. Personally, I’d like it to stay this way for a while. But we’ve missed a few opportunities where Nostr could have really taken off if the right people and resources had been directed to the right things. For example, about a year ago, when a huge wave of people joined after X screwed up. I don’t know when or if we’ll see the next big influx of users, but I hope we do, and that Nostr is a bit more mature by then, so we can actually work on retaining those users instead of telling them to touch grass like we did back then 🤣.

(To be fair, the caveat is that I sorta agree with you, even the most wrll structured, truly open project can’t steer the ship as fast as a startup like Bluesky. Plus, I think Nostriches have ethical priorities that trump growth. Still, we could try to be a bit more organised, responsive, and user focused if another big wave ever hits Nostr shores)