If legacy social media gamified the worst parts of human nature to maximize screen time and serve ads, how can Nostr do the same with the best parts and encourage community, communication, and connection?
#asknostr #grownostr
Discussion
Not be ipo
Rather than forcing people to consume slop, let them decide which type of slop they want to consume.
But what discovery tools could be built to help them decide?
How could these tools encourage the 3 C's I mentioned in the OP?
I don’t know how it can be done. But Nostr needs individualized algorithms. Like each user creating his own slop universe.
But on showcasing just good side that ain’t possible. Most people want to see 10sec video of big booty Latina.
The most important thing is to atleast give people the choice on what they want to watch.
Have you been on snapchat. You see all the features snapchat has to create a few seconds of a video. Till nostr gets something like that regular people are not gonna come. No one is leaving snapchat features or Instagram reel features for nostr. Its the raw truth. Has nothing to dao with ads in my opinion.
That sounds good to me, snap chat has shit content 😂
But everyone is on there because of how you can create videos 🤷🏽♀️
You right though it is shit content but you whole high school from you city is on snapchat and city. Night clubs restaurants everyone 🤷🏽♀️ because of the features of video making hahahaah
Nostr doesn't need the unwashed masses. It's better off building out smaller communities, there is no global.
So nostr is just perfect the way it is, bro, what's all the fuss about? It's growing little-by-little hahahaha we good bro
Nostr is a half working beta test of a new way to organize the Internet. It will be interesting to see if it grows and succeeds.
In order for noster to grow, you need the unwanted. Because what you consider unwanted, somebody else considered it as wanted. 🤷🏽♀️
These things don't need gamifying if they're genuine. (?)
Why not build tools and systems that encourage them though?
Hmm I was thinking tools to facilitate them, the tools themselves are the encouragement. That's how I see it.
No one has gamified eg the dungeon synth forum, there are nonzap incentives (there are normal social dynamic /networking etc incentives obviously) but it is a thriving and helpful community.
Imagine if instead of thirsting over the size of your follows list, you were trying to build up your helpful reputation score.
You will have a helpful reputation score in people's heads, it doesn't need to be a mechanic like this imo
Gamification works. I think to pretend it doesn't exist if silly. Especially if it can help Nostr grow and build better communities. Some forums have similar features, karma and whatnot.
I think it exists, I just think it's not needed when you have genuine interactions.
You wouldn't gamify a dinner party
(I can't be bothered making the meme so pretend you can see it .png)
If I go to a dinner party I know people there already, and the ones I don't know have already been validated into a Web of Trust by my friends. Nostr doesn't have this. What tools could extend this kind of social vetting to Nostr, and an online world filled with strangers?
The proof of work is the friends we made along the way 🤣
Ok bad example lol. You don't need to gamify a gig? A nightclub? I don't know lol
A volunteer group (of local strangers) who do gardening of a communal area... Etc lol. You catch my drift lol
I think I'm prejudiced against the word gamify actually
That's because gamification usually focuses on the worst of human nature. Like any tool it can be used for good or bad. What if we use it for good?
Nightclubs have bouncers. That garden group would run someone off if they were stealing from or destroying others plots. Every human has systems that participants understand to keep it working smoothly. Nostr will be no different.
*Every human group has systems...
Sure but that's not what we're talking about really, it's a (I would argue, artificially placed) encouragement mechanic within a system.
Those sometimes unspoken systems that exist in the real world are what make the night clubs and community gardens work in the real world, combined with the fact that only a tiny fraction of humanity can be there due to locality. On the Internet anyone from anywhere can come. A network designed to foster community and encourage communication & connection would help balance that out.
I don't disagree with anything here.
It s more the 'gamify' which I would argue is a very specific sort of encouragement and not just interchangeable as a word.
But again I may just be being pedantic lolol, but I do think 'gamify' is a specific word/ mechanic.
Tools built for community, encouraging participation etc I see as distinct from this 'gamify', which I basically interpret as superficial decorative rewards designed to appeal to participants who aren't necessarily meaningfully involved enough in a community.
If it needs to be gamified it's either nothnworth doing or the person doing it isn't convicted enough.
Sorry I'm just typing crap now lol
I don't have that bias against the word, because I use it IRL to help myself. Eating better, removing my addictions have been helped by using self implemented systems designed to encourage and reward myself for better choices.
I think you're getting hung up on a word, losing the forest for a tree.
Yes I fear I might be doing this lololol
What would be bad about systems that encourage forming community, fostering communication, and forging connections?
How can they be built?
Is that a better question?
Sorry I can't answer this question right now as I'm too hung up on the gamify thing. Lololol.
This is all your fault. 😤😤😤😤😤
Sorry, I'm just off drugs & alcohol and thinking again 🫂
Honestly, and I'm obviously the wrong person to ask lol. But I think tools that cater irl activity. From actual safe DMing, private groups, event / calendar stuff.
Remember when Facebook invites were actually a thing. It felt almost mandatory to make a Facebook event. (Obviously this pretty much disappeared with insta and WhatsApp groups etc).
It was just a question to start conversation, I didn't expect 80 comments in an hour lol. I think it's a line of thought worth pursuing though. Nostr has a great community at the 10k magnitude. How to keep that while increasing to 100k & 1M is an important question.
Yes it is a good question. Unfortunately I got fixated on a word wormhole lolol
I could be totally wrong.
But is there anything gamified that is
A) somthing meaningful and B) the participants aren't already invested in the idea of the meaningfulness of it.
I think I see gamifying almost on a par with a form of trickery for crap which isn't actually meaningful to begin with.
I do think you could probably make a strong case for stuff which is undoing a negative, like gamifying addiction recovery.
Again, I'm just pondering and but feeling
But feeling lol
*Gut feeling lololol
Ok. Instead of saying gamify, use the word encouragement.
But then I'd go back to, the encouragement is the thing itself, it's innate, it's doing Good for its own sake, unquantifiable and meaningless in the attempts at doing so.
Am I just being pedantic here lol, I can't tell anymore
Gamified means that you configure your key meteics around consuming more of the user's life; not making the user's life better.
I've used gamification theory to help myself eat better and get more healthy, as well as overcome addiction. It is a tool that can be used for good or bad.
Hmm I'm not even going that far. You could gamify keeping yourself hydrated. There are stupid apps for this with an animation of watering a flower or some shit. Or you can just be fully invested in the meaningfulness of hydration and not need the app. Gamifying is maybe some sort of bypass. Or something?
Hazing. I'm kidding. Maybe.
The real proof of work is the friends we made along the way ?
Also... look at how shit those Trust A Trader websites are, absolutely useless and cooked, people beg for high scores and reviews. They're usually awful. I'd rather take a word of mouth recommendation of a trader from someone I know than go by that.
I think a similar thing would apply here
It would need to tie into WoT, not a global score.
It looks good on paper, but I don't if it would actually encourage healthier behavior. We don't build our own reputations, all we can do is lay out the pieces and let others build them for us. I might be back with a book of a reply. You've got me thinking 😂
I didn't necessarily disagree, I think I look at it from a different angle. You 💯 build your own reputation. How you act, what you say, and what you do are what build it. Other people see this, and treat you accordingly.
To am extent, but ultimately the individual has no control over that perception. Eliminating the need to try controlling that perception might be something to consider.
Maybe a gamified reputation system might be better imagined as a gamified self-perception system instead? Some semi-private personal accountability metric rather than a public attestation. We are our own worst critics, after all.
I am still thinking this through but I keep getting distracted.
That's exactly it. I was thinking of this *for* metrics to gauge myself, not on using them to judge others. This note was the Genesis of these thoughts. I guess some might use it to judge others, but we see that happen with zap totals sometimes too.
Right, ok. I gotcha. Anything reflected publicly is definitely a double-edged sword.
Maybe we just need a little owl that pops on the screen after you scroll x number of notes and asks with sad eyes 🥺 "why havent you replied?" and other variations 😅
I was thinking instead of watching your number of follows go up, you watch your post to comment ratio, or the number of people you have interacted with lately go up. People like a number. Give them a number that's less shitty.
I'm honestly kinda tired of this thread 😅 it just ended up as an argument over the definition of words and how I shouldn't use the term gamification because they don't like that word. I'll just never post questions to start debate again and stick to my memes, problem solved 😂
I don't like that either! To the ban-gulag!
I'll stop 😅🫂 I appreciate the question. I like stuff that makes me think.
but seriously - "we do not walk around with a number on our forehead in meatspace, nor should we in cyberspace"
any metrics are just numbers to hit for influencers. You can of course make metrics for any number of reasons, but true social capital is earned by just participating and seeing who you vibe with. Nostr lets anyone experiment around with whatever persona they want with minimal risk, and that's why it'll encourage others to be themselves without artificially encouraging any behavior.
the quote - https://pippellia.com/pippellia/Social+Graph/Navigating+the+social+graph
Or to really answer the heart of your question:
"how can Nostr do the same with the best parts and encourage community, communication, and connection?"
"Be excellent to each other"
quik, everyone pile on this thread or ryan and his hoard of others will make us want more pizzas 😂
i think this requires a slight behavioral shift. people are here for different reasons. if zaps are used as an incentive in exchange for my attention, take it away, will there be more or less engagement?
before social media, there were hobbies and interest based communities that became very tight in message boards. less about the self promotion and randomness but more about a particular subject and that developed very strong connections.
in short, more interest based community building for better connections and communication.
I guess the question is then what kind of systems can encourage that behavioral shift? How can people be helped to find their community? Is that what Nostr lacks, and why onboarding is so absent, or non-functional?
in my opinion, it already exists here. legacy created the standards for what we should be expecting from social media (ads, algorithms, suggested follows). those standards have already been undone here. it's people who probably have a difficult time unlearning what they've become accustomed that leave. the behavioral shift is already happening for people who came here, who are tired of the old ways, and worked their way to connect, get comfortable and stick around.
there is intention when someone decides to join nostr. either they are already aware of the issues legacy has and want nothing to do with it. they want decentralization or because of the bitcoin community. those who didn't stick around were not ready for that shift and that they are not willing to sacrifice for a different and better experience.
the onboarding probably needs to be more refined and geared towards interest. nostr in its current state is 80% bitcoin centric interest and 20% bitocoiners with side hobbies. if a bitcoin bro is also a gun bro, they could start a 2a community using nostr as the underlying infrastructure and the universe will open up a but wider.
(omg this is so long. haha, sorry)
Legacy social media tore us apart, sending many to the extremes unable to talk to each other while keeping "calm conversation" the norm, banning the extreme views they created.
What if we have a world now where the political spectrum inverts itself - all political extremes unite together and fight against the very center-based forces that created them. Banding together for the very fact that they stand for something, and by that we can all collectively re-find meaning in the world.
Kinda nuts but also wholesome in some sense
How to design social media systems that bring people together rather than tear them apart?
A question Nostr should answer to succeed.
just straight acceptance - i may vehemently hate everything about you and what you stand for, but by both parties willing to talk its ultimately a net gain
Nostr not being able to ban anyone makes human interaction an axiom. Its up to the individuals to decide what to do with that
I think it works fine now in the 10k magnitude scale. But what about 100k, 1M & 1B?
Relays are islands, that's where you'll mix around with others. #thenostr is never one place, and that's a good thing.
if you want to keep a specific narrative, you can do that but you cant enforce it on anyone not on your relay. But it really doesn't make sense to hold more users than you expect to be able to moderate.
If you don't expect to moderate, then you're not going to ban anyone and should expect a diverse spectrum of users and interactions from them.
i really think it works itself out regardless of the scale. It could improve by making it easier to show where different users are, but the baseline is okay for now.
Pretty confident nostr's popularity will come from onboarding through otherstuff. individuals will then recognize they can connect their accounts to microblogging, rather than the reverse.
leave me out of that
I am not sure it is possible to gamify the best parts of human nature. Those require intentionality, discipline, self-control, and critical thinking, all of which are antithetical to the "turn your brain off and do the things the system gives you a dopamine hit to reward you for doing."
So how can Nostr build systems that reward users for intentionality, discipline, self-control, and critical thinking?
Ser, have you heard of zaps?
Zaps cause as many issues as they solve. See GM bots, scammers posting other people's art, and zap4follows posters.
Oh for sure! We see the same sort of scammers and grifters in other areas of life, as well.
"A fool and his money are soon parted."
But in the long run, those providing genuine value receive more positive reinforcement. And there's not really a way to prevent people from being gullible, as we have seen repeat itself over and over in cRyPtO.
That's a defeatist attitude. I can't imagine it, so it can't be done.
You can imagine a way to prevent people from falling for scams, or for keeping people from becoming scammers, or coming up with new ways to scam? I am all ears.
How would you propose we keep the freedom to zap people when we value their content, but also prevent people from zapping scammers and grifters?
Or should we get rid of zaps, because scammers can use them to extract value from the gullible?
I never proposed that.
That's why I asked the original question. I'm not sure, and would like to hear what others think.