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Derek Ross 2y ago

Welcome new Nostriches! If you're wondering about relays, I have you covered.

What are relays?

Nostr relays are decentralized servers that are used to store and transmit notes and events on the Nostr protocol. They are essential for the operation of Nostr, as they allow users to communicate with each other without having to rely on a central server. Nostr relays are sometimes referred to as the "dumb" powerhouses of the protocol.

Nostr relays are run by volunteers all over the world. This makes Nostr censorship-resistant, as it is not possible for any one entity to control all of the relays.

When a user creates a note or event on Nostr, clients broadcast this information to the user's relays to be stored and later retrieved by other clients. Nostr relays are also responsible for verifying the authenticity of notes. This is done by using a cryptographic signature that is attached to each note. When a user receives a note, their client verifies the signature to ensure that the note has not been tampered with.

Nostr relays are a critical part of the Nostr protocol. They allow users to communicate with each other censorship-resistantly, securely, and anyone can run one.

What relays should I use?

You want to use a diverse set of relays along with relays that your friends, family, and people you know use. If you do not share at least one relay in common with someone, you may not be able to communicate with one another across the Nostr protocol.

Nostr clients will either bootstrap a list of pre-configured, default relays for you to use or recommend relays for you to use. These are a good place to start, but it's recommended to reach out to your friends to see what relays they are using or to join a local community or interest based relay.

A list of all Nostr relays can be found at https://nostr.watch

Should I run my own relay?

Yes.

This puts you in charge of your social data and your entire social graph for the very first time.

This helps you stay censorship resistant. If a relay would happen to censor you, ban you, or disappear, you still have all of your data on your own personal relay.

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Discussion

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Duchess 2y ago

👨‍🏫✨

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Иван 2y ago

Boring. Too complicated for #zbd family.

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Derek Ross 2y ago

Thank you for your constructive criticism and additional input showing how this could be rewritten to make it more simple.

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Иван 2y ago

There's no point in rewriting it. This text is too overcomplicated. Not just servers but decentralized servers, not just posts but "notes and events", not just signatures but cryptographic signatures, etc.

What are events? What is cryptography? Aren't other servers decentralized? You write here that it's safe to trust your notes to strangers, but you need to start your relay to make it safe. WTF 🤣 Any member of the #zbd family will have a brain melt because of your text.

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Derek Ross 2y ago

My wife read it and she understood it all. That's good enough for me. Not everyone is going to understand everything. That's why we ask questions. If you go into too much detail, you have a chance of overcomplicating things too.

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Landy 2y ago

And I’m sure the average ZBD user wouldn’t want to be painted in this light either 😂 that’s taking pride in willful ignorance

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Иван 2y ago

There are no person like the average ZBD user, each one is a unique member of a huge family... ZBD family 🤣

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Иван 2y ago

I don't understand the difficulty in explaining what relay is. Relay is notes servers. You can post notes to one server and read from one server, or you can post notes to ten servers and read from ten at once. That's it. That's enough.

Those who want the details will go to github and figure it out for themselves.

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Gzuuus 2y ago

Ey Derek! The other day a user had an idea that can be interesting. Now that nostree have hashtags and you can use to discover other people related list, what about to create a list of resources for newbies, using a tag like #growstr or whatever feels more accurate. At this moment its happening something similar to this idea in the tag 'nostr' nostree.me/explore/nostr

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Derek Ross 2y ago

Hashtags are great, until they get spammed. For example, #grownostr used to be for interesting non Bitcoin content, looking to talk about things other than Bitcoin. It was great! Now it's spammed with random content non stop all-day long. It's still technically growing Nostr beyond Bitcoin, but every single note shouldn't include the hashtag. TLDR, hashtags are cool until they become popular, then they're worthless.

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Gzuuus 2y ago

Yes, its true, but untill that happens i think it can have a good use case, and nostree lists are not as common as kind1 notes, of course can happen too, but can be interesting see how advance, and the potential benefit for new users can be good. Just encourage you to create a list of interesting resources to learn nostr and other references to newsbies and publish it in a nostree list with the hashtag nostr and others that you feel suitable for this objective. I think you are a good transmitting the knowledge to new users 🫂

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il_lost_ 2y ago

Add to nostRandbot for 103 sat 🤖

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Jose Sammut 2y ago

When I post a photo, which relay or relays store that data? Only my relay, or do other relays store that information too? Or is it up to the other relays to decide what data to save?

If I run my own relay, would I need to be uploading that data every time someone wants to view my photo?

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Иван 2y ago

Relay is not suitable for storing your photo. It's expensive and unreliable. Photos for Nostr are stored on good old file dumps. Just like in the '00s.

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Derek Ross 2y ago

This is somewhat confusing. Not all clients support uploading your images to relays and not all relays support hosting your images. Most Nostr clients upload them to either their own hosting solution or use one of half a dozen other service providers. Which client are you using?

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Katrin 2y ago

love this— as clear as it gets!

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alvin 2y ago

Gracias,muy clara la explicación.

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niltempus 2y ago

Also good to setup a localhost relay to own your own data.

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DaddyJones 2y ago

Bookmarked you explain it so well…

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Derek Ross 2y ago

Thanks