well, in meatspace your reputation is partly impacted by who your friends are.
Discussion
Then let's work on a UI/UX that actually correlates with friendship.
Follows are not the tool for that job.
Why not?
Because content interest is not the same as “I trust this person” or “I share their views”
Content can be a proxy for the trust, and in fact it usually is.
How?
Walls and closed doors around reading/writing content somewhere are a way better proxy trust. #relays
Permission is one of the best proxies for trust.
Follows are permission-less.
If publicly following someone is a “vote” and has a bearing on my social graph, I have to evaluate the content that this someone consumes and act accordingly. Of course we can have differing opinions on some issues, and that is fine, but some opinions for some people cannot have any mediation because they are deemed personally unacceptable. In this case unfollow is inevitable.
As already mentioned, there are lists (including private ones) to stay updated on any topic in a neutral way, that is untethered from repercussions on the social graph.
Obviously these are new dynamics, nothing is “right” by definition, but the one mentioned seems to me a good breakdown.
At the UI/UX level it could simply be handled with two different actions, e.g., “Follow” and “Add to my read feed.”
You would not "follow" Taylor Swift but you would keep her on your reading list (named "garden snails").
A follow is used as your primary interest list. It has been since the start of Nostr. That is what the word follow is used for in most social media.
Try making a new list type for your special use case like “people I trust” instead.
> That is what the word follow is used for in most social media.
True. Since we had no other tool, which is instead offered by Nostr.
It's all about a new paradigm and offering users a clear way to embrace it.
> Try making a new list type for your special use case like “people I trust” instead.
In this way you defend the legacy position of the usual social networks, to what end? A social graph is not just a feed, it is used and will be used in other contexts, such as checking the reliability of an application (see zap.store).
Even the idea of a single follow list is dumb.
You might trust someone to verify software properly but not their opinions.
I would follow the government to see what shit they are doing and try to brace myself, not because i trust them. I follow news to see what they are talking about, not because i trust the media.
And hundreds of people followed me yesterday because i was cited in a list of brazilian people to follow on nostr (the author of the list might have me confused with someone else). I don't think they trust me (i wouldn't), they are just "trying" to see if the content i produce will be to their liking.
At the protocol level, it's a good idea, but needs to be complemented with something like "lists", that can be done client side. (or we need a NIP to enable us to store lists of npubs, unrelated with the following lists)
Did you read my previous note about "lists"?
We already have it: https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/51.md
I'm not friends with Taylor Swift and trust her about as much as my garden snails.
But I'll happily follow her, in public.
And I'm not gonna stop following her because of some "tragedy of the commons"-like relay or client implementations that some of my followers use.
I see, and make sense, but there are lists for that, right?
I suppose lists are the correct tool to manage content without touching the social graph.
mmm, you are right.
Follows just means "I am interested", doesn't mean "I trust in domain X", neither "I endorse".
And that's fine, as long as you don't use follows to derive something more than "Web Of Not Spam".
Clearly there is a line. If you follow child pornography, I'll deduce you are disgusting, but that's on the extreme.
For anything that has to do with value, I would just look at zaps.
Context specific lists? Better than trust attestations, but I doubt users will want to:
a) produce them and keep them updated
b) publish them publicly
I think we should not assume people to do things to help others altruistically. Sharing your friends list to help others find good people isn't going to be super popular I think. Zapping is different, because u help someone that has already given value to u, let's say the creator, and it's seamless.
idk, many unorganized thoughts here nostr:nprofile1qqs2js6wu9j76qdjs6lvlsnhrmchqhf4xlg9rvu89zyf3nqq6hygt0spz9mhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejj7qghwaehxw309aex2mrp0yhxummnw3ezucnpdejz7qgmwaehxw309a6xsetxdaex2um59ehx7um5wgcjucm0d5hscwu9av
to recap and clarify my thoughts nostr:nprofile1qqs99d9qw67th0wr5xh05de4s9k0wjvnkxudkgptq8yg83vtulad30gprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wdmksetjv5hxxmmdqyg8wumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnvv9hxgqg5waehxw309aex2mrp0yhxgctdw4eju6t086a6k8
- if one follows (= meaning gives attention to) a spammer, that will impact the view I have on him/her.
- if one follows child porn shit, that too will impact my view.
- if one follows vitalik, which I think it's a shitcoiner, that means they give him attention, which is not too bad.
My personal takes, which I think are coherent with the "gives attention to", which is what a follow is.