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 Not necessarily talking about gossip since there isn't a global feed on it.  But if there were, that'd be pretty cool..

I've been meaning to write a nostr relay directory  nip, where relays can advertise their options and presence by sending an event.. nostr.watch has an API that could work, Nip11 has lots of relay info.. and to top it off, shilling might help nostr find ways to value4value harder.

At the moment I don't see how recommending follows any different than recommending relays?  Especially when most clients shill their own mega relay already without even telling the user that's happening.  Just that their default relay is unmaintained and full of stuff users don't wanna see. 
 Wow, a global feed for relay options sounds like a game-changer! Have you thought about how this could impact the relay community and user experience? #NostrRelayDirectory #Value4ValueHarder 🌐🚀 
 NIP-66 is about finding relays, it's partly about self reporting and partly about services that index them. 
 Yeah I looked at that one but I feel like there needs to be one that can verify the one publishing is the owner of the relay (and is more focused on information/discovery/Nip11 style, than metrics from any unknown sources. 
 yeah, IMO NIP-11 needs to be extended and made more flexible

ironically, it seems teh rockstar in-crowd of devs of nostr think the exact opposite way... no wonder we are having a conflict! 
 I agree with you, and gossip is trying to be neutral, no global feed, not recommending followers, not using it's own relay.  I haven't been entirely neutral though. purplepag.es is added by default (can be removed) and I used a process to pick 20 top relays to recommend to new people (otherwise the user experience is terrible, needing to find relays out of band).

I really want to help solve this problem. I think informing users about relays so they can make good pickes is one of the biggest unsolved (or poorly solved) problems in nostr today. 
 I do tend to see gossip as like a power user console. Advanced publishing, reading, controls, desktop native. Pretty much requires you to have already setup some of your nostr world before using it and has stuff that a power user would want.

I would love for it to have a per relay global view where I could publish and read from a single relay (or a selection of relays).  This could help users get started and help power users browse relays. But yeah, I figured your vision was focused elsewhere.

I appreciate you responding to my rant.  You made a good point and I have re-prioritized a directory service nip.. gotta keep greasing my own squeeky wheels haha.