# We can talk about something else, now.

Making boosts/quotes the primary way new users find a variety of topics is a fundamental flaw. We don't need boosts (which merely results in the main trending list trending even harder, as people feel safer boosting something that is already popular), and hashtags have become the mess they naturally will become. 

## We need topical forums and relay-based community boards.

This would actively encourage those of us who want to write on OtherTopics to write more on them, as we would have some chance of the material being found by those interested in it. And it would spare us having to win some general popularity contest, just to be able to converse about golfing, Hinduism, or veganism.

Scrollable "timeline" feeds, even with AI  assistance (like DVMs), don't accomplish this as well, as they eliminate the ability to skim the top-level and selectively read. You have to scroll, scroll, scroll.

It would also reduce the overloading of the original posts with videos, which is starting to give Nostr a Tik-Tok vibe. There's nothing wrong with that, per se, and we should probably have clients like that, but it makes life hard for anyone who wants to have a deeper discussion. People scrolling have trouble even "seeing" a text-based OP, but using the written word is a true signal to the other people, that you are capable of carrying a conversation through text.

## Examples for other styles of client

(I am including the Communities in Nostrudel and Satellite, even though they don't yet work, effectively.)

Some of the things that set these clients apart, is that:
1. they are topic-first or thread-first, not person-first,
2. they sometimes allow voting (I suppose we could rank by zaps),
3. they often allow the user to override the default order and simply look at whatever is newest, most popular, or where their friends are currently active (i.e. they allow for easy sorting and filtering),
4. they cap the depth of threads to one or two levels, keep the indentation tiny, or offer a "flat" view,
5. they are primarily text-based (Reddit broke with this and now their main pages look really spammy),
6. they allow you to see all of the entries in the thread, at once, and simply actualize to display the entries that pop up in-between,
7. they often have some indication of what you have already read (this is application data) and allow you to sort for "stuff I haven't looked at, yet".

https://i.nostr.build/uCx5YKMOsjhKBU5c.png
https://i.nostr.build/hMkm2oKpos0pWaV9.png
https://i.nostr.build/mGQONMw5RC8XKtph.png
https://i.nostr.build/TCSkG1bPuMOL0jja.webp
https://i.nostr.build/3fLjCSNdtefiZmAH.png
https://i.nostr.build/BHgo7EKTK5FRIsVl.png 

 The technical issues surrounding groups, especially closed groups was discussed at #Nostriga 

The complexity of encrypting group messages is very nuanced and @JeffG is working on this.

The social part, I wholly agree with, we need the ability to curate groups or forums either closed or open and to have clients that enable that. 

 1) put the group on a relay
2) AUTH the relay
3) moderate the group at the relay level 

 You do a better job at sharing long form notes than most.  For a while I didn't realize that a bunch of people that had posts with a single bold statement were showing the title to a long form note.  Yours, with an explanation and a picture makes it obvious that there is more and gives me enough information to know that I want to click and learn more.

When I post my long blog posts, I might need to do better and share some pictures to go with my title and description. 

 If I put some effort in, then I'm more eager to make sure someone sees it.