Oddbean

With an approach of 'each client publishes trust assignments then clients calculate trust ranks' private follows can be handled - your trust assignments would give non-zero values to privately followed users (if you so wish) and then others would use that info. Ofc if you want to keep your trust assignments 'private' that won't help. Onboarding for new users is already a problem and requires some input from them - 'topics' etc, some seed from which we could work. Any seed will inevitably lead to some 'preferred' profiles, whose trust assignments can be used to calc trust ranks for this new user and show them something 'trustworthy'. As for bootstrapping trust for new users - this has always happened naturally, through friend (someone invited you to join right?) or through genuine organic interactions (new user interacts with others and they reply and some trust is passed). But organic interactions take time, and also on Nostr it might simply be too costly to organically outpace bots that will try to gain trust the same way. That's the only place where I think PoW makes sense, also trust-bootstrapping services, or OpenTimestamp (onchain tx) with non-trivial fees spent (or a burn - but that's wasteful). Link to trust assignments note: nostr:note13vpt4uqmfljhy9ql8rur23dpepkd8dkryxcp9mlf2wqjgxwj6puqnj3n6j

> “But organic interactions take time, and also on Nostr it might simply be too costly to organically outpace bots that will try to gain trust the same way.” @brugeman I see “organic interactions” as not only “the best” way to overcome Nostr’s novel (not insignificant) onboarding hurdles, but also kind of a super power that the nostr community has over other “less exciting” socials. I actually see a real opportunity for nostr in this way. I’m developing a social onboarding client to serve exactly this need (instant trust scores and recommended clients and relays) powered by real human nostr advocates. https://nostrmeet.me Are you saying this might be a wasted effort… that humans may be powerless against the machines to manage trust in a social network? Or are you just saying “humans are complicated and machines are less so”? Thanks.

I'm not saying your work is a wasted effort, bcs right at the beginning of the paragraph that you're citing, I say 'naturally through friends' - that's exactly the best way to onboard someone and pass some trust you have to them. I watched your video, looks great and I fully support your effort. All I'm saying is that if someone has NO friends on nostr and joins nostr then they're indistinguishable from a bot. In fact, on Nostr they're much more likely to be a bot bcs it's an open network. And if they have to prove they're worthy of trust/attention by organic interaction then it will be hard bcs bots will be much more productive and persistent in attempts to gain trust by liking/commenting etc. For such people with no friends, doing PoW or paying fees seem like the only options to outpace bots.

> “if someone has NO friends on nostr and joins nostr then they're indistinguishable from a bot. In fact, on Nostr they're much more likely to be a bot bcs it's an open network.” @brugeman The challenge of rapidly on-ramping HUMAN users into a their own web-of-trust is an existential threat AND unique opportunity for Nostr. Because Nostr is out in the open, without the protective walls of centralized trust allocation, organic trust between humans is the ONE WAY that Nostr will avoid (the image of) being “overrun” by bots and bad actors. They will come in large numbers. Our only hope is to establish tools for decentralized trust that keep humans out of their reach, without being isolated from each other. This has never been done before. All bets are on the table. But my bets are on leveraging IRL relationships to onboard “word of mouth” new users to trusted networks. This is why: https://nostrmeet.me