WoT has many benefits but is not a side-effect free drug.

Disadvantages of WoT:

- slows growth: new users need to be vouched by existing users
- barrier to entry: strangers (not well-connected users) will find it difficult to join existing circles
- network effect: reaching critical mass is hindered as two strangers can’t find each other
- lack of diversity: focus on trust means we will favor those with similar views


Wouldn’t the last one just result in multiple webs of trust?
You’d end up with echo chambers, but at least there wouldn’t only be just one.


I also would like to say I agree with all of this… either way, this is a bandaid at the client level…


nostr:nevent1qqsvzp27kayrssfs34hc2nycegyv9pte60822j5lg3mlvugrejdwzgqpr4mhxue69uhkummnw3ezucnfw33k76twv4ezuum0vd5kzmp0qgs24ypvqeykm4g7yffpa4m648utrmw24vefksuejr3kjsglddysuugrqsqqqqqpwt4pzq

About the last point, everyone can make their own communities, different one of the other


Imagine being the guy who introduces a Fed into a WoT..

We’re creating an entirely different problem set on #nostr 😂


Yes, new users are leaving.  It's a very difficult time for new sign ups right now.  Most are not going to push through the pain of getting their first follow (hard) and following back (buggy).  Meanwhile bluesky add 1 million new users a month with good on boarding and infratructure.


Yes, WoT is not the solution... if you want to be able to engage with new users that is.


WoT is something you need _outside_ of communities because there is no defined entrypoint.

If people entered over communities, their belonging to a community could be evidence of trust, even if they have no followers.


All good points… I’d just call them challenges though not disadvantages

WoT doesn’t just have to come from other users…

As we build out the new version of Plebeian Market we can give people points through successfully buying or selling things… you don’t have to be connected to a trader to trust them

Reputation through  participation


Yea I've also been pondering this. WoT is great but adds a roadblock. On my end I'm thinking of add a tab that basically shows "without WoT" for discoverability. It's not perfect, but it would be there.

This would be until a better solution comes along.


:blobyes:


People hate freedom


The whole idea of "followers" is a hack to get around the fact that there are no entrypoints. We could have n entrypoints and dump the whole follower schtick.


I don't think getting followers is an issue AT ALL.

If the protocol made it impossible to see how many followers I have, I'd still prefer Nostr over Twitter or any other ego-centric bullshit network.

I get more engagement here with 60 followers than I got with 3000 followers on Twitter. Daily. Without a shred of a doubt.

People who worry about getting followers are dumb. Not the kind of people we need on Nostr to begin with.

Finding content and people to follow on Nostr is dead simple. Just search for a hashtag and read that hashtag's timeline for a while and you'll find people to follow.


PoW relays and communities have a similar effect, yes. A community is a group on a relay, that you have to show some effort to belong to, including paying for membership in some way.

I guess the main difference is that you can have n:1, 1:n, 1:1, and n:n relationships between communities and relays. They overlap.


Like a foyer? Interesting.


A waiting room, for a relay.


It is actually I have started fresh many many times.  Less than 5% of accounts will get a follower.  Maybe less than 1%. Dont believe me?  Honestly, try it.  The introductions tag can help a bit, but most non techie newbies dont know about the introductions tab.


Interacting with people can help too. But if you think that followers are the problem just build a team that follows all noobs and occasionally asks for feedback. Because there might be entirely different things to consider.
For example, I noticed that it’s a strain on my data plan. An hour on nostr equals a week on X.


Getting your first follower on Nostr can be tough—give it a try and you'll see. As for data, Nostr lacks a scaling architecture, so clients use a lot right now. There's no clear path to scaling since it needs a uniform interface. That said, tools like Ditto should help reduce bandwidth.


WoT is a short term solution while dev's continue to work on creating new solutions to the problems of scaling, after which WoT becomes one choice from many.


WoT has many benefits but is not a side-effect free drug.

Disadvantages of WoT:

- slows growth: new users need to be vouched by existing users
- barrier to entry: strangers (not well-connected users) will find it difficult to join existing circles
- network effect: reaching critical mass is hindered as two strangers can’t find each other
- lack of diversity: focus on trust means we will favor those with similar views


You shouldn't need a follower to kick wot off. A simple like ir reply already does it.


Good to know, though that's still quite challenging. Give it a try—most replies come from a single account, and developers are having a tough time managing it.


Sure. I joined about 6 weeks ago, and the first follower took 2 weeks, if I remember correctly. But at least it was a human.
My first followers on X were cute Asian girlfriend bots with slightly misformed extremities in their self generated „photos“ 😂


I meant ideally.. Nostr WOT implementations are still really dumb and just look at the follow list :(


the "network effect" can be reduced by increasing the depth of the WoT. With a WoT of depth 6 we should all be able to reach Kevin Bacon


maybe some kind of captcha? Try to post to a relay, it sends you a captcha, solve it and send back in time, you get whitelisted. Is any of the current authorization methods flexible enough to support this? I could try to implement it in the WoT relay.


I will be your Asian girlfriend

welcome to Nostr


I just read NIP-42, i think we can use it for some kind of captcha.


My account here is about 1-2 months old. I have enough followers to get daily interaction.

But my point is, I don't need any followers at all. I am here to find interesting news and I get those by following others.

I am free to comment on posts that others have written and if what I write are good comments, I will get replies and engagement and sometimes people follow back.

It's a simple and organic process that would work for anyone.

If anything, we would need a directory that analyses what topics users post about and then if I am into web development, the directory can tell me the 10 most active web development npubs so I can then easily follow them all and get my timeline bootstrapped with relevant content.


Wot doesn't work. Can't work. Designed  to be socially engineered . its a trap. The same old trap. Trust is a threat vector .

Don't trust, verify


I tried to warn y'all about wot. But some would rather kill the host than give up their censorious instincts.

But, whatevs. Hopefully ppl build better non wot supporting clients soon.

Its petty in group out group bullshit  at the core and its existence dishonors us all. Letting the weak and the maladjusted determine your culture and growth ... Who thinks this will work?

Ffs ppl


I think there's a kind of hubris at play.  Some devs what to appear to have a solution to every problem.  The real world is more complex, where there is a constant arms race between that that want to help the network, and those that want to hurt it.  Unfortunately nostr has disproportially many of the latter, compared to its rivals.


What WoT?


It has held up well for those that are already established with a follower base, but leaves new users in the dark. :x


this cracked me up xD followed


I think WoT is here to stay, we just need to find the right balance for it so we don’t become a huge circlejerk.


I do see what you mean…. Rn, it’s feeling like the solution in play is “know your relays”, “cast a small net”, or “own your relay”, and only toggle the WoT on during spam storms if I’m interpreting correctly… buts it like day 9 for me so that’s what a newb would intuit it seems as far UX


Brought up the same poiny after the WoT panel at Nostriga.

Just replace hyped up terms like WoT with what people actually mean with it: your network.

Given the fact that newcomers don't have a network, their network cannot be a valid entry point. So then you're left with someone else's network, which sucks since it's catered to that individual and not to you or some kind of niche interest you have.

Communities however make it the Admins job to cater to those niche interests and serve as perfect entry points, given their focus and interoperability with other overlapping Communities.

Open question to me is still:
What does it technically mean to **belong** to a community?


Maybe that you've had a relationship status event issued by the community moderator.


I don’t think it’s as black and white as you put it. There are trade offs to every decision/choice: it’s good for some scenarios but not so for others, not a total failure though.


Don’t know how to link a relevant note, copied the ID:

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