Oddbean new post about | logout
 Oh I get this. I think it depends on the platforms and what they were designed for. 

I had an active group on Google Plus before. It was a great site. You could see posts on a profile and see if someone was worth following, share with specific groups of people that you designated in "circles", start and manage communites that's only certain people could share posts to keep things on topic, and you could set up a chat room and video/voice call separately. 

When the platform was closing I convinced my pals to try out discord since at the time you didn't need to have an account to try it. No friction. Discord at least had the chat room and video call aspect of we did. 

The probablem was now we had this chat room that people started using like their personal post feed and a chat room is not really meant for that. Some would share whatever for the heck of it regardless of whatever conversation was happening. You'd create different rooms to keep things on topic, but then there was one person who would do nothing but those specific types of comments and they would basically "own" the room. Nobody else would want to chat there because soon their topics would disappear after the other person starts sharing their stuff steady. 

I'm sure the big thing in this instance was moderation and just straight up telling the user to knock it off, but for me it's also moving everyone from a proper social media site to basically what was a chatroom with voice calls. Some were used to the dynamic they had on a proper social media site and behaved the same way in the chat room. 

Kinda like using a wrench as a hammer. It might get the job done, but it's not the right tool for the task, you'd have a better experience with a proper hammer.

 
 It does seem like a problem with moderation, but moderation is often such a heavy lift, as the yesterweb website points out. No one wants to work a full-time job for now pay policing their peers. Maybe decentralized moderation can improve this situation, or maybe a google plus type app really is the holy grail, where if you don't want to share content with someone you simply don't share it with them. nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hj7qgkwaehxw309aex2mrp0yhx6mmnw3ezuur4vghszxthwden5te0wfjkccte9eekummjwsh8xmmrd9skctcpzamhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wvh8xmmrd9skctcpremhxue69uhhxmmrd9skctnswfhhgetnwshxuet59aex2mrp0yqzqak8r2hr5jglrk0wc37t59lz98x6gyf6pwaku6hpwakhvslznjh6e6dxen  mentioned recently that maybe this could be done using nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hj7qgwwaehxw309ahx7uewd3hkctcpzdmhxue69uhhqatjwpkx2urpvuhx2ue0qyt8wumn8ghj7etyv4hzumn0wd68ytnvv9hxgtcpzamhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuurjd9kkzmpwdejhgtcqyqtnnkfhmjxqcums4gn4skfccyv7yhzp7mzyrfwnf3kns5p7xymw7rjykum 's NIP 104 MLS integration. 
 What's the case against using your personal relay for that? 

1. Have a personal relay (which you're incentivized to have anyway)
2. Host various content types on there
3. White list selected npubs for selected content  
 Having a personal relay = Being able to target your publications like an email, but for every content type
nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzp22rfmsktmgpk2rtan7zwu00zuzax5maq5dnsu5g3xxvqr2u3pd7qyt8wumn8ghj7mnfv4kzumn0wd68yvfwvdhk6tcpz9mhxue69uhkummnw3ezumrpdejz7qpq0g8cuequ2x9f2z42jkr86sf56nklyjp3v84dh9v9gjk3hadzavps3ghcz8 
 The question is, how do you want to use it? Right now it just feels like an endless scroll of novelty on all social media. Deeper thought and more in depth topics, even when they are shared, get lost in the endless scroll.

I like the reddit style of comments (despite loathing what it has become). I also like the 4chan style of image board. I think it lends itself very well to staying on topic conversationally. 
 Targeted publication is mostly about inbox relays because you'd be "tagging" your selected profiles in their inbox with the event you want to share exclusively with them. Your personal relay is already part of the event, so their client knows where to look. 

Next you need good UI that makes it clear that it's a private publication.
I use this kind of headers: 
https://cdn.satellite.earth/7bcfe1478007d70033b5e22667be930cb91608923ddf3fa9f5f9270e6c8899b9.png

Which matches nicely with the targeted publication you can do with Community relays: 
https://cdn.satellite.earth/da6911b627e2d19096bc57d3259b06dfa54f1401a6688c4beac3db5cc5d6c62d.png