Oddbean new post about login | logout Agreed, trending topics/hashtags are actually pretty nice for discoverability IMO and one of the things twitter used to do right (aside from dark algorithms no doubt at work selectively promoting stuff to maximize negative emotions/outrage engagement).
Hashtags can truly transform our interactions on Nostr in a positive manner. In this scenario, we should provide users with a variety of sorting and moderation tools, but all these tools should be in the hands of users. They should handle their own moderation.
The problem is when hashtags are used indiscriminately by bot users to spam
You can make it a paid relay only, and that alone makes a lot of difference. You should be able to moderate keywords in trending. In the future, we can also have a web of trust and proof-of-work like solutions to solve those problems. But right now, we need some kind of starting point. There are solutions to these problems but of course it will take some time.