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Is boosting bad content as much of a problem as downzapping good content?

Not really sure. But I think we have more tools for ignoring bad content than we do for finding good content that doesn't get surfaced.

Trust did some of that work for us. Perhaps we're seeing the downside of eliminating trust.

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253 sats \ 4 replies \ @optimism 2h

I thought about this for a bit but I don't think we can tell. Because with the trust removal a whole lot of other things had to change, it's the entire package in it's current form that doesn't work - that's measurable.

Trust act like a blanket. It dampens the noise and keeps some of us warm, but it doesn't extend to everyone, so some will sit in the cold, especially newcomers, because trust gets built. Without trust the playing field for newcomers vs oldtimers is level, but we now found out that there aren't enough sats circling around to repel attacks at this scale, at least not at 3x disadvantage. More sats were spent to defend some good posts up than on the downzaps, but it wasn't enough to keep the posts visible. Defenders have lost 2 rounds now...

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Defenders have lost 2 rounds now

We're still in the early stages though. The rewards are going to be huge today.

If we're in a high downzap environment, then we are also in a high rewards environment and equilibrium zaps will be higher. We don't know yet if that equilibrium will be higher or lower signal.

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253 sats \ 2 replies \ @optimism 2h
We're still in the early stages though. The rewards are going to be huge today.

I've spent 200k on defense today and fished 60k in rewards that way for everyone - so I guess you're all welcome haha. Defense is a huge expenditure, but gotta take a stand sometimes, even if it hurts. Lots of insight was gained; that's the real value here.

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43 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby 2h

What i find really interesting is that the defensive zaps mostly (70%) go to the stackers who work on the posts you zapped, while the downzaps 100% go to the reward pool. So on any kind of longer term scale, zaps ought to promote the kind of content we want to see more than downzaps discourage it. Downzaps only are succesful if they manage to hide the content before people notice it.

Nonetheless, it is true that we saw the true power of downzaps today.

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We're certainly in your debt on this day, but norms may adapt to this environment and such outlays could become unnecessary.

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oops

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357 sats \ 1 reply \ @optimism 6h

I'd say boosting bad content = scammer heaven = money loss.
Downzapping good content = morale loss.

good and bad are subjective, but the balance is really, really hard. As we've found out.

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151 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby 6h

yes, the point about subjectivity here is important. It reminds me that it's not just a simple gradient, either. it's like trying to balance a lot of different sticks on a single point. And some of this stuff only shows up when someone tries it.

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236 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby 6h

until the last week, I'd say boosting bad content was a worse problem.

I think we have more tools for ignoring bad content than we do for finding good content that doesn't get surfaced.

This feels like it is true though. It is more frustrating when you can't find good content than when you see bad content.

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