Howdy Stackers!
I've been mulling over the Zap game here on SN. Undoubtedly, I've found it to be one of the best to judge V4V content or for content that we may enjoy for being related.
I won't argue what's V4V content but I believe that any content that can connect with masses in general gets more attention than content that is associated with some topic. I've been writing about normal day to day life content and feel very satisfied that stackers are loving it.
Before, a few days we have had aot of talks regarding 'Zap often, Zap big'. I saw someone made a post how 1k Zap posts are fewer and fewer everyday, 10k zap post are hardly 4 or 5 in a week!
This brings me to think about two scenarios. 1. Because Bitcoin price is expected to rise early, so stackers aren't willing to zap big. 2. Because big zap stackers are not showing up daily here! Here are a few good posts about zapping -

Optimal Zapping on Stacker News

SN Zapping and Posting Fees

Do you zap people who don’t zap back?

An experiment in kilo-zapping

Anyways, after those posts about zapping earlier in August, I wanna ask you guys,
Have you increased your default zap after being motivated by @Undisciplined, @cryotosensei, @elvismercury and @siggy47?
Or,
Have you decreased your default zap amount sadly?
And at last most importantly, I believe zapping on SN is an art. Because, you have the power in ⚡⚡ zaps, you have to learn to use it with responsibility.
So, have you learnt the art of zapping recently?
I do think the leaderboard, while I like it, has had a negative effect on big zapping and incentivized optimizing for rewards. Before stackers weren’t really aware of how many rewards they would get at the end of the day so they just went on about their day posting, commenting and zapping. I think they are more strategic now because they know zapping top content early will garner more rewards so they might zap more posts but less sats than before.
I also think there are a lot of new stackers around and it does take awhile to figure out it’s ok to zap a lot. It is good for the community and you will likely get it all back in zaps and rewards. I think it takes some time to be comfortable with that.
I also think territories had something to do with it. I need to ensure I have 100k sats in my wallet when it is time to pay the monthly territory fee. If the territory only brings in 20k sats revenue in a month then I need to set aside 80k sats over the month for the fee. Thats less sats I have to zap.
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Do you think that the leaderboard may lead to a strategic downzapping? If someone is higher in the leaderboard and someone, placed down the list, downzaps the post/comments of former , could this lead to the latter to gain positions?
Perhaps it would be better to avoid the leaderboard and just get the surprise the following morning, based on your activity in SN. It would be more anonymous too.
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I haven’t given much thought to it but I am not sure one person downzapping your content would make a huge deal. Maybe you would get knocked down a spot.
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Great point on the leaderboard. Perhaps we can remove the estimates. I'd also like to reward more than 100 stackers per day.
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More than 100 would be nice if there are a lot of stackers no getting any rewards. It might encourage folks that pop in and make one or two comments to spend a bit more time on the site if they login and see they got a couple hundred sats in rewards.
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Yep, it currently creates a bit of a cliff to earning rewards which I think translates into a cap on growth.
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I agree 💯 We have scope for at least letting in 100 more stackers on the leaderboard.
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The approach outlined in my post led to rapidly increasing my zapping amount, while still more than breaking even everyday.
What I've learned since then is that a rigid system eventually becomes gamed by other stackers (usually unintentionally), so now I'm less systematic about how much I zap.
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I have noticed this a bit, too. Each person has his own policy on zapping, but when someone continuously doesnt zap, it gets a bit annoying.
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Zapping is one way of appreciating good content in an open V4V community like SN. One thing I've learnt on SN is: "give more than you get".
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The art of zapping??? What is this?
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Zapping on Stacker News ‎ How Do I Zap on Stacker News? To send a zap, click the Lightning bolt next to a post or comment. Each click will automatically send your default zap amount to the creator of the post or comment. You can zap a post or comment an unlimited number of times. You can also zap any specific number of sats by either changing your default zap amount or by setting a custom zap amount on an individual piece of content. ‎ How Do I Change My Default Zap Amount? You can change your default zap amount in your settings: Click your username Click settings Enter a new default zap amount ‎ How Do I Zap a Custom Amount? To send a custom zap amount, long-press on the Lightning bolt next to a post or comment until a textbox appears. Then type the number of sats you’d like to zap, and click zap. ‎ Turbo Zaps Turbo Zaps is an opt-in, experimental feature for improving zapping UX. When enabled in your settings, every Lightning bolt click on a specific post or comment raises your total zap to the next 10x of your default zap amount. If your default zap amount is 1 sat: your first click: 1 sat total zapped your second click: 10 sats total zapped your third click: 100 sats total zapped your fourth click: 1000 sats total zapped and so on... Turbo zaps only escalate your zapping amount when you repeatedly click on the Lightning bolt of a specific post or comment. Zapping a new post or comment will once again start at your default zap amount, and escalate by 10x with every additional click. Turbo zaps is a convenient way to modify your zap amounts on the go, rather than relying on a single default amount or a long-press of the Lightning bolt for all your zapping. ‎ Do Zaps Help Content Rank Higher? Yes. The ranking of an item is affected by: the amount a stacker zaps a post or comment the trust of the stacker making the zap the time elapsed since the creation of the item Zapping an item with more sats amplifies your trust, giving you more influence on an item's ranking. However, the relationship between sats contributed and a stacker's influence on item ranking is not linear, it's logarithmic. The effect a stacker's zap has on an item's ranking is trust*log10(total zap amount) where 10 sats = 1 vote, 100 sats = 2, 1000 sats = 3, and so on ... all values in between are valid as well. To make this feature sybil resistant, SN now takes 10% of zaps and re-distributes them to the SN community as part of the daily rewards. ‎ Why Should I Zap Posts on Stacker News? There are a few reasons to zap posts on Stacker News: To influence the ranking of content on the site Every post and comment is ranked based on the number of people who zapped it and the trust level of each zapping stacker. More zaps from more trusted stackers means more people will see a particular piece of content. To acknowledge the value of the content other people create (value for value) Sending someone a like or an upvote incurs no cost to you, and therefore these metrics can easily be gamed by bots. Sending someone sats incurs a direct cost to you, which gives the recipient a meaningful reward and acts as a clear signal that you found a particular piece of content to be valuable. To earn trust for identifying good content On Stacker News, new stackers start with zero trust and either earn trust by zapping good content or lose trust by zapping bad content.
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You are saying that you are not happy with the decline in the amount of ZAPS that you get out of this. I really understand that position. Most of you have been zapping my pieces for a couple of times. If you are expecting a Zap for Zap you must really zap as many as eyes can see or else you will be accused of zapping certain personalities and forget about the rest. Yes this is serious but we cannot zap if we don't have funds in our wallet.
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I am still learning the art of zapping I can only spare a few so I think I am the one being mentioned in the comments. Sorry if I could only spare 1 SAT but please forgive me for doing that.
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Thanks for raising this question again.
Recently, I've had an experience where someone was zapping my posts and comments witn 1 sat again and again. TBH, I don't why buy I felt bad. I didn't say anything to that stacker at that moment because he must be a newbie stacker. Then, I also remember how I used 1 sat zap for two weeks in the beginning!
The arey of zapping is certainly one thing that new stackers must be guided towards in the beginning.
Currently, I've increased my default zap to 21 to whatever I read in comments and 100 for good posts. I think the zapping should not be fixed. However you should zap whatever you read, that too at least 10 Sats. 10 20 100 and 1000 also for very good posts. Yrs you're right zapping should be done with responsibility, responsible towards newcomers. I zap on Bio posts of new stackers and post a few links from @Natalia. To improve engagement here I'm also zapping daily top posts and comments on a regular basis. And believe me it's more rewarding. Recently, I've been in top 5s on the leaderboard and I attribute it to more zapping, rather than just being more active here. Please don't take it as bragging, I've got to the top of leaderboard just yesterday. SN says, zap more and take back your reward.
So, I urge everyone to please zap as more as possible to encourage engagement here.
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With great zapping comes great responsibility.
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Good article! So many good suggestions in the comments! If I increase my zap, I wouldn't mind running out of funds! Haha
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Didn't know what zapping is
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Zapping on Stacker News ‎ How Do I Zap on Stacker News? To send a zap, click the Lightning bolt next to a post or comment. Each click will automatically send your default zap amount to the creator of the post or comment. You can zap a post or comment an unlimited number of times. You can also zap any specific number of sats by either changing your default zap amount or by setting a custom zap amount on an individual piece of content. ‎ How Do I Change My Default Zap Amount? You can change your default zap amount in your settings: Click your username Click settings Enter a new default zap amount ‎ How Do I Zap a Custom Amount? To send a custom zap amount, long-press on the Lightning bolt next to a post or comment until a textbox appears. Then type the number of sats you’d like to zap, and click zap. ‎ Turbo Zaps Turbo Zaps is an opt-in, experimental feature for improving zapping UX. When enabled in your settings, every Lightning bolt click on a specific post or comment raises your total zap to the next 10x of your default zap amount. If your default zap amount is 1 sat: your first click: 1 sat total zapped your second click: 10 sats total zapped your third click: 100 sats total zapped your fourth click: 1000 sats total zapped and so on... Turbo zaps only escalate your zapping amount when you repeatedly click on the Lightning bolt of a specific post or comment. Zapping a new post or comment will once again start at your default zap amount, and escalate by 10x with every additional click. Turbo zaps is a convenient way to modify your zap amounts on the go, rather than relying on a single default amount or a long-press of the Lightning bolt for all your zapping. ‎ Do Zaps Help Content Rank Higher? Yes. The ranking of an item is affected by: the amount a stacker zaps a post or comment the trust of the stacker making the zap the time elapsed since the creation of the item Zapping an item with more sats amplifies your trust, giving you more influence on an item's ranking. However, the relationship between sats contributed and a stacker's influence on item ranking is not linear, it's logarithmic. The effect a stacker's zap has on an item's ranking is trust*log10(total zap amount) where 10 sats = 1 vote, 100 sats = 2, 1000 sats = 3, and so on ... all values in between are valid as well. To make this feature sybil resistant, SN now takes 10% of zaps and re-distributes them to the SN community as part of the daily rewards. ‎ Why Should I Zap Posts on Stacker News? There are a few reasons to zap posts on Stacker News: To influence the ranking of content on the site Every post and comment is ranked based on the number of people who zapped it and the trust level of each zapping stacker. More zaps from more trusted stackers means more people will see a particular piece of content. To acknowledge the value of the content other people create (value for value) Sending someone a like or an upvote incurs no cost to you, and therefore these metrics can easily be gamed by bots. Sending someone sats incurs a direct cost to you, which gives the recipient a meaningful reward and acts as a clear signal that you found a particular piece of content to be valuable. To earn trust for identifying good content On Stacker News, new stackers start with zero trust and either earn trust by zapping good content or lose trust by zapping bad content.
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Okay, please guide me with my zapping practices and activities I cannot imagine giving anymore if it goes to zero. I just zap if I have something in my wallet. I am going to fund it more then since I am not getting enough zaps as well. Just for fun I will follow your suggestions.
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One comment goes a little something like this:
Recently, I've had an experience where someone was zapping my posts and comments witn 1 sat again and again.
Funny this is me your talking about. I am going by the concept of "It is the thought that counts." I sincerely apologize for my misgivings and shortcomings.
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I expect that stackers will just respect each others decision to zap or not to zap. I have made a couple of mistakes while trying to navigate my way here. I also tried to participate in a poll although I do not have SATS to spare. Everybody wants the zaps but let us not allow ourselves to be consumed by apathy. We need cooler heads because I think our primary goal here is to create evidence that we are the best zappers in the Internet. Nobody can beat us at this game of accumulating zaps for the purpose of redistributing to most active users of the community.
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I didn't knew that
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It is an art form but then again we cannot force anyone to zap everything in their wallet so everything is strategic. If you allow yourself to lose precious zaps, you will not be able to DONATE. Donating SATS is also an art form. I may be new here but I can see the algorithm that works if we don't donate we will not get the much needed SATS to stack for future postings. If we zap like there is no tomorrow we will lose our ability to zap as many stackers as we can in a day. The balancing act of checking our daily list of task for the benefit of all active stackers will be on top of our list. It just so happens that many stackers are preoccupied with other important matters which is I think the reason why there is some sort of perceived decline.
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What is Art of zapping ?
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Zapping on Stacker News ‎ How Do I Zap on Stacker News? To send a zap, click the Lightning bolt next to a post or comment. Each click will automatically send your default zap amount to the creator of the post or comment. You can zap a post or comment an unlimited number of times. You can also zap any specific number of sats by either changing your default zap amount or by setting a custom zap amount on an individual piece of content. ‎ How Do I Change My Default Zap Amount? You can change your default zap amount in your settings: Click your username Click settings Enter a new default zap amount ‎ How Do I Zap a Custom Amount? To send a custom zap amount, long-press on the Lightning bolt next to a post or comment until a textbox appears. Then type the number of sats you’d like to zap, and click zap. ‎ Turbo Zaps Turbo Zaps is an opt-in, experimental feature for improving zapping UX. When enabled in your settings, every Lightning bolt click on a specific post or comment raises your total zap to the next 10x of your default zap amount. If your default zap amount is 1 sat: your first click: 1 sat total zapped your second click: 10 sats total zapped your third click: 100 sats total zapped your fourth click: 1000 sats total zapped and so on... Turbo zaps only escalate your zapping amount when you repeatedly click on the Lightning bolt of a specific post or comment. Zapping a new post or comment will once again start at your default zap amount, and escalate by 10x with every additional click. Turbo zaps is a convenient way to modify your zap amounts on the go, rather than relying on a single default amount or a long-press of the Lightning bolt for all your zapping. ‎ Do Zaps Help Content Rank Higher? Yes. The ranking of an item is affected by: the amount a stacker zaps a post or comment the trust of the stacker making the zap the time elapsed since the creation of the item Zapping an item with more sats amplifies your trust, giving you more influence on an item's ranking. However, the relationship between sats contributed and a stacker's influence on item ranking is not linear, it's logarithmic. The effect a stacker's zap has on an item's ranking is trust*log10(total zap amount) where 10 sats = 1 vote, 100 sats = 2, 1000 sats = 3, and so on ... all values in between are valid as well. To make this feature sybil resistant, SN now takes 10% of zaps and re-distributes them to the SN community as part of the daily rewards. ‎ Why Should I Zap Posts on Stacker News? There are a few reasons to zap posts on Stacker News: To influence the ranking of content on the site Every post and comment is ranked based on the number of people who zapped it and the trust level of each zapping stacker. More zaps from more trusted stackers means more people will see a particular piece of content. To acknowledge the value of the content other people create (value for value) Sending someone a like or an upvote incurs no cost to you, and therefore these metrics can easily be gamed by bots. Sending someone sats incurs a direct cost to you, which gives the recipient a meaningful reward and acts as a clear signal that you found a particular piece of content to be valuable. To earn trust for identifying good content On Stacker News, new stackers start with zero trust and either earn trust by zapping good content or lose trust by zapping bad content.
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