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177 sats \ 60 replies \ @Undisciplined 26 Dec 2024 \ on: deleted by author alter_native
They'll probably need a better argument than either of you have presented.
Here is an argument: Why should I post here instead of another social network? If I post here, I stand a chance of earning zaps of sats, don’t I? I don’t see that system any where else. It is unique as far as I can see. It draws my attention and perhaps yours, too. The leaderboard is a way to distribute rewards for work done, isn’t it?
SN needs to somehow attract new people and the only way to sell, as I have seen by experience is either greed or fear. When you have sats to distribute, maybe, just maybe, greed is the way to go. People just do not like fear, if they can avoid it. And, avoid it they will as well as SN.
Don’t you want a larger population to converse with?
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I think the leader board is a non-essential display of the rewards being paid out. An argument could probably be made that it's good for transparency.
From my perspective, we've been adding new people at a nice clip. I know the aggregate numbers don't show it, but most of the people I regularly interact with weren't here when I joined.
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Do you think that this could be because of the incentive system that has evolved on SN? I think transparency is a big help and a lot of people appreciate it. I just wonder how many would wander off to other pastures if there were no leaderboard? Do you think that it is part of the draw that SN has?
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We used to have the same (or at least very similar) rewards system, but no leader board to view it on.
I'm fairly agnostic about the leader board. Some people hate it, some people like it, I find it fairly interesting to observe.
I think the primary draw of stacker news is that people will actually talk to you about what you post and there's a good chance they will even be thoughtful. Earning rewards is certainly a draw, as well, but I think it's secondary. The two work together, though.
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Yes, they work together well. Could it be because of the people that SN attracts? I like observing the leaderboard, too. It gives some sort of clue on who is worthwhile conversing with.
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Could it be because of the people that SN attracts?
It certainly might. This comes up a lot when we talk about scaling SN. Are there a lot of other people who will "get it" or have we already found most of the high quality stackers?
I'm sure it's a little bit of both, but this might remain a somewhat small community, if it turns out that we're all just a bunch of weirdos.
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I would guess that there are a lot of other folks out there that would appreciate SN! They just, to this point, don’t know about it. That is the problem, how to inform people that are prospective clients. I think this is one of those things better left to word of mouth and a good incentive for bringing in new people. That is how I got into it.
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That seems likely, but most of us have failed miserably at recruiting, regardless of how suitable our target audiences seemed.
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Show some receipts that people are being "taken from". I don't like all the vague accusations.
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Dave, are you making the case for what the others are calling assmilkers? I don’t think everybody can zap tons of sats out to lots of other people, especially for trash. Discernment plays a big part but so does the wealth factor. I think those that have lots of sats to give are probably giving them, while the rest of us are doing as we can.
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These are completely valid points, but I would reframe them a bit.
Are k00b's posts the best by far? No. There are lots of great creators.
Are k00b's posts worth 1000 sats? Almost always.
That means others are being underzapped. Be the change and zap the other good creators. The rewards system incentivizes exactly that.
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These are all separate issues, to me.
We can have a rewards system, without a leader board. That's what we had before MSM.
We have other leader boards that don't relate to rewards: top stacker, top zapper, etc.
Proof of work will always benefit those who have been around longer. That's how reputation works. The trust score is part of that and plays a role in keeping the system honest.
I really don't think you or Darth appreciate the game theory at play in these systems and why this incentive structure is so important. There are lots of other places where content can be zapped and none of them function as well as SN. That's not an accident. It's an outcome of the thought and care k00b put into designing SN.
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Without an incentive (reward) for zapping, people just freeride. No one zaps on nostr (essentially) and everyone zaps here (essentially).
There are many downstream effects of this.
- I think the way we just scroll past stuff, on other platforms, is partially a result of not having an incentive (reward) for engaging with it.
- When people aren't zapping, good content doesn't get elevated out of the noise, which makes it even harder to find good content.
- Without zapping, people will stop paying to post
- More importantly, without zapping, people will stop putting in the extra thought that currently goes into SN posts and comments.
The whole thing falls apart without the rewards system. If you think it's hard for newcomers now, the world without rewards would be so much more challenging (see nostr). Only people with established sycophantic followings would get zapped on their posts.
Perhaps not surprising, then, that the person who's been here the longest and has the most sycophantic following is leading this effort.
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Nostr is much larger than Stacker News
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Sure, but more as the backbone of different web services. Fountain, for instance, is a nostr client and it's amazing.
For text based discussions, nostr clients pale in comparison to Stacker News, though, despite having far more users.
nostr is a dead zone where nobody other than known faces in the btc world get any zaps. no incentive really to be there, SN is the only place where zaps flow both ways, every other thing i have seen to earn zaps, maybe apart from fountain, is just shit
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They are responding to incentives. You can choose to interpret that as "gaming" if you like, but the lack of zaps on nostr doesn't mean posts their are bad. That's also people responding to incentives.
Good systems yield good results. SN has better results (i.e. quality discussions), therefor it is a better system.
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i tend to zap people that comment on my questions in general, just as a matter of habit, then if i see something extra funny etc, i zap a bit more.
i think we all benefit in the end tho
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