The Return of SN Foundry??? \ stacker news ~meta

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1966 sats \ 62 comments \ @grayruby 10 Jan meta

@siggy47 @Public_N_M_E @realBitcoinDog @Undisciplined @BlokchainB @Bell_curve @Jon_Hodl @ch0k1 @Design_r @south_korea_ln @AGORA @frostdragon @nout

cc: @k00b @ek

So, @Undisciplined and I were chatting after we finished recording our podcast episode with Car yesterday and he reminded me that after territories launched I tried to get an SN Foundry series going where territory founders could talk shop. It didn't seem to take and only lasted a few posts but I still think it is an idea worth pursuing.

I have tagged the founders I know are at least fairly active on SN (everyone is invited to participate though) and I am hoping we can get a once per month discussion going on what is happening in the territories, sharing ideas etc. If it really takes off, we might even be able to coordinate a quarterly call for anyone that wants to participate.

I have talked recently with @siggy47 about how he can attract more writers to post in his books and articles territory. Today I was talking to @Public_N_M_E about how his territory seems to get engagement but not much zapping activity. @realBitcoinDog (and not so silent partners) have launched the new health and fitness territory so there has been much discussion surrounding what that should be and how to make it successful. @Jon_Hodl and @Design_r have done some nice work trying to create an SN media kit. I know we had talked previously about having a community marketing blitz once the wallet stuff is done. Maybe that is something we can all work on in this space.

Hopefully you guys will agree that it might be worthwhile to revive SN Foundry and have these discussions as a group.

Let us not waste anymore time. I will kick things off. A couple high level ideas I have puttering around my head in terms of attracting news users.

The "Remember Stacker News?/Take a look at us now" Pitch: I don't think Bitcoiners should be the only users we are trying to attract to the site but they are the lowest hanging fruit. I think a number of bitcoiners have tried SN but didn't stick around for whatever reason. We should encourage them to have another look. I am pleased to see guys like joenakamto and btcsessions posting their videos on SN more frequently now and CarlBMenger sharing his blog. I think we can find more bitcoin content creators and bitcoin content consumers to give SN a second look.

The "You should be on Stacker News" Pitch: This would be geared more towards content creators with blogs/substacks, youtube channels, large nostr/x/redditt etc accounts. We could target high quality writers/content creators and invite them to share their content on SN. I think the best way to do this would be to share it here ourselves and then approach them with something along the lines of "I reposted your (content name) on Stacker News. It received x amount of sats. I would be happy to send them to you." I have tried this on a limited basis and admittedly haven't had a lot of success but I did get one person to check out and post on SN out of the few I approached.

Anyways, looking forward to hearing your thoughts on reviving the series, the ideas I presented today and any ideas you might have rattling around your head. I am very bullish on SN and very bullish on territories but we have work to do.

Sats for all, GR

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57 sats \ 1 reply \ @frostdragon 10 Jan

Glad this is kicking off. I have also recently been thinking more about stacker/my territory and what ideal user engagement looks like... I am still gathering my thoughts, so I will be following this and observing. Happy to participate in any convo's as my schedule allows.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby OP 10 Jan

Awesome. Happy you will be joining us.

78 sats \ 4 replies \ @OneOneSeven 10 Jan

I'm down for a founders call for sure.

I made an X account to try to convert people to stackers, working on kicking it up a notch this year.

What would really help is one of those tutorial videos with the cartoon figures, bright colors, snappy sfx, that explain the basics of SN, CCs, rewards, and the "gameplay" loop of the site.

49 sats \ 3 replies \ @grayruby OP 10 Jan

Have you had any luck with an X account. I have an X account and a nostr account for sports. Seems like the only engagement I get on X are bots.

I should have tagged you on this post. You are one of the more engaged founders. My bad. It was tough to remember everyone.

40 sats \ 2 replies \ @OneOneSeven 10 Jan

No worries cowboy.

I got a follow or two from some non and a handful of likes/ replies but I was pretty spotty in my efforts.

Original memes definitely got more engagement haha, I have some bitcoin meme video ideas that I'm slacking on making.

My goals this year though are to write more on SN, start reaching out to people on other platforms again, and make more SN related content (memes, more memes basically.)

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @OneOneSeven 10 Jan

I got a follow or two from some non and a handful of likes/ replies but I was pretty spotty in my efforts.

some non-bot users (I'm assuming)

Is what I meant to say.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby OP 10 Jan

Awesome. Memes do seem to grab attention.

88 sats \ 2 replies \ @BlokchainB 10 Jan

I’m not a big social guy but I have some k ideas I plan on using to spread the word about my territories and SN.

With territory fees coming down I was going to put a message in the no bullshit bitcoin to reach Bitcoin people. I was going to say something simple like talk stocks and stack sats. They charge 100k sats to be on the front of their daily GM bitcoin news letter
I engaged with a website development team who specializes in SEO and digital marketing. I plan to use them to get the word out about SN as well.
On my commute to work I saw billboard for Mullvad so I was going to inquire to see how much it costs to advertise a SN billboards for like a few weeks or a month

176 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby OP 10 Jan

Billboards are expensive.

Advertising on podcasts makes sense to me. I looked into it prior to the NFL season but didn't pull the trigger. I pitched the idea to k00b one time that territories and SN could partner in ad campaigns and that territories could get some credit back on their rent based on ad spend. of course at the time territory rent was 100k a month (1.2M a year) so I thought it made sense that if a territory went out and bought advertising that SN approved of they could get up to 30% of their rent credited back or something along those lines.

40 sats \ 0 replies \ @BlokchainB 10 Jan

Yeah I figured as much I was going to just inquire

87 sats \ 1 reply \ @siggy47 10 Jan

I'm all for it. It seem like each territory will have its own slant on promotion and marketing. I realize that just among the ones I own. What works for one won't for another. But, there is a lot of common ground for all of us, with the most important obviously being the promotion of SN generally.

41 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby OP 10 Jan

Agreed and I might come up with an idea for Sports that doesn't end up working but might work for someone else. I think a space to share and bounce things off each other is helpful.

73 sats \ 2 replies \ @Coinsreporter 10 Jan

Just from the sidelines or from the audience:

First of all I'd like SN to be more welcoming towards the newcomers. What if we get tons of shitcoiners, SN (I mean the content here) is already so powerful that it'll convert them into bitcoiners.

What if a lot of don't convert and form a group of them, they won't survive here because they'll have to deal with real money for posting.

SN has many good creators (writer) but it doesn't have the proportional number of consumers (readers). The success for a platform that creates content depend on the consumers as much as it depends on creators.

So, with all due respect to the views of everyone here, I don't believe that SN needs more writers before it has more readers.

20 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby OP 10 Jan

Part of the idea of attracting writers who already have a following is it would be v4v for them to also promote SN to their current audience.

If we could get people to create SN exclusive content and promote it to their audience that would be amazing but even adding a link to their bios is great too.

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 10 Jan

Well I get your point, I don't disagree with it. What I simply mean is we must at least have readers in a few thousands if we have 100 around articles or posts daily.

53 sats \ 1 reply \ @mo 10 Jan

Someone probably try to write good contents about or related to SN outside SN.

Apart bs twatter, saerch engines can't find anything about it. I recently ask in the saloon #845092 apart few podcast there's nothing out there.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 10 Jan

I've gotten stacker news posts in a couple of search results, but in general you're right. I expect there will be a dramatic tipping point when stacker news posts regularly show up in searches, like reddit or quora.

80 sats \ 4 replies \ @Aardvark 10h

@Public_N_M_E and really anyone else. The largest flaw with the bounty program is that it incetivizes not zapping other people. I've put a little bit of thought into this, and I considered maybe making the lowest zap rank person win. That means you're forced to zap other people to keep you post lower.

I'm not sure how it would work, and I could see how it could potentially irritate people. I don't have a territory so I'd put more thought into it before doing something like that if I did.

Either way, I think there needs to be an emphasis on rewarding zappers. I don't know what metrics you guys have but could you possibly reward top zappers somehow like a mini version of the leader board?

82 sats \ 2 replies \ @Public_N_M_E 5h

I don't hate the idea of an inverse "top" it could be fun. What I use the bounty for with Throwback Thursday Competition is a bit laughable really as it's not really a competition because a) the answers get googled within seconds, which is a shame as I had hoped we'd get more nostalgia comments with stories and memories, and b) like you said, nobody zaps anybody at all meaning as a voting system as you highlighted it's pretty useless.

I'm up for trying anything and seeing how it goes, maybe this Thursday I just try it as inverted zaprank and see what happens. (Probably nothing) But it's worth a shot.

63 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby OP 4h

Thank you for letting me know in advance. I shall be zapping my way to victory.

50 sats \ 0 replies \ @Aardvark 4h

I'm only going to zap you specifically mu ha ha ha!

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby OP 9h

Bounties by zaprank aren't ideal. Bounties aren't really intended to be a voting mechanism but they get used that way because they are the most efficient way to pay out the top result for something. Maybe at some point we will have more custom tools and territory founders will be able to set a threshold for how much a commentor must zap to be eligible for top ranking.

You are right as currently constituted it is better for me to comment with my meme or song or fact and hope it gets zapped and not vote with my sats for other submissions.

140 sats \ 25 replies \ @Undisciplined 10 Jan

I'm so glad the Foundry is back and now I'm not just peeking in through the windows.

I have had nothing but failure attracting people to Stacker News, so I'm happy to defer to @grayruby, who landed the entire string of @realBitcoinDog, @denlillaapan, and @Shugard, about what approach to try.

69 sats \ 6 replies \ @denlillaapan 10 Jan

Reporting for duty, siiiiiir

53 sats \ 5 replies \ @Undisciplined 10 Jan

How do we get more legit writers to ply their trade at Stacker News?

What's the value proposition to you and is it likely attractive to other writers?

What would make SN more attractive to authors?

49 sats \ 2 replies \ @denlillaapan 10 Jan

Not sure for other writers but for me its the combination of

lower barrier to entry (plenty of things I have in notes and that don't cut it for profesh articles are suitable for SN
No editors or production process, just me
and plenty of sats for the effort (hashtag assmilking)

40 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 10 Jan

plenty of things I have in notes and that don't cut it for profesh articles are suitable for SN

I was thinking about this, recently, because I found a little notebook from grad school that I jotted down half-baked research ideas in.

I'm going to start making some ~econ posts based on those, since they're interesting questions to me and I have not other outlet to explore them.

37 sats \ 0 replies \ @denlillaapan 10 Jan

Good good! Looking forward to them

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 10 Jan

If you "attract" them into stupid bets nobody will want to post anymore.

36 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby OP 10 Jan

This theory seems flawed. I see people who participate in the contests and pools we run posting on SN about other things all the time so it seems unlikely new users who stick around would just come to bet and if they do they do. People use platforms for what they like and want.

I respect your opinion that sports is a waste of time and betting is a waste of sats but people like it, so if it can help get more people into Bitcoin or on SN what is wrong with that? Should they be spending more time thinking about their freedom and the bitcoin circular economy sure but I believe in incremental progress rather than bashing people over the head until they comply or run away.

64 sats \ 3 replies \ @realBitcoinDog 10 Jan

The pitch I got from @grayruby was there are a lot of suckers on SN I could steal sats from in the ~Stacker_Sports pools, but sadly I have won in none. But I’ve done analysis to confirm that through zap engagement I still break even while having fun! 🌈 #802983

40 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 10 Jan

It sounds like you got got by a master businessman.

94 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby OP 10 Jan

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @realBitcoinDog 10 Jan

Yea dawg

36 sats \ 13 replies \ @grayruby OP 10 Jan

I only landed RBD. I believe he did the rest.

Only stray dogs follow me home, not intellectual types.

53 sats \ 12 replies \ @Undisciplined 10 Jan

It's pretty basic multi-level marketing. You get credit for your entire downline.

I thought you were a business guy.

70 sats \ 11 replies \ @realBitcoinDog 10 Jan

I’ll have you know I myself am a writer as well! I used to be most active in ~BooksAndArticles. Used to…

35 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby OP 10 Jan

I thought your dog wrote that book.

40 sats \ 0 replies \ @realBitcoinDog 10 Jan

She’s a good girl

40 sats \ 8 replies \ @Undisciplined 10 Jan

Ok, what do you think is the best case to make to other writers to get them to try out Stacker News?

What was your sales pitch to @denlillaapan?

34 sats \ 7 replies \ @realBitcoinDog 10 Jan

I told him he could get zapped for what he already does. He already contributes to Mises and AIER and Reason. He already tweets and Nostr notes. He already get a couple zaps on Nostr

But I said here he’d get zapped heavy and he seems to really like that.

I also told him that here he would get the highest compliment a writer could get. That not only would ppl repost or zap, but they might actually read what he wrote and give an interesting comment maybe

He’s posted before his skepticism of SN success once the rewards pool stops getting 100k sats of daily funding.

#829853

51 sats \ 6 replies \ @denlillaapan 10 Jan

The sats, perhaps, but maybe actually the "...people actually read" weighs heaviest

40 sats \ 5 replies \ @Undisciplined 10 Jan

"People actually read and interact" was my pitch to the folks at Minds, but I didn't get any takers. Some left for nostr, but none came here that I'm aware of.

I think some people like shouting into the void and don't want to hear the responses they might get.

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53 sats \ 2 replies \ @nym 10 Jan

I would love to listen to that. I'm not great at economics, so I always find you discussions about how to fund and support territories are conducted.

15 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby OP 10 Jan

You are welcome to not just listen but share ideas too.

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @nym 10 Jan

Thank you!

40 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryotosensei 11 Jan

Very decent of you not to see fellow territory founders as ‘competitors’ but instead, as comrades who can band together on the same journey.

In my country, it’s customary to pair a newbie with a senior, regardless of the venture we embark on. For instance, I am the buddy of a new teacher who just joined the school this year. When my fellow men left Singapore to work under the Japan Exchange Teaching program, they were paired with a buddy for about a month or so before the start of their life-changing adventure.

I have always felt the need for such a buddy program to exist on SN. I think attracting people isn’t that difficult - I have 49 referrals n I’m not even trying that hard - but getting newbies to stay is

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby OP 11 Jan

Your right. It isn’t that hard to get people to take a look at SN but to truly see the value proposition and stick around is another story.

I am not in competition with other territories. We are all rowing in the same direction to try to make SN the best it can be.

40 sats \ 0 replies \ @Public_N_M_E 10 Jan

Someone (I don't remember who) in the early days said to me "build it and they will come" and consistency has been key. I've not built the pyramids of gyza but we got something going on for sure.

What i did want want to ask fellow founders is how do you solve a problem like ~~maria~~ bots?

40 sats \ 1 reply \ @Cje95 10 Jan

I like really all of these ideas! It would be really interesting to hear from Territory founders/owners and see why the started the Territory if and what their connection to the space is.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby OP 10 Jan

That's a great idea for a post series. Territory Stories.

I started posting about sports long before territories because a) it was something I was interested in and no one else was doing it b) I thought it would be fun to give away sats for NFL pick 'ems c) I couldn't really contribute in technical discussions which were a big part of SN when I first joined. It has changed a lot.

40 sats \ 0 replies \ @realBitcoinDog 10 Jan

I love talking about Stacker News almost as much as talking about myself. Lets do it!

40 sats \ 1 reply \ @NovaRift 10 Jan

15 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby OP 10 Jan

The inmates are running the asylum!!!

40 sats \ 2 replies \ @Jon_Hodl 10 Jan

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @Design_r 10 Jan

+1. Let's do some PR!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby OP 10 Jan

Let's do it!