Using hashtag feeds or any other kind of "global" feed without specifying decently restricted or curated relays explicitly is the worst idea in the world and everybody should have known this.

Replies (25)

You can follow npubs in shitty relays, that is no problem at all. That is the feature actually. You'll connect to the shitty relays and only fetch the posts from that specific person and no one else.
Just kidding, we can also have apps that automatically grab relays from friend recommendations or even recommendations by the app maintainers if nothing else is available, then use these for the user without them even knowing, and if they seem to like it keep using, but if they seem to dislike switch to other ones, all very automated and invisible and assuming the user has the intelligence of a worm, like the UX experts say we should do. We can also do something in between, with suggestions that the user has to accept manually, or just making it easy for the user to, for example, click on a relay URL in a note from someone else and have the option to browse that relay and add it to a sidebar or topbar where they can go back there, then eventually add that relay to their own curated relay sets and recommend it to others, stuff like that. I don't have all the answer, as you may have noticed.
> automatically grab relays from friend recommendations or even recommendations by the app maintainers if nothing else is available This sounds like a undocumented best practice that is different than outbox. Should we document this?
I guess I've only been here a week or so, but what exactly is the alternative to "hashtag feeds"? My options to pull content seem to be (a) a feed of hashtags and/or follows, (b) the Global firehouse, or... What exactly? Is the expected behavior here that users are also supposed to carefully cultivate relays? Because then how is this different from a Federated model?
Good UX respects the user's time. It has nothing to do with intelligence. Not everyone lives for the technical aspects of Nostr. A surgeon, for example, may just want to hop on and provide value relevant to his expertise without spending hours figuring out how all this shit works.
Nostr is not for surgeons, it's for enthusiasts (currently). Good UX has to give enthusiasts room to play and discover new tricks. Then these tricks can be made into shortcuts for the surgeons.
I think that both should exist (the beauty of client choice). Obviously it takes time to develop good UX. My point was more against the idea that good UX is for dumb people, which seemed to be implied with the worm comment (unless I misunderstood). I don't think the Nostr enthusiasts should ever be ran off. I just think both types are important for the growth and health of Nostr over time. And in fairness, a lot of the enthusiasts are already selling it to the non-enthusiasts as if it is for them right now. And they often come here and leave. But that's a different topic no one can control.
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