Distributed namespaced discussions

[jb55]

We can create non-moderated twitter/reddit-style communities like so:

Basic ingredients

• NIP22 Comments for threads.
• Simple immutable, non-addressable note anchor with name, description and banner. note id is the community id. We can also anchor on hashtags or namespaces for more generic communities (usenet, etc)
• Relationship statuses for community membership
• optional addressable event for updating description/banner. alternative: relay based banners and description for the same community?

Properties

• can only post in one community at a time.
• separate follow list for communities you’ve joined (- Implement relationship statuses #627 ideally)
• communities have a name, banner, and description and can only be created once (name is immutable, non addressable). communities therefore have a specific sha2 ID which is the unchanging identifier for the community.
• non-addressable sha2 id over d-tag name anchor, otherwise it's not clear which "bitcoin" community you are referring to.
• size of community is counted by number of people who have that community id on their community follow list.
• community posts have a distinct design (shows the community name on top like in X)
• community can have addressable data associated with it via the creator or frost creators (sidebar info like on reddit)
• Since threads could be quite large, we should use NIP-22 Comments, this would allow us to pull large root threads first (if building a reddit-style design)
• outbox: community author can create a preferred relay list for the community, or it can be more amorphous and exist everywhere
• cross sections of the community can be moderated if viewed from the perspective of moderated relays that host content from that community¹
• the community name changing would be confusing, immutable is good for the community creation anchor.
• Description could be overridden with the addressable metadata event, but name can’t change
• there could be forked or hidden parts of the community on unofficial relays. these are just different views of the community associated with the sha2 id of the community.
• they have much better network effects as well and can exist for long periods of time as they can exist on any or all relays
• community members can publish relay lists and they can fight over which views of the network are the "official" ones, effectively forking the community without needing to change the root identifier

Then basically the largest community for a given name would be the defacto “reddit community” for that identifier

Questions

From nostr

d-tag

Q: il_lost_@getalby.com: if the name is the d-tag is immutable...
A: jb55@jb55.com: i wanted it to have a persistent sha2 id though, otherwise it's not clear which "bitcoin" community you are referring to

what, where and how

Q: nackoo2000@nostrplebs.com: Sorry but I am not a dev and I need simple language from the POV of the users. What is a community in NOSTR? Where do you create it? And if I got it right if the community is putting content that does not want any moderation this spec will allow it to be uncensorable even by relays. Do I get it?
A: jb55@jb55.com: There is no singular definition of a community on nostr. I am proposing one of many alternatives.in this model noone can stop you from posting to a community. the community would exist as notes spread across different relays. there could be a canonical relay list associated with the community, but there could be forked or hidden parts of the community on unofficial relays. these are just different views of the community associated with the sha2 id of the community.

simplicity

Q: elsat@lncal.com: how do you assess complexity vs NIP-29 and its' various implementations?
A: jb55@jb55.com: this serves a different purpose than closed relay communities. they are meant to be large and open, like twitter/reddit-style communities. they have much better network effects as well and can exist for long periods of time as they can exist on any or all relays. community members can publish relay lists and they can fight over which views of the network are the "official" ones, effectively forking the community without needing to change the root identifier

generic/hashtag communities

Q: vitorpamplona.com: Isn't that a NIP-22 with I tags on hashtags? If there is no moderation, I don't think there is a need for picture and about me blurbs as they would just try to drive the conversation to one direction or another. With the hashtag, all the meaning must be extracted by the thing that cannot change: the hashtag name. Everything else is fluid. And it doesn't make sense to remove the fluidness without moderation to enforce a certain view.
A: jb55.com: could definitely do it this way, but loses the charm of a reddit/twitter community with banner and sidebar. This could be a feature of the spec, generic or hashtag communities. It's compatible because I'm using nip22

Footnotes

1. https://damus.io/note155nue07jrwqqd8pll0jllm00kyffrsppke5l3jrz72mdt2ua776q69gxwq ↩

[linear]

DECK-563 Simple, open, non-moderated communities

[jb55]

cc @Semisol, I think you were suggesting something like this a long time ago as an alternative to relay communities.

[alltheseas]

@jb55 how do you assess complexity vs NIP-29 and its' various implementations?

[jb55]

@alltheseas answered in OP

[NielLiesmons]

I see enough common ground with Communi-keys and so far can see it as a loosely moderated version of that.

Having a key pair as the community ID + anchoring it somehow to a fixed "topic" is something i'll happily #interop with.

[vitorpamplona]

I think this is just NIP-22 threads on hashtag Is with kind 10015 (NIP-51) to define which hashtags the person is following.

[jb55]

I think this is just NIP-22 threads on hashtag Is with kind 10015 (NIP-51) to define which hashtags the person is following.

Added my reply to the Q/A on this

[vitorpamplona]

Relays could add more info into hashtags based on what they are trying to curate for.

So, if I follow #soccer in my town's relay, it is about the local club. If I follow #soceer from a FIFA's relay, it's about worldcup.

It's kinda what we already have today.

[staab]

This is basically the same as t, NIP 29 unmanaged groups (but without all the other NIP 29 cruft confusing the issue), and reminds me a lot of NIP 28, which got spammed to death. I think the magic in any of these cases is going to be in the relay selection and web-of-trust moderation. This is also similar to how coracle implemented NIP 72 (ignoring moderation events). I don't know if introducing another method for doing this is going to solve anything, the difficulty really seems to be in making groups either relativistic enough to be build on wot (t works for this, but no one really uses it this way), or in making relay selection unambiguous (this is where I think NIP 29's NIP 51 group membership lists have an edge; they include the relay url for the group id).

[jb55]

There's another variation of this if we take inspiration from usenet:

sci.physics
sci.physics.quantum
sci.math

then you could break down communities heirarchically

tags for posting in sci.physics.quantum would be:

[sci, sci.physics, sci.physics.quantum]

so you could narrow down into niche areas if needed. no community ids in the case, just nip-22 with I tags

[jb55]

It's kinda what we already have today.

nip22 is kinda important for large reddit-style communities. Is there an implementation of communities as nip22 on something ?

[vitorpamplona]

We have nip-22 on geohashes. But I think I borked the UI (I wouldn't blame NIP-22)... no one is really using it.

The main question is what do you do when sci.physics.quantum gets taken over by the quantum healing folks who love to steal scientific nomenclature to build their scams?

Can we have two sci.physics.quantum communities that are opposing to one another in separate relays? Are users going to get confused?