What do you know about zaprank? \ stacker news ~meta

2026 sats \ 30 comments \ @cryotosensei 30 Mar meta

I was today years old when @davidw enlightened me that if I hover my cursor over the total number of sats gained for my post on my laptop, I would be able to find out the number of Stackers who zapped me for it.

As Phoebe Buffay from F.R.I.E.N.D.S would exclaim, “This is brand new information!”

I almost exclusively use SN on my mobile; perhaps that’s why I never thought about such things.

Anyway, I know how the zaprank is derived is clouded in a lot of mystique. We Stackers don’t know the algorithm. Though @ek once said that 10 Stackers zapping you 100 sats each will give your post a higher zaprank than one stacker zapping you a thousand sats.

Armed with this information, I checked out the total number of people who zapped me for my top 3 posts ever. It turned out that the average number was about 30.

I don’t regret the way I posted and commented during Million Sats Madness. But if I were to be strategic about this in the future, I would ask myself one simple question, “Would 30 people like this post enough to zap it?” I think it would inform my writing considerably.

I’m not a techie person, so I guess I would write on parenting topics haha.

Anyway let me lead the way in crowdsourcing the hive mind and demystifying the zaprank. What do you know about it?

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51 sats \ 3 replies \ @BitcoinIsTheFuture 30 Mar

Don’t overthink it! Sometimes just enjoy the platform for what it is. A place to share and gain knowledge. When you do that we all win!

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 30 Mar

That's the right attitude to have. Exactly how rewards are earned, how zaprank is done, and how trust is earned will all likely change over time as the developers learn from their experiments and as the preferences of the user base change.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 30 Mar

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BitcoinIsTheFuture 30 Mar

Yes oh master of truth!

70 sats \ 1 reply \ @davidw 30 Mar

I like where you’re going with this, but I wouldn’t want anyone to self-censor themselves because of this info. This was your moment of enlightenment… #485859.

For me, i’d suggest not to overthink # of stackers zapping too much. Generally if you’re cheerful on the site and delving deeper into topics and moving conversations forward, people will notice. It need not be 30+ stackers.

Those constructive conversations are much more important to me than just pleasing the masses. I do personally try to put more thought into posts. Most of my posts these days are 4+ hours of work. Many 24+ hours. And I only comment these days on items that really grab my attention or to which I can offer a perspective. Not because of what stackers want. That will only ever lead to burnout / dissatisfaction. Doesn’t ever prevent me from writing a quick post to ask a question or to share an important link I discovered. Just now I may share more context when doing so, to be more considerate to the stacker readers.

So essentially, that stat only matters to me on posts, not so much comments. I do wish it were more visible as a non-hover stat, but the fact it’s there is awesome in itself. It can certainly help us offer-up better value & improve as writers.

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 30 Mar

Those constructive conversations are much more important to me than just pleasing the masses.

This is key point! We are here to clear-up things, educate noobs, debating urgent matters (not shitcoineries) and learn more from each others.

The sats, yes are an incentive to be more active, but should not be the main goal.

70 sats \ 2 replies \ @WeAreAllSatoshi 30 Mar

I just want to note that the algorithm is in open source code and freely available on GitHub

20 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 30 Mar

Not many will understand or know how to read it.

30 sats \ 0 replies \ @WeAreAllSatoshi 30 Mar

Definitely! I just wanted to point out that it’s not a secret.

70 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 30 Mar

Zaprank is a combination of the amount you were zapped, the number of people who zapped you, and what their trust score is.

The amount you were zapped enters into the calculation non-linearly, which is why it's better to have a bunch of smaller zaps than one big one.

The trust score is based on whether or not you tend to zap "good posts". Whether something is considered a "good post" has to do with whether high trust stackers zapped it.

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 30 Mar

Also an important aspect: try to keep a balance. Balance of things in life is like Ying and Yang. Balance into The Force is very important.

131 sats \ 0 replies \ @TheBTCManual 30 Mar

I'm sure Zaprank would need to add a new more conditions to try and avoid spoofing it, like if its individual account zap weighting is high, you could bot farm 1 zap users and have 100 zaps to boost your ranks.

If its based on engagemetn for example, you get the whole FB/Twitter incentive to outrage bait and turn discussions into screaming matches to get reach

I wonder if things like cowboy hat, hat streak, comment totals, and other factors are added to your reputation, and the weighing of each, I guess knowing the secret sauce would defeat the purpose and it can quickly get complicated to maintain.

Just look at Google search, they're constantly refactoring weightings as spammers find ways to jump up the index

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 30 Mar

You're absolutely right. We shouldn't take the number of sats as a measuring device for a writer's success on SN. But we should desire that a post or a comment must be zapped by more stackers. It doesn't matter how much they zap, but how many people do zapping.

20 sats \ 6 replies \ @DarthCoin 30 Mar

Using SN on mobile is lame and you miss a lot of "goodies". Mobile should be used exclusively for answering mom/wife calls and pay with LN wallets. Nothing else.

70 sats \ 4 replies \ @Public_N_M_E 30 Mar

Can't agree with you fully there Darth. Although like you highlighted I do miss some goodies, I am able to respond to my "customers" which is kinda what users inside my territory are. They get almost instant responses from me because I can get to it from my pocket whilst at work (I don't really do a desk job). So in that respect, I'd say mobile allows me to connect and respond quicker to the users in my territory, which has shown to bear fruit, if people are engaging, you have to catch them whilst they're engaged and keep them that way. If you get to it several hours later, sadly you've probably missed the enthusiasm they had at the time. In this regard mobile has been invaluable, but I do prefer to use desktop when I can.

41 sats \ 3 replies \ @DarthCoin 30 Mar

If you get to it several hours later, sadly you've probably missed the enthusiasm they had at the time

100%

69 sats \ 2 replies \ @Public_N_M_E 30 Mar

In a "business" driven by engagement it is imperative that I foster a good customer service relationship and capitalise on the enthusiasm my customers show. Doing that has been really rewarding as I'm seeing return customers coming back daily. The territory is a long way off being self sufficient, but it's these little things that will eventually turn into large strides.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryotosensei OP 31 Mar

I admire your passion n perseverance for it!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Public_N_M_E 31 Mar

I just hope I can continue to provide that service and not get priced out of it :/ we shall see I guess.

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 30 Mar

Really? So what exclusive benefits do laptop users derive out of SN?

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 30 Mar

One thing we don't want SN to become is a big engagement farming game.

SN is such a great experience because for the most part everyone writes about what they like, are interested in and want to write about without caring much about the numbers it will do. Sure we all hope our posts will get read and zapped and comments but I don't think many are solely doing it for that.

As SN grows, changes, tests new ideas and welcomes the next generation of stacker that is a standard we need to aim to keep.

59 sats \ 1 reply \ @StillStackinAfterAllTheseYears 30 Mar

This post was where I learned about the hovering trick. And I'm almost exclusively on desktop; just had never held my mouse over the sats total.

Not sure this would change my behavior. I still tend to operate from the "this is something I want to say" or "this is a cool link I want to share" mentality, and if two people like it, that still feels like it was worthwhile. But I do like data, so knowing that two (or twenty, or whatever) people liked something is still interesting.

42 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 31 Mar

I’m with you. I love data even if it doesn’t really cause me to change my behaviour haha

49 sats \ 2 replies \ @Cje95 30 Mar

Never knew this! Thanks for spreading the news!

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryotosensei OP 31 Mar

Glad to see that you are doing well. Do you have 6 referrals already? Haha

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Cje95 31 Mar

Yeah but I’ve only gotten 6 sats from it 😂

49 sats \ 1 reply \ @DesertDave 30 Mar

I don't know any of it works. I have just noticed, the more effort I put into a post, the better it does. Perfect. I just look to enjoy the experience and not get to caught up in the outcomes. That will make me crazy.