3543 sats \ 21 comments \ @ek 17 Apr meta

A Case for More Events on SN

(I felt like writing about something today so I picked writing about how to grow SN)

I think we need events that are smaller than MSM but more frequent for growth.

I don't think rewards are a good way to make SN attractive for people. Money is a pretty boring incentive. It can be a strong incentive that gets stronger the more money you put on the table, but it's still boring.¹

So I don't think our marketing should focus on rewards. It should focus on "money as a tool on SN" instead of "SN as a tool to make money". I have to admit that I don't know how that would look like yet but I'll think about it more.

I also think the biggest impact of rewards is farther down in the funnel of making new signups contribute consistently good content. I think our "most valued stackers" contribute as much as they do less because they can make good money but more because they believe in SN and the impact the "SN model" can have on online communities in the long run. They seem to redistribute the rewards they receive inside SN; acting as their own little reward pools. So they see their rewards as part of a closed system they want to push forward.

This includes to some degree the vision of territories. Reward pools might just be the basic layer to make online communities work by combating spam (since that's where fees go) and incentivizing good content (next to zaps) at the same time (where "good" is determined by consensus and a web of trust); enabling territories with more complex but effective models for better online communities.

A fun analogy might be to see rewards like division in math since rewards are used to distribute sats: they divide good content from bad content.

However, the impact of math on our world didn't come from throwing more division or any other basic operator at stuff. It came from better mental models how to apply these operators. Matrix multiplication being the basis of computer graphics is the first example that comes to my mind. At its core, matrix multiplication is nothing more than adding and multiplying numbers but the "numbers layout" (matrix) and rules that we apply have these emergent properties.²

To be fair, describing our rewards as "simple division" is not fair since the web of trust is already using more complicated mental models (which includes matrix multiplication) but the point is that maybe we can build more on top of that instead of doing more of the same thing. So the question might be: What other experiments can we run with a pool of money and a web of trust? Instead of rewards, SN becomes cheaper to use? Instead of redistributing sats from stackers to stackers, redistribute sats from stackers to territories, founders, ...?

So much about rewards. Now to events and fun:

Meme Monday, Fun Fact Friday and the cowboy hats are fun. Only the first two use money via bounties, the latter one does not but was still a great success in making SN feel special I would say. Meme Monday and Fun Fact Friday are competitions like MSM but on a much smaller scale so it doesn't impact the overall experience of SN as much. It's very easy for stackers to ignore them if they want. One can also opt-out of the "cowboy hat game" in their settings.

So I think a great way for growth is to combine the fun of the cowboy hats with events that have only short durations. If they are shorter / less frequent, we can make them impact the overall SN experience more while they are running.

Examples:

anon day
r/place
everything costs 10x and/or you can only zap multiples of 10x
...

(maybe weekends are the ideal length, so 2-3 days)

With frequents events, we have consistent fresh content with which we can market SN outside SN and by not making them too long or too big, they don't impact the experience on SN too much. It's easy to opt-out by not showing up for a few days or not participating. Stackers are still mostly in control how they want to interact with SN.

The idea is that new people show up for or prior to the events but stay because the idea behind SN intrigues them.

I just listened to this (title might be awkward, I clicked because of the topic, thumbnail and JP and not because I want a raise lol) and JP mentioned there that "sometimes, people don't want a raise, they want opportunities and advancements and the only way they can conceptualize that is more money" (00:43-01:06). I think that's related to what people want from online communities. Not money but freedom, opportunities, innovation. What's missing from Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok is not bitcoin, it's a way to level the playing field and shift power back to users and decentralized money might just happen to be the solution. ↩
Like pretty much anything in math boils down to? Even multiplication boils down to adding numbers. ↩

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116 sats \ 0 replies \ @Design_r 17 Apr freebie

These are all good ideas. But I think they work because organized by @sn team? not sure...

I've been running events since the beginning of the territory inception and had not got many interactions or feedback, maybe because there's not many designers around?!

So, I'm trying different ones:

The ODCs: a series of Open Design Challenges (not competition) open forever, so anyone can submit at any time. I send one out every week on Mondays with no rewards, hoping that the SN community itself will zap the most valuables based on the provided value of the participants.
The FUCs: on the same principle, still being an open challenge but run on a daily basis. Specific to designing Ui elements, kind of small exercise to keep creative muscles fit :)
The JABBBs: run as weekly bounty every Wednesday, I tried with this to embrace a broader audience, opening it to memes (not just comic). It's a way to make use of the HereComesBitcoin stickers

I also recently dropped the daily/weekly conversations posts as never got many responses either. I'd be interested to receive feedback, maybe there's something I could improve and engage with more stackers?

98 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury 17 Apr

In real life, a lot of things like this work because the sociality of it matters -- having some standing in the community is worth something. Winning the Easter egg hunt in your small town feels good not because you love Easter eggs so much, but because you are a notable person in a group of people. You're embedded, and given that embedding, different structures and interactions can exert influence.

The implication of this (I think) is that as territories start to mean something beyond this territory is about topic X there will be leverage and impetus to play around with some of these ideas. Another implication is that, until these social forces emerge, money is what you've got to work with.

Of course, the two relate forcefully to each other. That's the magic of btc and SN.

721 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby 17 Apr

The role of money on SN is incredibly fascinating. Are people trying to make money here? Is money a spam prevention tool? Is it a way to do content moderation?

I see money as a way to clarify incentives on SN.

paying to post means you having an incentive to put some thought into your post.
paying to upvote (zaps) means you can incentivize the kind of content you enjoy on SN.
SN rewards (paid out to zappers of good content) creates an incentive for users to act as moderators.

It's a very valuable observation that money on SN is a tool. But I think that the headline "it's like hacker news but we pay you" should not be disregarded.

SN originally caught my attention because who doesn't like the idea of earning a few sats for posting online.

But it is true that earning sats isn't going to keep people here and posting killer content. Hence, events and things.

I'm personally curious to see more bounties on SN. The bounty feature is pretty awesome and bounties always seem to get a lot of interaction.

50 sats \ 2 replies \ @cryotosensei 17 Apr

Excellent thoughts.

I organised two bounties before. My first bounty lasted a week, which got draggy because interest died off after the first day or so. I was employing my fiat mining mindset - but SN moves so much faster n more nimble than real life. The second bounty lasted for 48 hours - just right.

I think events are good as a whole but if we look at Fun Fact Friday, we can conclude that the zaps it generates for the various editions this year are less than the zaps for last year. I’m quite surprised to see how the participation hasn’t kept pace with the zapping. I think more so than events, we need to look at emotional resonance - making newbies feel seen n acknowledged so that they feel like they are coming to post in their home.

Is it too far fetched to pair one newbie with a seasoned Stacker for let’s say a month so that the latter serves as a buddy for the former? We can make it mandatory for the top 20 Stackers who win April’s MSM do this as a form of community service. Just throwing a wild idea here haha

49 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek OP 17 Apr freebie

but SN moves so much faster n more nimble than real life. The second bounty lasted for 48 hours - just right.

Yeah, the half-life of the average post on SN is pretty short since they compete with every other post for the global front page. They survive longer on the front page of their territory but the amount of eye balls is lower there.

I think events are good as a whole but if we look at Fun Fact Friday, we can conclude that the zaps it generates for the various editions this year are less than the zaps for last year

Maybe these weekly events got boring over time and they only attract newer stackers 🤔

Is it too far fetched to pair one newbie with a seasoned Stacker for let’s say a month so that the latter serves as a buddy for the former?

What would being a buddy mean? Compared to the buddies we find by hanging out in the @saloon?

88 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei 17 Apr

Happy to share how we engineer social interactions in Singapore.

For example, when a new staff member joins our school, he will be assigned with a buddy officially. This buddy’s job is to assimilate the newbie into life in the school. There are specific duties to be carried out by the buddy:

https://m.stacker.news/27038

(Newbies are paired with mentors too, but this is outside the scope of this discussion.)

Another similar example would be Singaporeans going over to Japan under the Japan Exchange Teaching program. In the month before they depart for their new life, they usually get assigned to a buddy whose job is to ease their anxiety about venturing into the unknown.

We find people to talk to in the Saloon organically. My idea of buddy is appointing someone specifically who will have a newbie’s back for the first month or so.

It is a typical Singaporean way of solving problems hahaha ☝️

42 sats \ 2 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 17 Apr

I like the anon day. SN could promote some kind of gambling game, like a lottery.

32 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek OP 17 Apr

SN could promote some kind of gambling game, like a lottery.

not sure how many would like that if the money comes from the fees lol

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 17 Apr

I wasn't thinking about prizes from rewards, but rather about the stackers paying a registration fee.

25 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 17 Apr

I like your suggestions. Weekends are probably a great choice, since my impression is that they seem to be a bit quieter around here. That might be changing already, though. I'm trying top post contests and writing contests with my territories, but maybe it's time I start getting a little more creative.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 17 Apr

Need events that entice new users.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @TNStacker 17 Apr

Good food for thought. The Territories can be our lab.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Cje95 17 Apr

I think it’s safe to say the AMA with CJ Wilson yesterday was a huge hit! Granted a lot of us had baseball questions for him but the engagement was fantastic for the whole time!

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @StillStackinAfterAllTheseYears 17 Apr

I'm not an event fan (or perhaps more specifically, not an MSM fan, especially Endless MSM), but I also don't think of the three things you cite (Meme Monday, Fun Fact Friday and the cowboy hats) as events so much as just regular parts of SN (in much the same way that the Weekend Book Recommendations post is, or the daily Music Salon or the Stacker Saloon). Yes, there's sats at stake for the first two, but for the most part, it's something specifically there are a form of entertainment (at least to me), and helps build the culture of the place.

That said, one-day events have the advantage of being short enough to avoid without completely dropping out of SN, so they don't bother me, per se, even if I (or a large number of folks) might not find them interesting or entertaining.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 17 Apr

IMO, the MSM is a a great tool as well. In addition to it, we can also implement a few others, there's no harm in it.

Events are cool and if they can just be good enough for newbies, or say if they are exclusively for newbies.

21 sats \ 3 replies \ @DarthCoin 17 Apr freebie

MSM MUST STOP !

I don't think our marketing should focus on rewards. It should focus on "money as a tool on SN" instead of "SN as a tool to make money".

100% agree. sats must be more like a "punishment" on SN not an incentive. Bitcoin adoption will not happen using SN. I saw many stackers here that don't even use a proper LN wallet, nor onchain. They don't even know why they are here...

Be aware, all those events with rewards can be played very easily.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Design_r 17 Apr

I agree, firstly it does not provide the incentives to provide quality content, just contents... and look's like the cowboys have more chances to be there! All on hide-mode... so it look's the main aim is to collect sats. Nothing else.

The second point is the reward distribution. How's that the #1 get 1/3 of the pool? and the last 1/1000? I think, if MSM continues, reward could be distributed a bit more equally.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 17 Apr

Hiding mode is another bullshit that I do not like it and is counter-productive. I was forced to go in hiding mode even that I do not like it. If they want to play dirty, I will play dirty too.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @Design_r 17 Apr

It has been a dirty game since v1. Daily rewards were working much better

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Hamstr 30 Apr

Can you explain the cowboy hat portion? once I got my hat because I wasn't consecutive and the other because I ran out of supplies, so I starved?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @IamSINGLE 17 Apr

Yes, we need events, many more events. We can even declare SN an events platform. What do you say?

A Case for More Events on SN

Footnotes