We've had an impressive influx of new Stackers. Some have asked about various norms that have been established on SN. The one I want to talk about here is default zapping.
Many of you know that I'm somewhat obsessed with zapping habits and how we value our zaps (#287074, #523858, #473181, and #221151). This is the magic that makes Stacker News work so well, after all.
Why Zap?
Bitcoin is scarce and hodl'ing is deeply ingrained in us. I can read all of the content on Stacker News without zapping a single sat. Why should I buy the cow, when the milk is free?
- Maybe you're the rare person who really engages in V4V, even when you don't have to. That's great, but we can see from nostr that you're the exception.
- The SN rewards system will pay you back for zapping good content and it does so nonlinearly. Ranking higher in zapping can pay for itself, so you don't want to be shooting yourself in the foot by zapping less than everyone else out of ignorance.
Common Zaps
This is where knowing what other people are doing comes in handy.
- Generally, people zap a comment between 10 and 100 sats. 21 is a very common choice for symbolic reasons.
- Many people zap posts more, which I think is reasonable since posts generally take more creativity and cost the poster more than a comment does. Normal post zaps range up to 1000 sats.
So, if you're trying to think through what reasonable amounts are for yourself, think tens of sats for comments and hundreds for posts. However, there's tons of room for discretion in there.
My Numbers
One of the neat SN features is that the custom zap options store several of your recent values.
I set my default to 21, which lets me double tap to get 42. Then I have 69, 115, and 420 saved as custom zaps. Having numbers with symbolic meaning is just a bit of extra fun.
Generally, comments get one of the following from me
- 21 (special btc number)
- 42 (the answer to life, the universe, and everything)
- 69 (nice)
while posts get
- 115 (remember, remember)
- 420 (hehe)
- 1000 (1 kilosat)
Hopefully, it helps someone seeing this laid out.
As always, I'm curious to hear how you all think about this stuff. It's an ever moving target.
Nice try, fed.