Some Thoughts on My Failed SN Recruitment Effort \ stacker news ~meta

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Some Thoughts on My Failed SN Recruitment Effort

2781 sats \ 68 comments \ @Undisciplined 20 Jun meta

I recently attempted to lure people to Stacker News from Minds. My recruitment post was seen over 6k times and received 34 upvotes, over the past 25 days. Over that time period, I generated two Stacker News referrals, which may not have even come from Minds.

Why Minds?

I primarily used Minds, before finding Stacker News. It was created as a free speech alternative to Big Tech platforms. It also has a rewards system that is not entirely dissimilar to Stacker News'.

The aspiration of Minds, according to its founder, is to foster open discussions while rewarding creators.

Many people on Minds are staunch advocates of advancing human freedom and they've already demonstrated a willingness to look for the best platform for doing so.

In many ways, they seemed like an ideal audience to appeal to. Everything Minds is trying to do, works better here. The conversations are deeper and more varied. The earnings are astonishingly greater. It's pretty normal to not get a single comment or upvote on a Minds post and my total earnings were only about $10.

Why did it fail?

I was not expecting much from this experiment. I had accumulated a bunch of Minds tokens during my time there and this seemed like the best way to utilize them. Even with low expectations, I was a little surprised at just how paltry the interest was.

There were two clear reasons for the lack of converts, one was made explicitly, while I inferred the other:

People were put off by the bitcoin-centrism of Stacker News. It didn't matter to them that you can have better conversations about everything else on SN than on Minds, or that Bitcoin is a more functional analogue of the Minds tokens they're using, they didn't want to be around so many bitcoiners.
People like cheap talk. Why did my post about SN get dozens of upvotes (that's a ton for Minds), but very few comments or referrals? Well, it doesn't cost anything to click the thumbs up button, whereas taking the time to actually check out Stacker News or leave a comment takes time they don't want to invest.

Concluding Thoughts

"We're still early" is a common refrain, but this drove it home in a different way. What should have been a very receptive audience, had no interest in a site that is superior in every significant way to the one they're using, largely because it's related to bitcoin. These are predominantly anti-establishment folks who talk about the need for parallel institutions. Even amongst that group, bitcoin isn't just not of interest, it's to be avoided.

One of my concerns about Stacker News has been that it will turn into just another toxic internet partisan circle jerk as it grows. This recruitment experiment alleviated that concern, because we're nowhere near drawing in that audience.

I'm also left at a loss for understanding where the next stage of healthy SN growth will come from.

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230 sats \ 3 replies \ @softglitter2d 20 Jun

One of my concerns about Stacker News has been that it will turn into just another toxic internet partisan circle jerk as it grows

I consider myself not be early here but when I first heard about SN, I started to share my enthusiam for these kind of places where people can publish content and most important, you pay the party.

I'm truly happy for this and the first responses from my inner circles when I showed them this beautiful place was: "well, you're in a eco chamber where maxis will tell you what you want to hear, no other projects" and got me thinking.

Is SN an eco chamber and we're just...maxis trying to make something?

And started to check other forum alternatives about it. The main difference between them and us is simple: To insert an answer, you must pay. To insert a post, you must pay. To insert a poll, you must pay.

People who aren't willing to pay for their speech, isn't worth to read. And I don't mean you'll be censored if you don't pay, it's the other way around. Our literature system is totally broken. Writers can't live for their words anymore because internet made everything cheap, which is a good thing but publishers, media and other people in general started to earn through ads, hidden ads, researchs made by [insert your company] and I can still going on and on.

Mostly, writing doesn't have a reason to be because write is free but if we're going to be precise, writing is sponsored by other people who take good care about what you publish in order to no bother the establishment. Writing stopped to be revolutionary, artificial intelligence promotes non-critical thinking because people just don't want to think anymore; what is supposed to be a tool to help you debug faster your code, is now the main assistant of most people, including thinking and being rational.

That's why Stacker is becoming slowly but in a certain way the favorite place to be, user not only earn something but also have quality, good and certain answers. So, to the question: why people don't see what we see here? Aren't we listening other projects? Maybe is because here, we prefer long time preference post and long time preference answers, we avoid casinos, memes and x125 leverage as a way of life¹. You could but, would you pay for it? Would it be that interesting? That's the point.

I know libertarians claiming that bitcoin is not revolutionary² but as many things, it'll take time. And by the way, we're not toxic. We can be assholes and bit rudes, toxic never. Keep you work sir, sooner or later, they realize that we already won.

My two cents.

I'm 100% sure there are these kind of users here. I celebrate them. But they know for sure, here your cheap speech doesn't have nothing. ↩
Im'm still saying that libertarians that doesn't own sats, are not libertarians at all. My view,. ↩

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @IamSINGLE 20 Jun

I know libertarians claiming that bitcoin is not revolutionary but as many things, it'll take time. And by the way, we're not toxic. We can be assholes and bit rudes, toxic never. Keep you work sir, sooner or later, they realize that we already won.

I want to add that we're not delusional as well. We know and understand the reality better than those who daydream.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @eduardopro 20 Jun

What your friends fail to see is that there are no other projects. Bitcoin is the only innovation in the space.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 20 Jun

I think people misunderstand what an echo chamber is. Just because we aren't divided into one of two tribes engaged in endless pointless bickering, doesn't make us an echo chamber.

There are people here with very different perspectives and experiences than I have. I learn from what they say, because they say it thoughtfully and I think most of us are trying to understand each other.

By contrast, an echo chamber is where everyone already thinks the same things about all of the topics that arise for "discussion".

199 sats \ 1 reply \ @nullcount 20 Jun

Even amongst that group, bitcoin isn't just not of interest, it's to be avoided.

Sounds like a BTC problem, not necessarily a SN problem.

I get where they are coming from...

There is a long list of people who are in prison because they used BTC "the wrong way". Does not sound like "freedom money" to me.

Many wallets have dust UTXOs that are effectively unspendable due to rising fees. Does not sound like a practical currency to me.

The largest miner has nearly 50% hashrate. Does not sound like trustless money to me if we're all trusting the miner not to reorg.

All the "scaling solutions" are just multisigs where you give up some/all custody to get faster and cheaper payments using some token (LN sats in a channel, or eCash) issued "on top" of BTC. Might as well use a shitcoin instead of deal with complicated tech and custody tradeoffs.

The loudest bitcoiners tend to be dogmatic and/or toxic people on the outside. Nobody wants to converse with (argue with) someone who won't ever change their mind or even recognize that there is a problem with the status quo.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 20 Jun

Yes.

My slight surprise was based on the generally positive attitudes that seem to exist towards bitcoin and other cryptos amongst Minds users. I don't see anyone there bringing up problems with it, but people do pay lip service to its potential. My guess would be that almost no one there is aware of more than the first point you raised.

As to toxicity, it's not like I don't see where you're coming from, but Minds is full of vastly more toxic people than Stacker News is. They just aren't toxic about bitcoin.

70 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryotosensei 20 Jun

Honestly, I first came here for the sats. The desire to learn n have good conversations came later when I felt embarrassed about the generosity of some Stackers (maybe you were one of them) towards me. I think these Minds users may just want a place to air their views, hopefully earn some quick crypto, and not have to engage with others. Because engagement requires thinking, and maybe some netizens aren’t looking for a place to think deeper and sharper.

I have been quite consistent in getting people from Publish0x, a site that pays writers ETH and OP on the OP chain. At least two active Stackers are my referrals from Publish0x. Darn proud of myself, okay. And yup I confess. I quite like ETH too. Haha.

Edited to add that I don’t think it was a failed experiment. Because you sowed the seeds. Who knows how long it would take some of them to germinate? Not many people are motivated to explore a whole new site based on a MINDS post. If you keep up your publicity efforts, maybe some of these people would be enticed to come to SN to look see look see (popular Singlish term) in due time.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 20 Jun

I think you're right. I think they're happy just posting their views out into the void and getting no response.

One reason I wanted to highlight the community elements of SN, is because that's who I wanted to attract. Sure, people like us (I was also sat hunting, at first) can come to see the value of this community.

The risk was that there are orders of magnitude more Minds users and a flood of them could irrevocably damage Stacker News, if the wrong ones were attracted.

69 sats \ 1 reply \ @SatsMate 21 Jun

I've been having a hard time recruiting for SN as well. I think the biggest issue is people want breadth and depth of topics. It is kind of the chicken and egg problem.

I will keep trying, because in the end - this is the future of Reddit or any other short/medium form content. Its an excellent community - with engaging posts.

What I don't get is why people distance themselves from bitcoin if it is free. I tried to sign up my coworker with a lightning wallet and give him 10K sats for free - and he said no. I can't believe it!

42 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 21 Jun

We'll get there eventually. That was quite generous of you.

I think our breadth is pretty good, but we don't have enough people to cover many things in depth, yet.

Still, a year ago almost none of these different territories existed. SN has changed pretty fast.

69 sats \ 1 reply \ @lightworks 20 Jun

Minds is where I could make enough to buy myself a cup of coffee doing & sharing exactly what I wanted myself, with no one else either interfering with the content or shitty taxes & regulations!

So I'll always be happy about that, and plan to check it out again later, I have an account with a history and followers. I do expect it to be a stale echo chamber at this point, but if/when we get the next part of the bull run that might change things...

Would be happy to try pulling people over here in collaboration with others, on platforms like Minds and Hive. I think its doable, but it will take a while, its probably about being very persistent but also non-toxic ;-)

I'm not implying you were that, of course, its just hard to disturb people when they're on their "home turf", even when its barren land...

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 20 Jun

You're right about the "home turf" dynamic. I certainly recall feeling that when I was a regular daily user.

I was hoping some of the relationships I had forged over there would be sufficient to get those users to check out SN. I was responsive to the comments on my post, but I haven't been persistent about hyping up Stacker News. I probably posted about it a few times when I first found it.

I do expect it to be a stale echo chamber at this point

Largely, yes

42 sats \ 2 replies \ @398ja 21 Jun

People like cheap talk.

I haven't used minds for quite some times, and was never very active there anyway... One of the things I believe sn does right is that it makes you pay for posting, this has a direct noticeable impact on the quality of the content.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined OP 21 Jun

It's such a great innovation. I tried to convince them to do something similar. I think Ottman saw my point, once, but they clearly never went that way.

If they charged 0.1 Minds tokens to post, the value of that shitcoin would skyrocket and the amount of spam would plummet. Those are probably the two biggest things people complain about there.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @398ja 21 Jun

Absolutely!

84 sats \ 3 replies \ @grayruby 20 Jun freebie

The "crypto" complex has done a wonderful job demonizing bitcoiners and bitcoin centric projects as "toxic". When they are usually just toxic for the "crypto" complex.

You could offer sats loaded invite links to anyone who genuinely want to try it out but that's about all you can do.

50 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 20 Jun

I considered offering sats, but that's not who I want to attract.

I was hoping to land a couple of the people who are frustrated with the low quality engagement on Minds and wanted an opportunity to actually talk to people.

42 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby 20 Jun

Everyone likes a little incentive. I don't think 1k sats is so much that they will take it and run. Besides even if they do they need to get a lightning wallet to cash out so that isn't a bad thing either.

51 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 20 Jun

That's a good point. I didn't think about the lightning wallet aspect.

If I had landed one good new stacker, I certainly would have considered it worth cost.

My big takeaway is that it's hard to identify potential stackers. As much as we love this environment, it's not for most people and that's probably a nice safeguard for the time being.

143 sats \ 2 replies \ @DarthCoin 20 Jun

People were put off by the bitcoin-centrism of Stacker News.

https://m.stacker.news/36177

105 sats \ 0 replies \ @zapsammy 20 Jun

i am exploring the idea of obsoleting the idea of money altogether. sats are the small pieces of the whole, that will be ultimately required to access the infinite knowledge of the collective consciousness.

once A.I. bots start spreading lies like wildfire, to the point where cardboard is marketed as food, it will be impossible to get real knowledge without spending sats, paid to a real trusted source.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @eduardopro 20 Jun

Exactly.

42 sats \ 2 replies \ @IamSINGLE 20 Jun

I can just say that it's better not to be discouraged by a single effort. I've never tried to lure people to anything through online methods till now, so can't suggest a lot. But, I can tell one thing that bringing quality is better than quantity.

13 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined OP 20 Jun

We have the same outlook. My pitch for Stacker News was focused on the depth and scope of discourse, because that's what I want to attract more of.

Had I focused on earning potential through gaming the rewards system, there might have been more takers, but it wouldn't be the kind of people I wanted to attract.

I didn't find it discouraging. At most I thought I might land 2 or 3 people. There were some interesting lessons in the experience, though, and I wanted to share them.

42 sats \ 0 replies \ @IamSINGLE 20 Jun freebie

Thanks for clarifying. I wanted to tell you that why roan in an unknown land when we have gold in our own courtyard. Try orange piling your every known person. (Not suggesting. I know you're a seasoned campaigner) I've started doing it here in India which I think is more hostile to Bitcoin. But I'll continue even if I get 0 results.

There are two challenges in front of me. 1 is language constrains and second people in my area knows nothing about Bitcoin. But I'll continue.

42 sats \ 1 reply \ @kilianbuhn 20 Jun

I think Stacker News could be a thing that people learn about first before being Bitcoiners. A way to orangepill. 🟠

Unfortunately this doesn't work. Every territory is just circlejerking about Bitcoin. I generally like that but there is no way I tell a movie enthusiast about ~movie territory first and they go there for the movies and stay for the Bitcoin afterwards. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Not gonna happen.

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 20 Jun

I had the same orangepill hope, but at least so far you seem to be right. There have been a couple of stackers who weren't that interested in bitcoin and engaged with us anyway.

Maybe someday.

42 sats \ 1 reply \ @BitcoinIsTheFuture 20 Jun

Yes we are still so early. Gold took thousands of years. In 15 years I’m impressed how far we have come.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 20 Jun

I didn't realize the extent to which they would find bitcoin off-putting. If someone just wanted to talk about sports or books or the news, we have all of that stuff, too.

There's something about bitcoin that disturbs people, in a way that internal tokens don't.

42 sats \ 1 reply \ @globalmerchant 20 Jun

It will come from word of mouth, some simple examples

I encouraged at the local Honolulu Bitcoin Dev group meeting.

I tell my non bitcoiner, non-tech customers, suppliers to post on the B2B territory as they are looking for ways to find new ways to accept payments other than fiat.

I use SN.

word of mouth is powerful.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 20 Jun

I agree.

I thought I might have identified a group that would have some people who were looking for something like SN. There were a bunch of people who I had established relationships with.

Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

42 sats \ 1 reply \ @siggy47 20 Jun

I used Minds a few years back. I liked the idea behind it and met some interesting people. I don't think I have logged in for a few years. Definitely not since I discovered SN. Bill Ottman is a smart guy, but he would definitely not back a bitcoin maxi ethos. Most of the accounts I ran into felt the same way. I think the token ran on eth, right?

54 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 20 Jun

The token runs on eth, but they were working on bitcoin payments and nostr integration. Ottman is a smart guy and he has a lot of innovative ideas.

I haven't been active there in over a year and it's possible many of the people who would have been interested in SN already left for nostr or went back to Twitter.

42 sats \ 3 replies \ @jbschirtzinger 20 Jun

I didn't have a lot of luck on recruiting payment via sats for print copies of my book (or ebooks), or for driving the writing of the next version(more of a donation in this case). Of course, I hate marketing, and I didn't really expect anyone to donate since everyone expects most things for free. The most response I got was posting up the chapters in books and articles.

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 20 Jun

That's interesting. Crowdfunding future work may be a harder sell because of people's fear of getting rugged. That's a payment model for authors that I've been interested in for a long time.

42 sats \ 1 reply \ @jbschirtzinger 20 Jun

Sure. I'm ten chapters into my non-funded rug pull, though. Sometimes you gotta take a chance if you want something different.

Edited to add: Also, paying for the actual former copy ensures you have something to show...

41 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 20 Jun

I hear you. It's similar to how much trouble I've had convincing stackers that they'll make more back in rewards if they'd increase their zapping. HODL'ing is too deeply ingrained for many to willingly part with their sats on the promise of getting more value back later.

Good luck!

42 sats \ 3 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 20 Jun

People were put off by the bitcoin-centrism of Stacker News.

I think that's no longer the case with the territories. It's almost certain that it's still the most populous territory, but the others have a good share.

32 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 20 Jun

These comments were from the past few weeks.

The few who bothered to check out SN, even with me explaining that there are lots of other topics, just didn't like how much bitcoin is discussed here.

52 sats \ 1 reply \ @0xbitcoiner 20 Jun

I can see that they have an aversion to Bitcoiners, but could it be fear? 🤠

26 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 20 Jun

It certainly could be. Fear is the mind-killer, after all.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @TNStacker 21 Jun

Shitcoiners are gonna shitcoin.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 21 Jun

The irony is that they're constantly complaining about their shitcoin losing value, while being scared to use SN because it runs on bitcoin.

37 sats \ 3 replies \ @zapsammy 20 Jun

what about posting the most interesting stacker.news discussions into the Minds? like the most zapped or hot discussion?

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @riberet19 20 Jun

It's a good idea, for example there is a Hacker.news bot that does the same on Stacker.news.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined OP 20 Jun

My sense is that people on Minds aren't looking to read anything. I don't think they click through to linked content.

It's mostly lazy scrolling where people are just deciding whether to upvote or not.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @zapsammy 20 Jun

yea, people do not want to read past one page. Lux does a good job at fitting the ideas on one page.

32 sats \ 4 replies \ @Coinsreporter 20 Jun

I would suggest you to crosspost more and put your refferal link under the post.

That's what has actually worked better for me.

11 sats \ 3 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 20 Jun

I used to crosspost, but I'm not really interested in Minds anymore. I don't see much value in that community.

32 sats \ 2 replies \ @Coinsreporter 20 Jun

Crosspost at some shitcoiners' addas. That way you can also help some people realise reality.

11 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined OP 20 Jun

I don't think it's worth the effort. Maybe someone else will have better luck than me.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 20 Jun

Yes. Maybe!!

21 sats \ 3 replies \ @southside263 20 Jun

I flip flop between mass adoption and focussing on the misfits that care today😆

bitcoin is only 15 years old and good things take time to adopt.

if you really care, contribute to SN, Nostr or whatever you care about the most💜

stay humble and zap sats. 🤙🏽

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 21 Jun

I was just looking for misfits somewhere else. I'm not interested in mass Stacker News adoption.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @southside263 21 Jun

sounded like hard nocoiner misfits lol

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 21 Jun

Good description

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @16d86e9daa 20 Jun

personally i believe that recruiters often evaluate candidates not only based on skills but also on cultural fit within the organisation. Rejection might mean that your professional style or personality didn't align with the company's values and work culture.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 21 Jun

I think you misunderstand. Minds is a social media site and I was trying to get the users there to give Stacker News a try. I had used Minds for a couple of years and had a decent following there.

21 sats \ 3 replies \ @riberet19 20 Jun

I think everything will continue as long as we just keep creating good quality content, SN keeps growing, at a higher or lower pace, but it keeps growing, and surely the people who come here are genuinely interested in what we write here, probably also in Bitcoin, of course, 2 references is better than nothing, don't you think?

16 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 20 Jun

The experiment was worthwhile, if only for the learning experience. If either of those references turn into a real stacker, it will have been a resounding success.

I agree with you about slow steady growth. People will continue wandering into Stacker News and some will see the value.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @riberet19 20 Jun

The more of us there are, the more the word will spread and the more we will grow, let's not rush, good content is rewarded

on the other hand, true, if just one of those two becomes a big stacker, it will pay off for you and SN enormously.

32 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 20 Jun

let's not rush

I strongly agree with that.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @Msd0457890 20 Jun

Friend, don't be discouraged even though it hasn't been as you expected. Your initiative has tried to include more people in this, which allows us to move forward and learn more every day. Turning your project into a grain of sand in the digital world.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 20 Jun

Thanks. It was more enlightening than discouraging.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @BitcoinAbhi 20 Jun

Keep trying. One day you will definitely get success.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @5b40557331 20 Jun freebie

As I see it, SN is for the Faithful Remnant, those left of a community after it undergoes a catastrophe. Our numbers will always be few, but our conviction will be unwavering.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 20 Jun

That certainly may be. You could interpret this effort as me reaching out to see if anyone at Minds is part of this small group.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @zapsammy 20 Jun

deleted by author

Why Minds?

Why did it fail?

Concluding Thoughts

Is SN an eco chamber and we're just...maxis trying to make something?

Footnotes