4 ms·

You mention the filter effect: I think what really killed Usenet, at least for me, was spam, much of which was automated, with no great mechanism in place to co

You mention the filter effect: I think what really killed Usenet, at least for me, was spam, much of which was automated, with no great mechanism in place to combat it.

zozbot234 4y ago
These days you could fight spam simply by adding a proof-of-work requirement for posting content to the network. Isn't that exactly what this Web3/Blockchain fad is all about anyway?
- pitched 4y ago
  This is a really interesting use-case. I don’t think posting spam is really a zero-cost thing though. So we wouldn’t be adding a cost, we would be increasing it. So I guess the big question is, how much can we charge per post that spammers couldn’t afford but wouldn’t scare away actual community members?
  - bartread 4y ago
    I think making a non-free Usenet is pretty much anathema to the whole concept of Usenet.
    - gknoy 4y ago
      I wouldn't want to pay Real Money for it, but somehow it doesn't seem the same to say "I'll spend some finite amount of computation time/energy to make this comment". That seems like a much lower hurdle. At the same time, paying ten cents to make a comment on Reddit or HN is very unappealing.
      - pitched 4y ago
        10c of crypto mining is about 30 minutes on an RTX 3090. It would have to be a much, much lower cost!
  - codethief 4y ago
    Wouldn't proof of stake be much more promising? 1) Start off with a trusted group of people (stakeholders) 2) Set up an invite-only system 3) Inviting someone means sharing some stake (i.e. some reputation) with them 4) To post you need some minimum amount of stake 5) With every post that's not downvoted into oblivion you increase your stake until you reach a certain equilibrium point. (So there's a limit and it's not about gaining status points.) 6) Posts that are downvoted into oblivion will cause their authors to lose some stake.
    - pitched 4y ago
      This is the best explanation of proof-of-stake I've seen yet! Thank you! This does sound just like minimum karma limits to me though. Per-community karma though instead of the global kind that Reddit uses.
- v64 4y ago
  This was in fact one of the earliest use cases of proof-of-work from the 90s [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash
- saba2008 4y ago
  >These days HashCash is older than Bitcoin, and Bitcoin sybil-attack protection is basically HashCash.
- simcop2387 4y ago
  That's been attempted for email too, not sure how far it ever went. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash

You mention the filter effect: I think what really killed Usenet, at least for me, was spam, much of which was automated, with no great mechanism in place to combat it.

zozbot234 4y ago

These days you could fight spam simply by adding a proof-of-work requirement for posting content to the network. Isn't that exactly what this Web3/Blockchain fad is all about anyway?

pitched 4y ago
This is a really interesting use-case. I don’t think posting spam is really a zero-cost thing though. So we wouldn’t be adding a cost, we would be increasing it. So I guess the big question is, how much can we charge per post that spammers couldn’t afford but wouldn’t scare away actual community members?
- bartread 4y ago
  I think making a non-free Usenet is pretty much anathema to the whole concept of Usenet.
  - gknoy 4y ago
    I wouldn't want to pay Real Money for it, but somehow it doesn't seem the same to say "I'll spend some finite amount of computation time/energy to make this comment". That seems like a much lower hurdle. At the same time, paying ten cents to make a comment on Reddit or HN is very unappealing.
    - pitched 4y ago
      10c of crypto mining is about 30 minutes on an RTX 3090. It would have to be a much, much lower cost!
- codethief 4y ago
  Wouldn't proof of stake be much more promising? 1) Start off with a trusted group of people (stakeholders) 2) Set up an invite-only system 3) Inviting someone means sharing some stake (i.e. some reputation) with them 4) To post you need some minimum amount of stake 5) With every post that's not downvoted into oblivion you increase your stake until you reach a certain equilibrium point. (So there's a limit and it's not about gaining status points.) 6) Posts that are downvoted into oblivion will cause their authors to lose some stake.
  - pitched 4y ago
    This is the best explanation of proof-of-stake I've seen yet! Thank you! This does sound just like minimum karma limits to me though. Per-community karma though instead of the global kind that Reddit uses.
v64 4y ago
This was in fact one of the earliest use cases of proof-of-work from the 90s [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash
saba2008 4y ago
>These days HashCash is older than Bitcoin, and Bitcoin sybil-attack protection is basically HashCash.
simcop2387 4y ago
That's been attempted for email too, not sure how far it ever went. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash