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The article doesn't support the claims of how nostr is better than mastodon. From my quick glance at the site, it looks like relays are the equivalent to serve

The article doesn't support the claims of how nostr is better than mastodon. From my quick glance at the site, it looks like relays are the equivalent to servers in mastodon, given that it's unclear why relay owners can't also ban you (as they suggest mastodon servers can ban you), why you can't post to multiple mastodon servers simultaneously (similar to broadcasting to multiple relays in nostr) and so on. Nonetheless it's good to see the broader adoption of "account creation as equivalent to public/private key creation" in social media services

piperswe 4y ago
With Nostr, your identity isn't attached to a relay, so if one relay doesn't like you other relays will still relay your content, while still keeping your followerbase
- pointlessone 4y ago
  How would my followers (or whatever they’re called in nostr) know where to get my events from? It seems like optimal strategy is to send to/fetch from every relay possible. Effectively, every relay would host the whole network. In this regard federation seem a little more scalable.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    Yes, this aspect seems problematic. > to "follow" someone a user just instructs their client to query the relays it knows for posts from that public key.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    > How would my followers (or whatever they’re called in nostr) know where to get my events from? I don't know anything about Nostr, but couldn't that easily be solved by adding the relays that you use as a field in your event? Or even using a DHT to find relays that carry content from a particular user?
  - CodexArcana 4y ago
    I don't know if clients support this yet but you can transmit a suggested relay with your post that people can add to their list of relays. That suggested relay should be one you control. That way they always have a point of truth for your notes.
    - leesalminen 4y ago
      I don’t think they do, but definitely looking forward to clients getting smarter about discovery and relay management.
  - anothernostrich 4y ago
    This is a current problem. The solution is sending a small message telling everyone where you post to lots and lots of relays, then just posting to a few of them.
leesalminen 4y ago
The main difference is that on mastodon your identity is tied to the server you registered on. So, if a mastodon server bans you, you lose your account, your friends list, and your post history. On nostr, your identity is a key pair and not tied to any particular relay. If a relay bans you, you can just connect to a new relay, re-broadcast your old notes to it, and keep going. Your friends list stays in-tact.
- erskingardner 4y ago
  Yup spot on. The main issue though is that if you want to ensure that you have absolutely unassailable content, you need to run you own relay that ensures all your events are stored. You can’t assume that the relays you connect to via clients are perfect. I imagine relay services will get better over time here but something to be aware of.
  - dack 4y ago
    I don't quite understand why a client can't do it's own backup... it's really not that much data i would think. you could sync it to google drive or equivalent, and while your posts may temporarily be unavailable if all the relays are down, you could theoretically re-populate another relay (or your own) with that backed up data right?
    - leesalminen 4y ago
      A client can do this. There’s nothing stopping this from being implemented. I think it’s a good idea, really. It’s just a PR away from becoming reality :).

piperswe 4y ago

With Nostr, your identity isn't attached to a relay, so if one relay doesn't like you other relays will still relay your content, while still keeping your followerbase

pointlessone 4y ago
How would my followers (or whatever they’re called in nostr) know where to get my events from? It seems like optimal strategy is to send to/fetch from every relay possible. Effectively, every relay would host the whole network. In this regard federation seem a little more scalable.
- lapcat 4y ago
  Yes, this aspect seems problematic. > to "follow" someone a user just instructs their client to query the relays it knows for posts from that public key.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > How would my followers (or whatever they’re called in nostr) know where to get my events from? I don't know anything about Nostr, but couldn't that easily be solved by adding the relays that you use as a field in your event? Or even using a DHT to find relays that carry content from a particular user?
- CodexArcana 4y ago
  I don't know if clients support this yet but you can transmit a suggested relay with your post that people can add to their list of relays. That suggested relay should be one you control. That way they always have a point of truth for your notes.
  - leesalminen 4y ago
    I don’t think they do, but definitely looking forward to clients getting smarter about discovery and relay management.
- anothernostrich 4y ago
  This is a current problem. The solution is sending a small message telling everyone where you post to lots and lots of relays, then just posting to a few of them.

leesalminen 4y ago

The main difference is that on mastodon your identity is tied to the server you registered on. So, if a mastodon server bans you, you lose your account, your friends list, and your post history. On nostr, your identity is a key pair and not tied to any particular relay. If a relay bans you, you can just connect to a new relay, re-broadcast your old notes to it, and keep going. Your friends list stays in-tact.

erskingardner 4y ago
Yup spot on. The main issue though is that if you want to ensure that you have absolutely unassailable content, you need to run you own relay that ensures all your events are stored. You can’t assume that the relays you connect to via clients are perfect. I imagine relay services will get better over time here but something to be aware of.
- dack 4y ago
  I don't quite understand why a client can't do it's own backup... it's really not that much data i would think. you could sync it to google drive or equivalent, and while your posts may temporarily be unavailable if all the relays are down, you could theoretically re-populate another relay (or your own) with that backed up data right?
  - leesalminen 4y ago
    A client can do this. There’s nothing stopping this from being implemented. I think it’s a good idea, really. It’s just a PR away from becoming reality :).