quoting naddr1qq…grdaEarlier this year I launched the asknostr.site project which has been a great journey and learning experience. I had wanted to write down my goals and ideas with the project but didn’t get to it yet. Primal launching the article editor was a trigger for me to go for it.
Ever since I joined Nostr i was looking for ways to apply my skillset solve a problem and help with adoption. Around Christmas I figured that a Quora/Stackoverflow alternative is something that needs to exist on Nostr.
Before I knew it I had a pretty decent prototype. And because the network already had so much awesome content, contributors and authors I was never discouraged by the challenge that kills so many good ideas -> “Where do I get the first users?”.
Since the initial announcement I have received so much encouragement through zaps, likes, DM’s, and maybe most of all seeing the increase in usage of the site and #asknostr content kept me going.
Current State
The current version of the site is stable and most bugs are hashed out. After logging in (remote signer, extension or nsec) you can engage with content through votes, comments and replies. Or simply ask a new question.
All content is stored in the site’s own private relay and preprocessed/computed into a single data store (postgres) so the site is fast, accessible and crawl-able.
The site supports browsing hashtags, voting/commenting on answers, asking new questions and every contributor get their own profile (example). At the time of writing the site has 41k questions, almost 200k replies/comments and upwards of 5 million sats purely for #asknostr content.
What to expect/On my list
There are plenty of things and UI bugs that need love and between writing the draft of this post and hitting publish I shipped 3 minor bug fixes. Little by little, bit by bit…
In addition to all those small details here is an overview of the things on my own wish list:
Inline Zaps: Ability to zap from the asknostr.site interface. Click the zap button, specify or pick the number of sats zap away.
Contributor Rank: A leaderboard to add some gamification. More recognition to those nostriches that spend their time helping other people out
Search by Keyword: Search all content by keywords. Experiment with the index to show related questions or answers
Better User Profiles: Improve the user profile so it shows all the profile questions and answers. Quick buttons to follow or zap that person. Better insights in the topics (hashtags) the profile contributes to
Bookmarks: Ability to bookmark questions and answers. Increase bookmark weight as a signal to rank answers.
Smarter Scoring: Tune how answers are scored (winning answer formula). Perhaps give more weight to the question author or use WoT. Not sure yet.
All of this is happening at some point so follow me if you want to stay up to date.
Goals
To manage expectations and keep me focussed I write down the mid and long term goals of the project.
Long term
Call me cheesy but I believe that humanity will flourish through an open web and sound money. My own journey started from with bitcoin but if you asked me today if it’s BTC or nostr that is going to have the most impact I wouldn’t know what to answer. Chicken or egg?
The goal of the project is to offer an open platform that empowers individuals to ask questions, share expertise and access high-quality information across different topics. The project empowers anyone to monetize their experience creating a sustainable ecosystem that values and rewards knowledge sharing. This will ultimately democratize access to knowledge for all.
Mid term
The project can help a lot with onboarding new users onto the network. Once we start to rank on certain topics we can get a piece of the search traffic pie (StackOverflows 12 million, and Quora 150 million visitors per month) which is a great way to expose people to the power of the network.
First time visitors do not need to know about nostr or zaps to receive value. They can browse around, discover interesting content and perhaps even create a profile without even knowing they are on Nostr now.
Gradually those users will understand the value of the network through better rankings (zaps beats likes), a cross-client experience and a profile that can be used on any nostr site or app.
In order for the site to do that we need to make sure content is browsable by language, (sub)topics and and we double down on ’the human touch’ with real contributors and not LLMs.
Short Term Goal
The first goal is to make the site really good and an important resource for existing Nostr users. Enable visitors to search and discover what they are interested in. Integrate within the existing nostr eco system with ‘open in’ functionality and quick links to interesting projects (followerpacks?)
One of things i want to get right is to improve user retention by making the whole Q&A experience more sticky. I want to run some experiments (bots, award, summaries) to get more people to use asknostr.site more often and come back.
What about the name?
Finally the big question: *What about the *asknostr.site* name?* I don’t like the name that much but it’s what people know. I think there is a high chance that people will discover Nostr apps like Olas, Primal or Damus without needing to know what NOSTR is or means.
Therefore I think there is a good chance that the project won’t be called asknostr.site forever. I guess it all depends on where we all take this.
Onwards!
hermeticvm on Nostr: Love this project. Props to digitalbase for shipping and making it even better. ...
Love this project. Props to digitalbase (npub132n…8cn4) for shipping and making it even better.