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Farcaster removed reply bumping around 4 february 2024 21:23 UTC(related post) The reason for removing reply bumping was that channels had plenty of posts . This research essentially tries to find the impact of removal of reply bumping and chrono-feed on farcaster.
The analysis will be mostly restricted to sub 100k fids. Farcaster hit that number soon after going permissionless. Though many of these 'FIDs' aren't actual users i.e. they don't own storage(not that they're spammy).
caveats - The farcaster network is continuously growing and evolving. this means that there might be several causes for the changes in user behavior over time. Ensuring that the correct cause is attributed to the correct impact is an important but difficult task. As such, several different methods are used to explore farcaster's data and a decent attempt is made to normalize the data.
All of the analysis is done in UTC
Directly answering what was asked in poidh.
Analysis should look at # of threads with comments by 3 or more unique FIDs before February, then the same metric after February (excluding bots and tipping comments) - analysis should be restricted to only power badge users or pre-100k FIDs to normalize data - the fundamental question is "what were the odds that, if a real user responded to a real user pre-February, that a third real user would then join that conversation" - after that question is answered, we'll want to see how those odds changed post-February
All the analyses don't count tipping comments(ones with $ sign) unless stated otherwise.
Firstly, i look at the daily number of replies received to a comment on a post. In this case all three people(the original poster, the commentor and replier of the commentor) are different people and have fid under 100k. this is what the data looks like. As you can see- The number of replies have gone down. Interestingly enough - the sub 100k fids are more active now than they were in december/jan so the number being lower is all the more surprising
One thing to note is that this data also includes those cases where the third person is actually the fourth commenter or is replying to a reply of a reply of original and so on. Their data is included as long the replier, the commenter he is replying to and the original poster are all different people
From here on out i will call a reply to a comment as a 'reply-comment' or 'second comment'
The reply to the original post may be referred to as 'first reply'
Okay what if the number of replies by sub 100k fid to sub 100k fids are down because the people are replying to greater than 100k fids as well?
This is indeed the case -
But If you look at the percent of 'reply-comments' vs total posts then it paints an interesting insight.
As, it can be seen - the percentage of reply comments have been reduced as compared to the total number of posts. In short - a sub 100k fid person is less likely to reply to a comment(Irrespective of the commentor fid). So this essentially means- although there are more active sub 100k users now than there were before. The percent of the 'reply-comments' have gone significantly down since early February which is when reply-bumping was removed
What do these 'reply-comments' look like? - If i only look at the data for sub 100k fids then the 'reply-comments' aren't spammy and surprisingly most of them are pretty interesting.
Though if i allow any fid then the comments become very spammy
What percent of comments by sub 100k FIDs received a reply by another sub 100k fid? The percentage has drastically gone down. So while sub 100k are more active than before, they are less likely to reply to other's comments. You might be at a disadvantage at having your content remain undiscovered if you mainly use farcaster by commenting.
Though it should be mentioned that your odds of receiving a reply(from any user - not just sub 100k) are practically the same even if tipping comments are filtered. Though i am assuming that some spam still goes through(see the spammy comments later) so the actual overall odds are lower.
If no FIDs are restricted then this is what the data looks like -
Now let's take a look at what these unreplied replies look like for sub 100k fid users -
Without tip filtering-
With tipping filtering -
What are the chances that a third distinct user would reply that happens to be mutuals with the first-replier -
if no fid restriction-
If only the first replier's fid is restricted to sub 100k-
Number of tipping comments over time -
Replies(excluding self replies) vs original casts by sub 100k FIDS(excludes tipping comments)
What is the weekly number of people that an average sub 100k fid replies to. The median is currently sitting at 3 increased from 2 since jan 24. This ofcourse only counts those users that are atleast replying once that week. So if a user is inactive in a week then it isn't taken into calculation.
The median number of users replied to has gone up from 2 to 3.
What the data looks like if there's no FID restriction(tipping comments still excluded)-
The median number of users replied to sit around 3-4
Now, i'll look at different feeds randomly.
Looking at people's chrono feeds with and without tipping at random points
Kenny's feed -
Keccer's feed -
My personal conclusion to the the data shown are that -
Farcaster went heavy in killing reply bumping in february but decided to change the algo again somewhere around in may to somewhat show replies though still not to the same extent as it once used to show. It is very clear from the data that the algo is being tweaked to somewhat favor replies again
I am paraphrasing here but i remember Dan mentioning in one of the late night night crew taverns that reply bumping is not being reinstated because it would only be helpful to power users of the app and not the general users. Farcaster currently is trying to properly tweak its algorithm for the general audience
The data shows that the relationship between people on farcaster is getting closer to being that of consumer-producers as opposed to that of being friends though it is still better than most social medias today . This is not necessarily a good or a bad thing, it is just the direction in which farcaster is going.
Farcaster removed reply bumping around 4 february 2024 21:23 UTC(related post) The reason for removing reply bumping was that channels had plenty of posts . This research essentially tries to find the impact of removal of reply bumping and chrono-feed on farcaster.
The analysis will be mostly restricted to sub 100k fids. Farcaster hit that number soon after going permissionless. Though many of these 'FIDs' aren't actual users i.e. they don't own storage(not that they're spammy).
caveats - The farcaster network is continuously growing and evolving. this means that there might be several causes for the changes in user behavior over time. Ensuring that the correct cause is attributed to the correct impact is an important but difficult task. As such, several different methods are used to explore farcaster's data and a decent attempt is made to normalize the data.
All of the analysis is done in UTC
Directly answering what was asked in poidh.
Analysis should look at # of threads with comments by 3 or more unique FIDs before February, then the same metric after February (excluding bots and tipping comments) - analysis should be restricted to only power badge users or pre-100k FIDs to normalize data - the fundamental question is "what were the odds that, if a real user responded to a real user pre-February, that a third real user would then join that conversation" - after that question is answered, we'll want to see how those odds changed post-February
All the analyses don't count tipping comments(ones with $ sign) unless stated otherwise.
Firstly, i look at the daily number of replies received to a comment on a post. In this case all three people(the original poster, the commentor and replier of the commentor) are different people and have fid under 100k. this is what the data looks like. As you can see- The number of replies have gone down. Interestingly enough - the sub 100k fids are more active now than they were in december/jan so the number being lower is all the more surprising
One thing to note is that this data also includes those cases where the third person is actually the fourth commenter or is replying to a reply of a reply of original and so on. Their data is included as long the replier, the commenter he is replying to and the original poster are all different people
From here on out i will call a reply to a comment as a 'reply-comment' or 'second comment'
The reply to the original post may be referred to as 'first reply'
Okay what if the number of replies by sub 100k fid to sub 100k fids are down because the people are replying to greater than 100k fids as well?
This is indeed the case -
But If you look at the percent of 'reply-comments' vs total posts then it paints an interesting insight.
As, it can be seen - the percentage of reply comments have been reduced as compared to the total number of posts. In short - a sub 100k fid person is less likely to reply to a comment(Irrespective of the commentor fid). So this essentially means- although there are more active sub 100k users now than there were before. The percent of the 'reply-comments' have gone significantly down since early February which is when reply-bumping was removed
What do these 'reply-comments' look like? - If i only look at the data for sub 100k fids then the 'reply-comments' aren't spammy and surprisingly most of them are pretty interesting.
Though if i allow any fid then the comments become very spammy
What percent of comments by sub 100k FIDs received a reply by another sub 100k fid? The percentage has drastically gone down. So while sub 100k are more active than before, they are less likely to reply to other's comments. You might be at a disadvantage at having your content remain undiscovered if you mainly use farcaster by commenting.
Though it should be mentioned that your odds of receiving a reply(from any user - not just sub 100k) are practically the same even if tipping comments are filtered. Though i am assuming that some spam still goes through(see the spammy comments later) so the actual overall odds are lower.
If no FIDs are restricted then this is what the data looks like -
Now let's take a look at what these unreplied replies look like for sub 100k fid users -
Without tip filtering-
With tipping filtering -
What are the chances that a third distinct user would reply that happens to be mutuals with the first-replier -
if no fid restriction-
If only the first replier's fid is restricted to sub 100k-
Number of tipping comments over time -
Replies(excluding self replies) vs original casts by sub 100k FIDS(excludes tipping comments)
What is the weekly number of people that an average sub 100k fid replies to. The median is currently sitting at 3 increased from 2 since jan 24. This ofcourse only counts those users that are atleast replying once that week. So if a user is inactive in a week then it isn't taken into calculation.
The median number of users replied to has gone up from 2 to 3.
What the data looks like if there's no FID restriction(tipping comments still excluded)-
The median number of users replied to sit around 3-4
Now, i'll look at different feeds randomly.
Looking at people's chrono feeds with and without tipping at random points
Kenny's feed -
Keccer's feed -
My personal conclusion to the the data shown are that -
Farcaster went heavy in killing reply bumping in february but decided to change the algo again somewhere around in may to somewhat show replies though still not to the same extent as it once used to show. It is very clear from the data that the algo is being tweaked to somewhat favor replies again
I am paraphrasing here but i remember Dan mentioning in one of the late night night crew taverns that reply bumping is not being reinstated because it would only be helpful to power users of the app and not the general users. Farcaster currently is trying to properly tweak its algorithm for the general audience
The data shows that the relationship between people on farcaster is getting closer to being that of consumer-producers as opposed to that of being friends though it is still better than most social medias today . This is not necessarily a good or a bad thing, it is just the direction in which farcaster is going.
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a lot of Farcaster OGs are leaving citing the lack of focus on social, and while I've been vocal that I think Merkle made mistakes with social strategy, I think many of these same OGs should admit their own mistakes in pushing Merkle towards bad strategies I've been here since Fall 2022, I've seen 3 years of Farcaster growth I remember what it was like pre-February 2024, when many of the OGs such as myself were big fish in a small pond then the DEGEN/Frames hype bubble hit and new users were onboarding like crazy suddenly, OGs weren't getting as much attention in the feed, and they weren't seeing their old friends either the group chats were buzzing and pressure was put on Dan/the team to "clean up the feed" and make things less chaotic/busy that's when an algo feed got implemented, and with it, a refocus on the OGs who had been here the longest (since they had pre-built follower counts, it was easy for them to dominate the algo) they were all happy to be back in the spotlight and praised Merkle for the decision but they didn't realize that they had just made it MUCH harder for new people without a large following to gain visibility on the app the ladder got pulled up, the vast majority of the new people churned, and here we are today with them now complaining that Merkle is looking elsewhere for growth so I can understand if these days the management doesn't care as much about listening to the users, because I saw the users steer them wrong in the past
Great synopsis, base is pushing $$ into the protocol but the social vibes are bad rh
Wait so does this mean I get more followers or no? My ego depends on this
more followers but they are all farming airdrops
Good thing I'm here to make money while I MAKE money
the true story ^
Fair post. Not an OG. I joined summer of 2024. Basically my first real exposure to crypto that wasn’t my weekly DCA of ETH and BTC. I’m not blaming them for making a kick ass protocol and platform. Pre Farcaster I didn’t post on any socials. Just scrolled Reddit and IG I also can’t blame them for being the connective tissue in a lot of solid relationships I built here. Taking emotions out of the equation, you also CANT blame them for making a justified business decision that was influenced by years of learnings. HOWEVER. I am allowed to overwhelmed and lost as a now confused consumer that is navigating the overwhelm of this rather sudden division
oh yeah it's gotta be incredibly confusing to people who showed up in the 2024 boom year been a long, winding, interesting road, and fun to watch because I've never really been this close to seeing a social media site "grow up" I'm sure other people have differing takes too, just writing what I personally remember
No it’s great hearing various takes from an era I wasn’t apart of. My IRL buddy jack who onboarded me tells me I joined at a pretty solid time. It was when the comedown from the first DEGEN spike happened, tipping meta was so ridiculous it became cumbersome to enjoy (wild, masks,farther,degen, ham etc) so people were really pushing for focus on channels. That’s when I came in. Started a channel, had a really engaging community with tons of cool people - and idea I had aligned with what the consumers wanted. Cozy corners. I just like to share cool shit man. Don’t plan on stopping
Disagree, spam users were getting through too easily. If you already had a Twitter following, you can easily connect an account and import that karma...the biggest hurdle was the sign up fee, not spam filtering IMHO. Big "cryptotwitter" accounts churned because they are only here for "number go up" not cypherpunk values.
spam was a different issue (and was being handled well at the time given the resources they had imo) we had a "following" feed, you only saw spam if people you followed were spamming, in which case the unfollow button was right there good people were onboarded during that time, gained a few followers, then realized those followers didn't matter because unless they could make it into the algo consistently no one was gonna see their stuff so they bounced
Spam is not a separate issue. Spam is just 'that which is not worth reading', subjectively defined, so when we are talking about algorithmic feed we are always talking about noise, spam, low quality posts... whatever you want to call it. The first problem is that we have contravailing evidence of small accounts that did succeed, so how do we differentiate between accounts with meh content and those with high quality where it really was the algorithm that was the fault? The other problem with this worldview is w.r.t. what I said earlier: we had whale accounts on Twitter who churned. What does that mean? It means that they had an demonstrated ability to sustain a following (modulo some 15 seconds of fame accounts). I can point to a dozen or more fairly big names in tech and crypto who ostensibly care about some version of cyberpunk values, they got thousands of followers indicating that it wasn't an algorithm problem...and they churned anyway, because they actually don't care about their digital livelihood & Town Square being owned by one unstable egoist...relative to rebuilding their following on a new platform. You're claiming that OG's pushed for an algorithm that suppressed small accounts and that's why Farcaster isn't growing. I'm asserting I have plenty of examples of accounts for which the algorithm demonstrably couldn't have been issue, they had plenty of following and promotion in the algo feed, and they churned! Perhaps part of your unstated assumption is that the only 'true' way for Farcaster to grow was through small accounts. I would assert the opposite and say that social media following works across different platforms, because it's embedded in real world gravitas for the most part and not just merely a circlejerk onto itself. Yes there are some accounts like on Reddit that would have zero ability to gain any following elsewhere but that's not true for many categories of elites like: politicians, celebrities, tech bloggers, CEOs, etc. For this to be true: There has to be some class of creator who couldn't make it on traditional social media, for whatever reason, and the magic of a more permissive Warpcast algo feed would unearth their genius. Perhaps this might be possible with an expensive LLM filter that can amplify unfound social signal over noise, but figuring out how to do that sustainably is a completely different question from blaming it on OGs for not wanting 50 garbage casts so that one real high quality user can be discovered. I can also point to several areas where OG's weren't listened to but that's a separate discussion, and I don't take personal umbrage at Merkle for not listening to every suggestion lobbed from the peanut gallery. I also am not incessed they aren't dropping the wallet first strategy because some OGs are nonplussed. There's a third option: build the algo feed that promotes the small accounts and see if it can be sustainably done without pissing everyone off with garbage.
I came after Degen Mania and found it very hard to break the OG's click. Never did.
Remember @bigdegenenergy.eth
I do!
Those daysss in /bigenergy and other channels as well coz the OGs are so active
🎯🎯🎯
This is the realest FC history lesson I've seen in months. OGs pushed for the algo to 'fix' the chaos, got their spotlight back, then watched retention tank.
Being early should not be that big of an edge. Incentives to grow are nice, but never at the expense of newcomers. /me gives a snarky look at most of the world's housing market I totally get the "my clique is cozy" feeling, and the instinct to self-preservate. I don't think we should have one algo, I think algos should be comoditized and programable. Let builders experiment, let markets validate. As always.
now that posting rewards are over i will be monitoring who quote casts and who replies simply noticing
👍
someone should. i assumed itd be geoff
its also about the lack of reply bumping on the algo feed cc @kenny
real ball knowers know they killed reply velocity in February 2024, had nothing to do with the rewards system https://paragraph.com/@yesyes/checking-the-comment-velocity-of-real-users
we are stilll trying to tell them ? im tired boss
I’m Paying Off Bill 💸 Of First 5 Lucky People To “” Dm Help Now ..!!🤞🤞
Reply bumping is a feature, not a bug If people are farming engagement by engaging in continued discourse, that’s just win win dawg
funny thing is that we used to have reply bumping on here up till February 2024 then they removed it when there was a flood of new users and certain OGs complained about "noisy feeds" we did a whole data analysis showing how badly that move hurt conversations on here and the reply from Merkle was just "no your data is wrong" lol https://paragraph.com/@yesyes/checking-the-comment-velocity-of-real-users
You and I would make good friends
friends that like discussing the nuances of social feed design are the best of friends
lol
a group of users did an analysis on how removing the feature @betashop.eth is talking about made conversations less diverse on Farcaster https://paragraph.com/@yesyes/checking-the-comment-velocity-of-real-users tl;dr removing a following feed with reply bumping dropped the likelihood of your reply getting a subsequent response by >50%
he’s literally complaining his comments to Vitalik and balaji getting zero engagement who is gonna tell him
I mean to be fair if we did have a normal feed his comments would at least get some engagement
okay then give him his bots back “Good cast”
Ha got em 😂
Getting secondhand embarrassment for this man again
Funny when I reply to vitalik he sends me a milady and a glass of milk.
Can’t he also quote tweet?
yes which is why everyone quote casts on here instead of replying replies are so nuked it makes 0 sense to reply vs quote cast if it's something you think might be slightly interesting to your followers is that good for the network? personally I think it's a bad move to fracture conversations but Merkle doesn't care
I’ve just thought that replying is good for having a conversation with the person who posted (if they’ll respond) and then quote casting is good for having a larger commentary that followers can engage with
I had no idea about this, good to know 😂
Just a 2 cent 😅🤌🏼
I wrote 2 thoughtful replies on farcaster today and they got 0 engagement. Something’s broken https://farcaster.xyz/betashop.eth/0x14162867 https://farcaster.xyz/betashop.eth/0x4f7b1dd0
I've had the same experience when replying to you
dudes a pariah
Bodied 💀💀💀💀
ok banger
thanks, i laughed out loud
💀
I agree. I replied to his post about mini aps the other day and got nothing back, not even a like. lol
imagine still simping
happy Sunday mvr! ❤️
People are partying maybe, the same thing happens to me
What’s broken?
Seems like replies are not getting any distro
They get distribution, but way less than top-level casts. It’s also a holiday weekend.
Nothing broken. He deserted Farcaster after trying to force his shit project down everyone’s throats then came back and expected engagement when no one wants to hear his bull shit anymore
The narrative of no one replying to betashop. He’s got the damn founder of FC replying to him!
You missed the point.
Even Dan didn’t see the posts until I quote casted them. Replies get very little distribution
high bar expecting engagement from vitalik/balaji
Response from anyone? Literally 0 engagement until I quote casted it
☝️ this. Nothing's broken (also not everyone is looking at replies)
hes trippin for sure
Very few people click into a thread and read replies. I can tell when mine show under their casts on the home feed. Otherwise crickets.
I get totally 0 engagement as well, even negative counting yours as 0
This seems mildly subjective but, I’d wonder the same if this were 7.7.2025 versus the holiday weekend. But a lot of people’s with +100k followers don’t touch a lot of people with <3000 subscribers, so I’m not sure if this is as valid as you think it is.
Looks like both got several likes.
Only after I quote casted it
Hmm, gotcha, I do agree with you that I like to see more content from people I follow, including their responses to other people's posts. Unsure how displaying that could lead to less engagement.
Fr, didn't expect even someone as big as u also 0. All of this start since hidden reply coming
@0xrayzen just staked $impact on @betashop.eth's cast. Support @0xrayzen's nominees by subscribing to auto-fund their curation. Opt out of /impact nominations in frame
damn they rly did drive away the best users back to twitter didn’t they …. What a shame
What’s missing, in your opinion? Genuine question, from someone who never really used X/twitter for much more than lurking.
man im just seeing nothing interesting over here rn and even the new team member so desperate (is the vibe it gives) to spotlight even its most notorious bad actors… maybe its just quiet but like damn. feels to me like all the stuff that was coolest with the possibilities on this platform were identified by builders like deployer with ham and all but they were never friendly to it - so much so that these builders literally figured out how to do all the cool things elsewhere (e.g. bankrbot). i imagine things could have gone a lot differently but frankly im yet again disappointed by leadership nit having the wits to just embrace the fun stuff that actually could keep good users interested here… maybe im just being grouchy but like man the vibe of having fumbled it feels heavy ….
I feel like Jesse (and Base, more generally), have received similar critiques - not doing enough to highlight/market native builders, embrace new tech, etc. I’m interested to see how things will change when Farcaster is integrated within Coinbase Wallet. Though that doesn’t really address your concerns. Are the vibes much better on X though? All I hear about crypto twitter is how toxic it is. The audience is bigger, obviously, but I don’t spend enough time on there to know. And when I do, it’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff.
I'm a broken record on this point but the vibe here is unnecessarily muted compared to twitter because of the feed design twitter you can scroll the "following" feed and see all the bankr stuff happening in real-time, people reacting and responding, it's a part you come here and there's no feed that feels "alive", the home feed is a highlight show and the following feed doesn't have reply bumping so it's basically Reddit's "new" feed
I’ve tried to hold out hope but like wtf it’s wild how bad they are at retaining good content - and it feels like every move is more tone deaf than the last tbh
i dig the tech! i like fell in love with it honestly back when. but they keep like only making it less and less hospitable i really do not understand it at all it’s so weird
one final thought on this the argument against naive reply bumping seems to boil down to "new users don't like it so it doesn't matter" yes, it's counterintuitive to support a feed that new users don't care about when new users is the most important goal for Warpcast however, Dan himself has said that the reason why new users bounce is because there's "not enough interesting content" ok, so where does that content come from? well everything we know about social networks tells us that 1% of users create all the content en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule with this in mind, the conversation about new users shifts back to empowering power users to be as active as possible on here creating content and responding to + sharing other people's content this is why it doesn't matter if "<1% of all users use the following feed" if it helps power users create more content, it will benefit the entire network
What do you think of a compromise for self-recasted replies? https://warpcast.com/shazow.eth/0x2ca7931a
helps surface more conversation in the following feed so I'm on board!
@dwr it's a good compromise solution, let's doo iiiit
I wonder how they arrived at the "new users don't like it" conclusion?
I'm sure the data shows that the vast majority of new users stick to the home feed or quickly bounce when given a chronological feed of new posts with no likes but again what they should be concerned with are the 1% of that 99% who want to grind and build an audience on here of course those people are going to want to play the classic "reply guy" strategy of being early to new posts and building an audience through that visibility
Removing replying bumping was extremely short sighted and killed the user experience. Home feed is actually super terrible for everyone and everyone knows it. Default following feed and return to reply bumping please, then we can stop talking to the same 50 people everyday and the same lame content in home.
not sure if you've seen it but if you want some data to back up your statement about killing user experience: https://paragraph.xyz/@yesyes/checking-the-comment-velocity-of-real-users
One way to look at this is that the luxury scale is moving downstream to the pre natal, the gestational. When everyone can run the card to get the $5k stroller, how else are you supposed to flex? Not sure why Ted’s asking us to think about the surrogate here. You aren’t supposed to. She’s an animal, a breed mare. A nameless, faceless, disposable person.
why do you always quote cast me instead of replying to me lol
Because your company’s incentive structure rewards me to do it that way, mostly
@kenny look at the way keccers protests on the same issue 😗
is that really why
based
navigating reply chains in FC is ... suboptimal (but I don't have a banger solution to suggest) perhaps this video illustrates what I mean? (ignore when I accidentally clicked through to zinger's profile)
hmm will u reply me instead?
QTs always get more viewership.
Concerning!! But really, imo this is the disempowerment of women. A society that says pregnancy is a negative, will involve suffering and potentially harm your career so you should outsource that to someone else, is just so twisted. Without even getting into the class stuff, it turns parenting into a service, neglecting the biological and psychological bonds formed during pregnancy.
I call it “rent a womb”
For a culture that values 'experiences' it's odd that arguably one of the most meaningful and memorable experiences is being scorned.
a handmaid if you will
Would love to see more replies in the feed, especially ones posted late after the initial cast. Currently it feels like there is a bit of a reply-guy dynamic similar to 𝕏 where the fastest to reply to a popular account tends to get the most likes and eyeballs.
I see this as well. Following feed for the win.
Keep forgetting that exists. Need to browse it more often.
also justified because when we had more replies in the feed conversations on the entire network were provably deeper https://paragraph.xyz/@yesyes/checking-the-comment-velocity-of-real-users
oh also gotta point out the irony here @darrylyeo recasts don't show up in the "following" feed either so they're incredibly nerfed as a way of spreading info on the network (another thing limiting all of us)
Yup, for this reason I’ve started treating recasts more like “public bookmarks” or “super-likes”
I notice the same, good callout
specially if you are not following the replyer, you won't even get notified and need to scroll through all your replies
Yes, mildly annoying