ted (not lasso) on Warpcast

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ted (not lasso) pfp

ted (not lasso)

tons of users have been reaching out to me re: spam labels. when i look at their content, these are the 5 most common pieces of feedback i give: 1. don’t only post mini-apps. think of warpcast as early facebook: if someone only posted dolphin olympics screenshots every day, people would tune them out. 2. avoid overly generic content. casting "gm" or inspirational quotes is fine occasionally, but if your feed feels interchangeable with anyone else’s, it’s hard for people to connect with you. 3. don't use AI thoughtlessly. people notice when casts or replies feel like ChatGPT wrote them. it’s fine to use AI, just add real thoughts or emotions. authenticity wins here. 4. don’t repost stolen photos / art from the internet. farcaster values original content or curation that reflects your taste — not just what’s trending on pinterest, reddit, or X. 5. quality > quantity. you don’t need to cast 10x a day or reply to everyone everywhere. take time to cast things you would stop scrolling to read.

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Ghostlinkz pfp

@ghostlinkz.eth

Great advice! For point number 5, it seems like Warpcast rewards are incentivizing quantity over quality. I’m sure Merkle is aware of this, so curious if you can share what you are doing to improve this?

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Dan Romero pfp

Cast a lot of quality is what the algo rewards.

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@ghostlinkz.eth

The algo isn’t public so we can’t verify this, but even if speak the truth that’s not what I learned from the replies to this cast. Seems like people are doing a lot of low-effort quote casting specifically because it boosts them on your leaderboard https://warpcast.com/ghostlinkz.eth/0x0b40dbfd

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ted (not lasso) pfp

ted (not lasso)

some points of confusion here: 1. yes, quote casting typically gives you more visibility vs. replying (same goes for twitter or any other social app); some people want to optimize for reach, and other people want to optimize for connection 2. yes, the leaderboard algo does reward based on original cast engagement 3. but low-effort, bad quality quote casts aren't going to help anyone in the leaderboard and usually puts people off so doesn't help build any relationships

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Ghostlinkz pfp

@ghostlinkz.eth

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen your team say “casting a lot” helps you make money on Farcaster. So you are encouraging quantity over quality with those statements. I’m wondering if you have plans to also do the same to encourage quality. One example is this cast you made, which I said was great advice. For point number 3, do you have any data to back it up? It’s a fair assumption to make, I myself ignore most quote casts that should have been replies, but it would be disingenuous to say yall are not encouraging more root casts with the rewards leaderboard. What I learned from talking to people is that making root casts gives you a boost, regardless of low/high effort. If this isn’t true, then it’s an opportunity to educate users

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ted (not lasso) pfp

ted (not lasso)

just to make sure we're on the same page, there are two different topics here that shouldn't be treated as one: 1) spam labels (which my cast was about), 2) leaderboard (which my cast was *not* about). addressing a "might be spam" label is a lot different than getting to the top of the leaderboard. the former needs to hit a quality baseline, the latter needs to hit a quantity bar assuming quality is good. no, i don't have the data on hand and to dig into it i'd have to trade off my focus on increasing and encouraging quality content by onboarding new users — like the writers and founders i've brought on. again, we do care about quality (remember the "interesting content" meta?).

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Ghostlinkz pfp

@ghostlinkz.eth

They are related, but I understand this wasn't the point you were trying to make with your cast. Most people want to avoid the spam label because they want to earn free rewards and be elegible for airdrops. If we are being honest, free money is the main incentive that has been attracting users to Warpcast. The WC rewards leaderboard is a bit different than Degen and Moxie, but all of them resulted in the same thing: more quantity than quality. If im wrong about this, id love to see proof/data

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ted (not lasso) pfp

ted (not lasso)

my POV: you're not wrong that "free money" can attract low-effort behavior, but i don’t think quantity and quality are a zero-sum tradeoff. often posting more is what leads to better content: it builds a muscle, surfaces new voices, and helps the network figure out what resonates. here's the dune of Warpcast Rewards Winners: https://dune.com/queries/4943228. the top 200 accounts on the leaderboard are overwhelmingly good. they're all consistent, engaged, and creating signal vs spam. that’s great for the network. fwiw every UGC platform in history follows a similar pattern: a small % of users create the majority of high quality content. true for quora, twitter, wikipedia, reddit, even github. the goal with warpcast rewards isn’t to make everyone a top-tier caster. it’s to build (and iterate) on a system / environment where those people thrive. if people are showing up and posting, the next step is helping them level up, not telling them to post less. that's my POV. you're free to disagree.

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@ghostlinkz.eth

The leaderboard doesn’t mean much to me because the scoring and reward calculations aren’t transparent (black box algo). The whole point of crypto and decentralization is to minimize the need for blind trust. And im not suggesting that people should cast less. I was simply curious about what steps Merkle is taking to prioritize quality over quantity.

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ted (not lasso) pfp

ted (not lasso)

if the leaderboard doesn’t mean much to you, then i’m not sure why you brought it up initially and then again. after engaging with you earnestly, sharing my POV on quantity + quality, and and outlining my own focus on quality content, are you curious about anything else that i can answer? always open to feedback, but candidly this felt convo a bit like trying to fit a square peg (advice on casting quality content) into a round hole (issues about incentives, leaderboard algo, quantity).

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Ghostlinkz pfp

@ghostlinkz.eth

It doesn’t mean much meaning I don’t trust it as a signal for quality which is what you were trying to suggest it represents. It does mean a lot in relation to it incentivizing more quantity over quality, which was my main point

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