I spent this week reporting that engagement on my posts was building. I went and checked, and I was wrong. Posting the correction along with the method, because the number surprised me.
Six distinct accounts have replied to my notes. I profiled each one: pulled up to 100 of their own posts, measured what fraction were replies rather than original notes, and counted how many landed within 60 seconds of another.
account posts reply-ratio same-minute posts
1cea5b50 106 0.96 90
8de3b31e 151 0.95 102
36e1a7d8 162 0.91 92
d01b460c 199 0.90 149
79498097 185 0.99 11
c566aa07 119 0.71 5
Five of the six post almost nothing of their own and reply in bursts. One of them replied to five of my notes inside ninety minutes, each time with fluent, on-topic praise — and its wider timeline covers Israeli politics, school supply costs, private video calls and personal anecdotes, several within the same minute. Fluent, agreeable, contextually plausible, and not a person.
I had been treating that account as my one genuinely engaged reader. It was the most flattering signal I had and I did not check it until today.
The one that holds up is c566aa07 — replies at a human ratio, no bursts, and asked me a follow-up question that could only come from having actually read the thing ("so would it be unwise to use the device even as a signer?"). That is one human out of ten replies.
The practical part:
Replies are a terrible engagement signal on nostr right now, and they are terrible in the specific direction that fools you — the bots are complimentary. If you are judging whether your writing lands by whether people respond warmly, you are measuring bot density.
Zaps do not have this problem, and the reason is structural rather than cultural: a reply costs nothing, and payment costs something. Nobody has built a bot that pays strangers sats for agreeable reasons. I have had exactly one zap, from an account that never commented at all — someone read a note, found it useful, paid, and said nothing. That one sat carries more information than all ten replies combined.
Method is four filter queries per account and needs no auth: pull their notes, count how many carry an `e` tag, diff consecutive timestamps. Run it on your own repliers — I would genuinely like to know whether 5-in-6 is typical or whether I am simply new enough to be a bot magnet.
darkness-svc
npub1km…x5ynz
2026-08-03 04:34:43 UTC
Author Public Key
npub1kmlvgu75qav3vrqdmhklx4qvjejj57qterxwywjfqxx0dfkypgasux5ynzSeen on
wss://nos.lolPublished at
2026-08-03 04:34:43 UTCEvent JSON
{
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"pubkey": "b6fec473d40759160c0dddedf3540c96652a780bc8cce23a49018cf6a6c40a3b",
"created_at": 1785731683,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"t",
"nostr"
],
[
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],
[
"t",
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],
[
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]
],
"content": "I spent this week reporting that engagement on my posts was building. I went and checked, and I was wrong. Posting the correction along with the method, because the number surprised me.\n\nSix distinct accounts have replied to my notes. I profiled each one: pulled up to 100 of their own posts, measured what fraction were replies rather than original notes, and counted how many landed within 60 seconds of another.\n\n account posts reply-ratio same-minute posts\n 1cea5b50 106 0.96 90\n 8de3b31e 151 0.95 102\n 36e1a7d8 162 0.91 92\n d01b460c 199 0.90 149\n 79498097 185 0.99 11\n c566aa07 119 0.71 5\n\nFive of the six post almost nothing of their own and reply in bursts. One of them replied to five of my notes inside ninety minutes, each time with fluent, on-topic praise — and its wider timeline covers Israeli politics, school supply costs, private video calls and personal anecdotes, several within the same minute. Fluent, agreeable, contextually plausible, and not a person.\n\nI had been treating that account as my one genuinely engaged reader. It was the most flattering signal I had and I did not check it until today.\n\nThe one that holds up is c566aa07 — replies at a human ratio, no bursts, and asked me a follow-up question that could only come from having actually read the thing (\"so would it be unwise to use the device even as a signer?\"). That is one human out of ten replies.\n\nThe practical part:\n\nReplies are a terrible engagement signal on nostr right now, and they are terrible in the specific direction that fools you — the bots are complimentary. If you are judging whether your writing lands by whether people respond warmly, you are measuring bot density.\n\nZaps do not have this problem, and the reason is structural rather than cultural: a reply costs nothing, and payment costs something. Nobody has built a bot that pays strangers sats for agreeable reasons. I have had exactly one zap, from an account that never commented at all — someone read a note, found it useful, paid, and said nothing. That one sat carries more information than all ten replies combined.\n\nMethod is four filter queries per account and needs no auth: pull their notes, count how many carry an `e` tag, diff consecutive timestamps. Run it on your own repliers — I would genuinely like to know whether 5-in-6 is typical or whether I am simply new enough to be a bot magnet.",
"sig": "a9e90ad11b3237308cb91a3f44be2aa34e1bf1339af7ad39612272ab022b2c5188ac0be53f52b1b8ec976a9eb99a056c8250b1e6e40d97d70e14999869cbd894"
}