Why Farcaster needs Extended Reactions
Extended Reactions will enable stronger value signals on Farcaster, which would promote high quality content (instead of farming), and create new primitives for communities and developers to leverage for growth.
Mike | Abundance 🌟
3 min read·
This post is taking part in the Farcaster 2026 writing contest
TL;DR: Extended Reactions will enable stronger value signals on Farcaster, which would promote high quality content (instead of farming), and create new primitives for communities and developers to leverage for growth.
What are Extended Reactions (ERs)? Think of Cast Actions that work more like ‘recasts’ and ‘likes.’ In other words, these are interface elements that users can choose to install, that are actionable, and display data in casts. The data can be external (onchain, private, etc.) or live natively on Farcaster. The Extended Reaction’s action itself can be based on a set of conditions.
Let’s say for example a DAO has a channel in Farcaster. The DAO can have an ER that is an up/down vote, where users’ votes are weighted based on DAO tokens held. Another channel can have an ER that is a 5-star review, where only Hypersub holders can review casts. Yet another ER can simply display whether the user is a likely spammer (as a percentage), based on how many people flag the user’s casts.
While some of this capability is already possible with Cast Actions or standalone apps, ERs can improve both the visibility and usability of tools and apps built on top of the protocol, and enhance value signals in FC.
Instead of developers having to build standalone apps and try to funnel and retain users, in many cases the functionality of these apps can be seamlessly integrated into ERs within a Farcaster client. Such an approach then results in improved user experience, and creates the potential for a much larger user base for the business.
ERs with native data would allow Farcaster clients to integrate bottom-up value signals to improve the quality of feeds, filter spam, and give channels greater control over their feed (if main feed can be sorted based on the data). And because native data is decentralized, businesses and communities can use ERs as new primitives to build on top of, where anyone can integrate those reactions into their FC clients, apps and tools.
Legacy Social Media
Farcaster inherited much of the user interface of legacy social media (LSM) platforms like X, yet we rarely stop to ask ourselves why the UI is the way it is, or how we can improve it to optimize signal on Farcaster.
So what’s the reason for LSM’s UI decisions? The short answer is that it serves their business model; you have a centralized system that makes money by maximizing ad revenue from user attention. Maximizing ad revenue means maximizing user attention. Maximizing user attention means serving the most engaging content to more users (and vice versa). How does the platform know what content is more engaging? By getting engagement signals from users through the UI.
LSM platforms didn’t care about value signals, they only cared about engagement signals. The more users engaged with certain kinds of content, the more the network could boost that content so that other users could engage with it also. This process allowed the platforms to keep the UI simple while maximizing ad revenue from user attention.
Users quickly learned that there are two main strategies to gain influence on a platform: either producing high-effort quality content (signal), or engaging in all sorts of low-effort engagement farming (noise). Since the ‘like’ button didn’t care if you’re creating signal or noise, the latter proliferated and user experience on the platforms suffered.
While LSM platforms were counting their money, users were engaged in a race to the bottom, with ever more toxic and socially destructive behavior – that, after all, was the surest way to gain influence on the platform. But that’s what happens when the interests of the platform are aligned with the interests of advertisers and not with its users.
The question then is why follow the same trajectory on Farcaster? Why limit ourselves to interface elements that only make sense in a centralized platform that relies on ad revenue? Instead of limiting ourselves to the ‘like’ and ‘recast’ reactions we should extend the kinds of reactions users can engage with.
With better value signals in the form of ERs the best strategy to grow (and earn) on Farcaster would be by creating high quality content (while engagement farming would become self-defeating). Quality content, improved user experience and better signal-to-noise – coupled with the ability of communities and businesses to better incentivize, capture and distribute value – can give Farcaster a serious competitive advantage over legacy social media platforms, and help turn Farcaster into the central hub for the Creator Economy
part of the problem with "discovery" on Farcaster is that we're using legacy Twitter user interface components that don't map well to what we want on X/Twitter it only matters to the platform that content gets lots of engagement (so they can serve it to more people and make more money from ads) the like/retweet buttons are well suited for the purpose since they're low friction and provide sufficient signal to the platform on Farcaster we're looking for a different kind of signal — we want content that is relevant/meaningful to users, and not just engagement-based this can be achieved with interface elements that are more suited to an open graph (I wrote about this extensively here: https://paragraph.com/@abundance/extended-reactions)
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Semi-regular Farcaster annoyances thread If you were BDFOFF, what would you have us work on? BDFOFF = benevolent dictator for one farcaster feature The more specific the ask, the better!
Still can't log on desktop
What operating system? What browser?
Windows 11 Chrome latest updates over the past several months Logging in via mobile: Pixel 9 Pro XL using latest version of Android
(fat chance I know but) bring back "set NFT as pfp" button, and clicking the pfp shows the NFT page
Features: profile banner, cast edits, more than 2 photos, scheduling casts
Profile banner and 4 photos coming soon. Cast edit -- would you take a "tap one button to copy and paste the cast text into the composer and delete the old cast"
Nope - because we still need to keep replies and reactions to the original cast
@svvvg3.eth https://farcaster.xyz/miniapps/2gUG8a57KZYm/schedule-cast
Oh that's handy
25 $DEGEN
Second that for scheduled casts, especially for folk who don't have the time to cast during the day
Most definitely. Also any project or intern accounts can really pinpoint the best times of day to make posts.
Cast edits ✅️ + more Pro features ( banner for just PRO'S 😬 )
Followers counter is broken, increasing significantly without any increase in engagement
Is it broken or just nature of some of the accounts on the network?
I didn't see anyone except very few accounts actually following me during that time in notifs nor have I posted something as popular that even had these high numbers in views lol
make adding emojis in desktop and mobile dc’s act the same.
how so?
in mobile, if you click the emoji, it shows you who added it there. on desktop, it adds the emoji
adding blockchain explorer pop out on the warplet next to the qr
What's the use case?
if I want to look at my address to review status, transactions, etc for tokens, nfts, not displayed in the warplet, then I have to copy the address, open a browser tab, paste address in, etc. this one feature will save time and clicks
Expand-all for threads. I want to click it to expand all branched of a thread, and the just scroll up-down.
TOKEN
What does it do?
Add the capture=“environment” in your file upload to allow camera upload. Having to take a picture switch and upload its a bit cumbersome. Allow videos and images to rotate to landscape to get better viewing
Autoplay video on phone
I think that's the default -- did you turn it off in settings?
This is the one on my settings, not sure if its my wifi (300mbps), but everywhere I connect it’s not autoplaying - maybe I’m doing something wrong?
Farcaster has the potential to expand its total addressable market (TAM) and disrupt multiple platforms and industries — but are we too busy disrupting (and distracting) ourselves instead? https://paragraph.com/@abundance/farcaster-the-platform-disruptor
Aren’t mini apps kind of a step towards what you describe here?
in a way yes, though maybe its also step back, because there's less development of more substantial projects, like alt clients
I like the ideas here, though I'm no expert here and don't understand how to solve. Do you have any proposals? Would rewarding mini app creaters be an example? How about rewarding mini app devs who create the most value by user interaction? And how to make sure not only the mega casino gets rewarded? I'm ignorant, but I like your ambition for this space.
I have a suggestion or two.. it's probably more to start thinking in the direction of rewarding contributions over just engagement and I'm sure we'll be able so iterate and solve the issues as they come https://farcaster.xyz/abundance/0x70329efc
Much agree. The sharing volumes could certainly increase, in almost every available aspect, with monetary invitations. It’s the ‘weeding out’ the ‘invasive species’ in growth sections and the beneficial unanticipated correlations that can become quite interesting. Meaning this in farm/garden, metaphorically.
yes
Maybe it’s an idea that will come in due time but we’ve had the decentralized identity primitive for quite a while in crypto and there haven’t been any decentralized uber/airbnb’s yet because the actual execution required is insanely difficult. Seems like the limiting factor is executing on the quality control, dispute resolution, customer experience etc. Though I still am a believer that it’s possible, just incredibly difficult
yea you're right that decentralized identity is not a new primitive. what's new with Farcaster imo is that you have an open graph where users are interacting - so you have rich data that can be used for reputation. Reputation is the component you actually need to make these platforms work of course there are other challenges involved for Uber/Airbnb etc - I just don't think that's what stopping newcomers from succeeding. having to bootstrap a network is the harder problem, and FC solves this
yeah for sure, farcaster seems to be the first real well-executed decentralized id/open social graph where these applications seem more realistic
Gonna read this one later fasho!
Valid points in your feature Mike The question remains though … how can we build a system that makes distinction between a simple gesture (like a like, share …) and a more meaningful engagement Had the same issue when was digital magazine publisher in late 90’s. A professional feature costed, involving a journalist, a photographer, a corrector etc… and when bloggers appeared (like influencers today), they reshuffled the whole media industry
by adding Extended Reactions to the protocol :) https://paragraph.com/@abundance/extended-reactions
To embrace will require shooting for higher than just above the towering powerhouses. Will require shooting for higher than the intended aim.
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low-hanging fruit on how to improve user experience on Farcaster: - custom feed (similar to 'Lists' on X), also with potential to do it by tokens, keywords, etc - add filters to notifs - open source the client and let others tinkers and build functionality - add Extended Reactions to the protocol, so builders can grow the ecosystem beyond social media (https://paragraph.com/@abundance/extended-reactions)
My submission to @kiwi's Farcaster 2026 writing contest. Why Farcaster needs Extended Reactions https://paragraph.xyz/@abundance/extended-reactions
Yes, likes are very shallow and carry little in terms of content. What about being able to use any emoji, and then just assign some of the emojis to represent different meanings? It's also fun to watch meanings emerge spontaneously.
That could def be a type of an Extended Reaction. A bit of facebookification can't hurt, right?.. as long as users get to choose which reactions they want to see and interact with
I think several platforms allow emoji reactions. I like that they already have meanings and those are somehow fluid. Hamchain is using farcaster emoji comments for tips of various tokens, not sure how popular those are.
Imagine there is a company - let's call it Foxie - where the manager pays workers for “activity." What sort of activity? Oh, you know, making calls, filing documents, writing code - the usual. The manager diligently tracks the amount of calls, the lines of code, and the number of documents filed in a system called ActivityRank. Whoever does more of these activities rises in the ranks of the company and gets paid more. At the end of the month the boss comes and asks the manager what got done. M: “We made 1,540 calls, filed 43,089 docs, and wrote 748,219 lines of code” B: "But what was the result of all these activities? Did you close any deals? Does the code even work?” How did any of these activities advance our business?” M: “We didn't close any deals and the code doesn't work. But next month we will double the rewards for ‘activity’ so I'm sure we'll have much better results!” Would you buy shares in this company?
Great analogy
Thanks for putting me into this It was a good read Reaffirms my feelings on it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcZzlPGnKdU
👉 👈 sorry..
This is a masterpiece
i like this analogy, and i believe there is something missing in the analysis: for example i got a 1M airdrop so it is not only buying shares, but also selling them (for plenty of us) (im not sure where i stand with this, and lately ive felt more bullish than before. and im certainly grateful because with this $ i will be able to pay myself a salary for the next months to keep building)
Everyone likes free money :)
true
a classic don't shit where you eat
i tried to understand but couldn’t. wdym?
yes, if this activity leads to a path for profitability in a demonstrable way.
I have bought tokens in this company and I will again. If fc wants active users then moxie delivered that. Many, including myself are also sharing their activity rewards on x in an attempt to onboard more users to fc
Apparently there is too much activity (but still not enough "interesting content"). That's why so many honest users are now getting spammer labels
But what if the company simply exists to employ people to be active? So as long as activity points are being earned and the workers are employed, there is no other real end goal. They aren’t “Productivity Points”. And the manager works for a bunch of people that just like to see activity, so they fund it by buying a bunch of Foxie coins and letting the manager hand them out as he sees fit. Is there a problem with activity for the sake of activity? What would change if they chose productivity to be the goal? Or to step out of the analogy: what should Moxie be earned for if not engagement to make it not seem so frivolous?
I mean obviously they're free to choose whatever metric they want, but if its activity for the sake of activity that's not going to capture much value. Just like a business can choose to employ people to be active or whatever, but it's not going to be profitable if that's all they do. Only if the activity captures value - if it leads to producing things that are in demand - that the activity is beneficial. Same for Moxie. The closer the moxie distribution is to capturing value for communities on Farcaster the more it would both incentivize people to produce more value for the ecosystem, attract more users to it, and create demand pressure for the token it bc the activity is desirable.
Do you think it is a matter of what metrics are easy to capture and automate? Engagement is easily measured and quantified without human labor. "Value to the community" of a post is not. That's not even necessarily a quality measurement, and there are overlapping communities here too that might evaluate it's value differently. I see a difference, too, in that the value that Moxie -could-provide for the Farcaster ecosystem is not value that the devs or Moxie holders would necessarily benefit from. Or at least it wouldn't be a direct effect. Moxie itself needs to be able to sustain it's own tokenomics outside of Farcaster, so the incentives are aligned to that, not the needs of Farcaster communities.
That makes sense in principle. I just don’t know what it would look like in implementation. They can’t hand out an allowance every day to thousands of people on metrics/impacts that can’t be objectively measured. Would really like to know what you would do if the redesign of the tokenomics were up to you.
how beautifully you wrote it!
Wow. That’s a reframe. How do you factor fan tokens into your metaphor where people are backing the creators that they support?
Maybe you get to decide if you want to cash out your ActivityRank points or bet those on the performance of other workers? And who said this is a metaphor for anything? It's just a fictional story 😜
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thank you Kate! 🙏
A few thoughts on spam filtering: 1. Two sides to the equation - we can't just treat this issue as if accounts that get a ton of unwanted engagement should deal with it on their own. 2. Explicit rules - we also need to recognize that newcomers to a platform are likely to adopt the same replyguy habits that build following on other platforms - the least WC can do is make the rules explicit. 3. Local instead of global filters - not everyone views spam the same. If account B replies to account A and account A doesn't want to see "spammy" replies they should have the option to filter those in their comments. But others should have the option to still see those replies It's understandable that users with 100k+ followers get lots of unwanted interactions from spammers/farmers etc. - this is not the experience of the majority of users on the platform, so they should have more customized options 4. More bottom-up curation - what input do the filter models rely on? If it's mostly from a few Merkle devs it's.. 1/
.. too narrow to reflect the view of users on the platform. Users should then have more input on this process - maybe send randomized users flagged for spamming to well established users who opt-in to review spammers (maybe even incentivize this process. 5. Better incentives - right now the easiest (easiest, not smartest/most beneficial in the long term) way to make money on the platform is thru engagement farming. It's no surprise then that users engage in it to the detriment of others who want to enjoy the platform. WC needs to make it easier for devs to build attentive incentive models on FC/WC that promote value over mere engagement. This can be done thru Extended Reactions and other features https://paragraph.xyz/@abundance/extended-reactions
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FIP(?): Why Farcaster needs Extended Reactions TL;DR: Extended Reaction will enable stronger value signals on Farcaster, which could promote high quality content (instead of farming), and create new primitives for communities and developers to leverage for growth. https://paragraph.xyz/@abundance/extended-reactions
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Thank you @downshift.eth ! 💚
good argument. i've also been advocating for flexible reactions similar to how link messages have a "type" field which is an arbitrary string