Inspired by @mazmhussain's very well written article "A View from Far(caster) Afield", what was originally going to be a simple collection of screenshots regarding Power Badges and Channel moderation settings, has turned into a 'short' story of my experience using Farcaster over the past 6 months. It is still mostly focused on Cast visibility (not Reply visibility).
This is likely all old news to the devs working on FC and small group of OG members, but I believe the vast majority of current users have not been properly informed of the way this platform works.
{Updates at the very bottom. Drastic recent changes have made most of this writing irrelevant - read if you like the history, otherwise skip to the final Oct 12 update for current changes}
TL;DR
Power Badges have been removed from the UI, but still exist in the background, and still affect Cast visibility in almost every channel.
This week there are 1847 PB holders.
We all wait for that small group to start a conversation, so the badgeless can reply.Even casters who are whitelisted by @automod and @botornot, who receive auto-likes from these mod bots, are not visible. Default PB settings overrules all.
Your original casts will only be seen by pre-existing followers, unless you find a very rare exception to the current standard.
Evidence and backstory
*Note: I am whitelisted in /higher and get auto-liked from @automod, but still hidden to others.
(skip this part if you don't care about me, there are more pictures you can look at lower down)
I am a traditional social media avoider, but I am obsessed with blockchain, in particular the ETH ecosystem. I was early to lens but never used it, a little late to Farcaster (FID 300k), and somehow it hooked me. As I watched many high profile community members switch from X to FC, and considering I am trying to transition my career path into this industry, I decided this may be a good onchain alternative to LinkedIn/X. A crypto native place to network and find opportunities, or at the very least make friends with other like minded (and differently minded) people around the world.
However, since joining Farcaster via Warpcast about 6 months ago, I have received close to 0 views or interactions on original casts. (Until very recently, now I get some interaction from my small circle of ~180 followers).
I wasn't sure why; Do people only like, reply, and follow their closest inner circle? Are there filters hiding my casts?
The most frustrating part imo, is the lack of indication regarding whether or not you are being hidden. When logged in on your own account, everything looks as though it's working - I cast, it shows up in the feed .. but no one interacts with it. My first original cast was in /six, no one interacted. I tried in /tabletop, no one interacted. I tried in /data, no one interacted. I tried in /higher, no one interacted. These were all thoughtful casts I put effort into - I have literally never written a cast that could be misconstrued as spam.
I earned my first few followers through replies, and a few Direct Casts asking for support. When I created my second high effort /higher themed mint, and it got yet again 0 views, I took to the DCs. Many had set DCs to friends-only, but I was able to chat with a few: "hey I worked on this for hours, would appreciate if you had a peek" kind of thing.
The few I spoke with were friendly and supportive. To my surprise, I got an immediate reply from @martin, who informed me I was in fact being hidden. He whitelisted me on automod, and all was well. (I've said thank you a million times and I'll say it again, tyvm)
I'm not sure for exactly how long all was well, or if it ever actually was, because now (as seen in fig 1 above) even though I get auto-liked by automod, my casts are hidden.
Note: We are talking about original Casts being hidden, not Replies.
Replies always show unless you are flagged as a bot or spammer, as far as I know.
This backstory is important to show how impossible it is for a normal user to figure out why they are nerfed, or even to notice that they are nerfed at all (considering you always see your own casts, with no notice that you are being hidden from others).
I assumed this automod filter might be the norm for most channels, so I spent most of my time restricting myself to /higher, without knowing how to tell which other channels I could cast in. Eventually /higher-athletics started a Lifting Challenge I wanted to participate in, so I DC'd @fffflood to ask for whitelist there. He investigated and got back to me: "there are no restrictions on the higher athletics channel account for any user so all people who post are the same."
Alarm bells.
This was 10 days ago, and led me to investigate more thoroughly.
Lets get on with the more recent findings. Over the past few days I have done a bunch of testing with the help of @0xmaru, most of the following casts, images, videos, are from her and I.
It is very easy to test this yourself: Simply cast in a channel, then copy/paste the url of that channel into a different browser (or log out of your current session). It's easiest using 2 browsers so you can line up the timelines and compare. If you have a PB, everything will be normal. If you don't have a PB, I bet you will notice SOMETHING IS MISSING from the "logged out" timeline.
*paragraph.xyz doesn't do much with video, and warpcast embeds are not that sexy either*
These two videos compare a logged-out Warpcast timeline, to a logged-out Recaster timeline:
↑ Warpcast feed shows only PB users.
↑ Recaster feed includes badgeless users.
More tests:
In /higher I get auto-liked by @automod, but I am still hidden from both Main and Recent
In /farplanter I get auto-liked by @botornot, but I am still hidden from both Main and Recent
In /higher-athletics where they believe there are no restrictions, I am hidden from both Main and Recent
In /dev-memes I DO show on Main 🎉 but hidden from Recent
Every other channel I've tested, I am hidden from both views
While writing this it was brought to my attention by @Pichi that if a channel is configured with the default "Warpcast sort" our messages "compete to be seen with others and your ranking in the Warpcast stack matters". And this was quickly confirmed "Correct" by @dwr.
Digging into the docs and settings, I agree this is correct, but simultaneously it is no different from what I've been saying: "the non PBs are hidden".
(Couldn't find anything about "Warpcast stack" specifically, but I believe we're talking about "Priority mode" and the "Main feed algo".)
Possibly we are talking about this dune chart by @ilemi with multiple tiers of user quality, but I haven't found any official docs on the subject, and I believe Power Badges are still the ultimate cast filtration tool (or, cast-ration tool? haha).
These docs and our experience confirm that all channels using the default sorting settings, and all accounts using default priority mode settings, will only ever see casts from: People you already follow, and people with Power Badge (currently 1847 people).
Conclusions and Additional resources
With FIDs above 835k now, and only 1847 PB holders, literally 99.77% of users potential original casts are hidden. (Obviously a ton of those are actually bots, spammers, scammers, people we genuinely don't want to see - but the numbers do seem a little extreme do they not?)
This level of filtration is unique to Warpcast. You can change the default settings in Warpcast (although I have tried this, and still have yet to find a badgeless caster who I don't already follow in any of the channels I frequent), or you can use another client, but both of these options only change what you see - neither strategy affects your exposure to others.
If you want to have a good time around here, Get bootstrapped. If you are a new user, know that it is not an even playing field out there. The recommended path to growth here is to use external resources: other platforms, other friend groups, have a large account introduce you, etc. Every new user here is treated as an uninteresting spammer until they get boosted into the coveted 0.23% PB group, or somehow earn a large enough follower count that they still get good exposure without a PB. Otherwise you will be casting into a void without knowing it.
I may be unique in my positioning as a TradSoc avoider / crypto lover, I do not have large followings on any traditional social media platforms because I have actively avoided them over the years. Following and participating in the blockchain space for more than 7 years, I hoped this would be a place where I fit in easily. And I do.. But for the past 6 months I've been casting, almost no one has seen me. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying I deserve to be in the PB group, I don't think I am in the top fraction of a single percent of crypto natives (although my normie friends say I am 🙂). There are two big projects I've been working on that I would love to launch here via Farcaster, in my own channel and in partnership with another channel here - but now realizing how 'censored' I have been - I am starting to question if this is the right place or not.
Intuition would tell most people: If you're not getting interactions on your casts, they must be low quality, and you must increase the quality of your output to get noticed. That is not the way things work here. You are guilty until proven innocent, and the proof does not come from better casting, it comes from networking outside of casting (although no FC-knight will pull you up from the trenches unless you are producing quality, so yes quality is still necessary).
The result of this tiny in-group and massive out-group dynamic is that many many MANY honest genuine good humans out there are feeling rejected, dejected, and confused as to why no one likes them.
source: @oleenamak.eth in the /higher-athletics Lifting Challenge group chat 
A current PB holder with few casts, all X reposts. Are all of the 1847 PB holders extremely good users, who cast interesting content, and put serious effort into finding and lifting up other good users? Personally I don't think so. Most may be, but certainly not all.
I don't mean to throw shade at this particular user so I have covered the name.
They are probably a really cool person and probably an ETH core dev or something badass like that because somehow they got a PB and follows from some of the highest profile accounts on FC.
But they have seemingly only ever casted reposts from X. To be exact: 1 Hello world, 1 Recast, 1 Reply, 5 X reposts. Why does this person get the rare luxury of full visibility, while everyone else is buried without knowing they are buried?A year ago when FC had fewer than 10k users, this small in-group system may have been a great method of dealing with spammers and scammers. Today when FIDs have grown nearly 100x since then, the same method of filtration is resulting in an outsized ratio of real good humans being thrown out with the bath water.
Personally I am excited for the day FC finds a way to incorporate an easy/safe way to attest our humanity (sybil protection) - rather than hiding everyone and giving an extremely small group special privilege. Always optimistic; this is not an easy problem to solve (even with a method to attest our humanity, spammers and scammers need to be dealt with), but if it can be done, I believe this is the place and these are the people that will make it happen. If it's still too early to work on a new system like that, then I suggest an improvement to the current system could be to: Review the current PB list and ensure they are all AAA users (pare it down a little more), then give those ultra-trustworthy individuals the ability to grant PBs to 3-5 other accounts, rinse and repeat a few times until a better balance is reached. The exact method could be different, just an idea, but 1847 seems to be way too small of a number relative to the current user base.
I'm not saying I deserve a PB, or that I deserve an astronomical follower count, but damn it would be nice to at least have equal visibility when I put efforts into a cast, a mint, a project launch, etc.
As promised a few extra resources and links:
Warpcast blog: link
Check Power Badge: cast action link
Farcaster Dune Charts: pixelhack, saxophones, ilemi, jkavithamahesh.
This poll is still live at the time of writing:
source: @horsefacts.eth (Channel moderation poll)
If you read all of this I love you.
If you found anything to be incorrect or misunderstood, please let me know, I would be happy to update any errors.
If you found this to be useful or enlightening, consider giving me a follow, or at least tell me you enjoyed 😺
Thanks for your time, and see you in the replies!
Update Aug 24: Shared by @Pichi a note from Aug 15 (or July 2 Zoom meeting date?)
"- power badge deprecation: out of app and sunset at end of Aug. found it's not a great measure for priority notifications etc, have better systems in place for this(instead of identify by power badge, start with weeding spammy users out)"
Maybe we will get some significant changes sooner than later! Lets see
Update Aug 27: Welp, they gave me a freaking PB this week. I guess because this write-up got a few likes and recasts from other PB holders, @dwr and @pichi replied to my thread a few times, and I've been casting a lot through the past two weeks participating in the /higher-athletics Lifting Challenge.. I won't get my hopes up for how long it lasts - lifting challenge is over and my power badge thread is (a few days) old news now, so next week I expect to be part of the badgeless majority again.
I still think this week's 2020 PB holders is a ridiculously small number relative to the 840k FIDs out there, but compared to the 50k Daily Active Users it looks slightly better at 4%.
Very curious to know what percent of the remainder are truly bad actors; spammers, farmers, scammers, bots. Certainly it is a big chunk .. but 96% ?!
Update Sept 10: Power badge depreciation has taken effect! And again they still live on! There was some transition period it seems, where @mvr discovered some neat differences between the Neynar PB list and Warpcast PB list (when they were both live).
He also discovered a portion of PB holders are flagged as spammers. This would indicate either real quality users are being wrongly labelled as spam, or bots are earning PBs (or both).
That said, I have just checked the Dune list and verified Yes the users on this list are labelled as spammers, but (even the ones I don't follow) DO NOT have hidden replies, from what I can see at least. This puts doubt in my mind as to whether the spammer list and spam checker cast action tools are correct - or maybe only a small number of specific replies are hidden, while most are visible?
[mini update: I have just found a hidden reply from a PB holder @vlady here. Most of their replies are visible, but this one in particular is hidden.]
Now, on September 10th, I noticed the Warpcast PB checker cast action failed to load, and the PB list API now returns: {"errors":[{"message":"Path /v2/power-badge-users does not exist"}]}.
It seems safe to say Warpcast no longer controls the Power Badge list, it is now maintained by Neynar.
Shoutout to @saxophone55.eth, I see he noticed the same thing, and has already posted an updated PB checker for the Neynar list.
Now in all channels I have checked; "Main" still shows only PB and follower casts, but "Recents" includes some or all badgeless casts.
Recaster has been my go-to easy way to show PBs (still works after this update), and it proves PBs are still alive and effective.**
Additionally since this update, I have personally noticed a lot more bots, low quality obvious AI casts and replies - more than last month for sure.
right: example of obvious spam showing up on Recents feed.
Who from Neynar can give us more insights on their PB rules going forward? PBs continue to drastically filter who's casts are seen, only ~4% of DAU casts are visible. The bots and farmers are a BIG problem as well. I have started reporting many spammy AI messages, they are everywhere. What a battle to solve this problem! The tiny list of PBs is not working very well, yet without it we would be buried in bots.
In my opinion, Farcaster needs sybil protection - proof of humanity. Alternatively a patch-job improvement would be to manually pare down the PB list (ensure 100% good humans), and entrust those individuals with awarding more PBs to other trusted good users, rinse and repeat to significantly grow the list while frequently checking and removing bad actors and bots that slip through the cracks.
**After posting this I just found a channel (/ai) where my cast does NOT show up on the Main feed, but I DO currently have PB on Neynar's list (and Warpcast's old list). They must have different channel settings there compared to most, but really, who knows wtf is going on.
[mini update: @y0b has informed me this is because /ai is set to host moderation, host must Like casts for them to go to Main]
More transparency on this topic would be very much appreciated. How nice would be it be to at the very least get an alert: "Although in your own feed it is visible, the cast you just made will only be seen by pre-existing followers".
Final Update Oct 12:
So much has changed in the past month, most of the above writing is irrelevant now. Some traces of the old Power Badge still kind of exist. The "activeOnFcNetwork" flag may affect frame visibility:
Dan wrote about The spam filtering dilemma:
One of his concluding points is Proof of Humanity would not solve the problem, I agree it's not a magic bullet, there would still be some malicious actors to filter in other ways, but it would be a significant start. The solution they actually implemented was hugely impactful. Here is the summary by @pichi:
and follow up:
It appears most if not all channels have been put in kind of a lockdown state - only Members casts show in the feed of a channel, and they are also the only ones to show in replies. Channel Followers (that are not Members) will be hidden below the fold on replies. And because there was no solution to comb through multiple thousands of old Followers, the Member list for most channels had to be wiped to near 0 for a true clean slate.
No bots, no spammers, no scammers, and no anyone else either. To become a member of a channel now, most of the time, you need to find a cast from the channel owner (which I don't believe is easily visible anymore?) where they offer to check and invite those that reply asking for a manual invite. Some channels have switched fully to paid hypersub subscriptions for member list, some have made a free auto-invite link that lets pretty much anyone join without filtering much or at all.
It does feel pretty different around here recently; as though the amount of spam is close to 0, and the remaining real active user number is quite small as well.
The drastic change has brought some criticism, for example:
"Exclusionary-by-default is not how to grow a young social network." it is very hard to argue with that.
But at the same time, it is very nice hanging out on FC with no piles of slop. It's almost as though my request for proof of humanity was granted: the ultimate test of humanity, can you figure out how to become a Member? It really only takes a few clicks to figure out most of the time - but it is a big enough barrier to stop the low efforts. Edit: My bad, they recently added a “Message owner” button, but still individually adding each member sounds daunting.
Even now that the dust has settled for a week and some days - I just checked a few channels, the best ratio I saw was 5% members, and most channels had 2%, 1%, or less. The /founders channel has 0.2% and /frames has 0.1% Members (visible casters) vs Followers (no casts show in feed, replies hidden below the fold).
It is massively exclusionary so far. And at the same time, it is nice chatting with real meat bags.
