I see multiple use cases for channels:
- Channel purpose -
Topical aggregators: A place to post about a topic unrelated to any specific community or project you're in. Optionality to get new user discovery from varying degrees of connection in your trust network.
- Use Case -
/dogs
Some people may want to follow /dogs to see random dog casts or to engage in dog related conversations. If they opt in to a topic like dogs, this should signal the feed to incorporate dog posts, prioritizing people in their trust network but also pulling from casters in dogs for new user discovery. Could modulate how many degrees from you on your trust network it pulls from.
Others may wish to only have a place to share there dog thoughts, but otherwise only engage primarily with those who follow them and not get user discovery from that topic. This allows them to "tag" their cast with a topic to isolate it to those in their trust network sharing this interest to increase social bonds between existing connections without spamming topics to followers who aren't interested, causing churn.
- Gating -
The idea here is that instead of every community having a private dog channel everyone from every community can use the same /dogs and let the social graph and user preferences create their desired 'cozy corner' effect within that global community.
So whatever gating is necessary for preventing spam is fine. If that means interacting w/ a frame to join a channel to gain casting privileges for the first time, that's ok.
- Features -
Narrowcasting the only option for these channels. If users aren't forced to narrowcast to these topics, then you need to give followers the option to opt-out of certain topics. Giving both casters and followers the ability to control a more dynamic relationship w/ members of their social graph is necessary to prevent churn.
With narrowcasting to topics, followers can opt in to topics from specific casters by following that topic and caster and adjusting their settings in the channel as desired.
Alternatively, some users may only want to follow that topic for one specific caster. In this case, allowing followers to subscribe to a topic from a caster without following the rest of the channel or some alternative solution.
- Channel purpose -
Public dashboard for projects & orgs.
- Use Case -
/Warpcast
This could vary from channel to channel. Some projects may just want a central place to post announcements and let others share topically relevant information back. Discussion would be encouraged, but highly encouraged to stay focused on topic.
This is where the topical channel features would help encourage new user discovery as people find other fans of Warpcast that also like dogs. They can now talk about dogs in /dogs or privately, building the strength of their connection over Warpcast indirectly, without having to involve anyone else in the /Wapcast channel that are uninterested in this topic. Those that are would be invited by nature of the trust network of these two complimentary channel types.
- Gating -
These channels could want to be publicly readable but require you become a member to post. Gating is then left to the org itself to derive an appropriate method, but it likely would require something onchain. It's possible something offchain could be used as well, however, if the group wanted.
- Features -
Other projects may also want to add 'subchannels' that are things like:
a. Support Request
b. Collab Offer
c. Feature Discussion
or any number of other sub-topics that are relevant to their organization and community of followers. Some followers may want to opt in/out of specific sub-topics. Some sub-topics might want to not be public and have an additional filter such as an onchain identifier (hold an NFT or Credential) to get access to read the content.
Having an official 'announcements' feature, whether its a subchannel or a different delivery mechanism. Users could choose to sign up for different types of announcements to have them pushed either via notification or simply by having them prioritized in the home feed.
These channels could have options between narrowcasting and widecasting by default. Certain subchannels may need to be narrowcasted. Some may want to give users the choice to do either.
Followers should be able to easily 'unfollow' any channel or subchannel, however, without unfollowing the user themself. If they simply don't want to see casts about a specific org or project, but otherwise want to follow a user, this should be a toggle. A list of 'unfollowed' channels would be helpful for users wishing to review their settings.
- Channel purpose -
Curated Communities
- Use Case -
Anything from /six to members of a specific hypersub.
The idea here is that people should be able to spin up a member-only channel from basically anything that is onchain. Subscribe to a paragraph blog? part of a channel. Mint a hypersub? Channel. The fewer barriers to making this happen the more useful it becomes. It increases your surface area for new user discovery, just like with the topical channels working with your org channels.
If you sign up to a Hypersub it should automatically put you into the private farcaster channel and private chat; simplest way to put it.
- Gating -
Everything is gated by some form of onchain proof to keep the community culture intact. Because of that it's highly configurable, but does require at least some level of onchain interaction, even if subsidized to remain 'free'.
- Features -
Could be anything from a topic channel to a full decentralized community utilizing sub-channels and announcements. Biggest feature is just that any onchain criteria can be programmed to control a channel membership.
Could even be a way of 'minting' people into a group. By leveraging the trust networks established from the topic channels as well as org channels, users could allow certain groups access to mint them into a channel (or group chat!) by sending them something onchain.
