draft optional author:mikedilger
A special replaceable event meaning "Relay List Metadata" is defined as an event with kind 10002 having a list of r tags, one for each relay the author uses to either read or write to.
The primary purpose of this relay list is to advertise to others, not for configuring one's client.
The content is not used and SHOULD be blank.
The r tags can have a second parameter as either read or write. If it is omitted, it means the author both reads from and writes to that relay.
Clients SHOULD, as with all replaceable events, use only the most recent kind-10002 event they can find.
If an author advertises a write relay in a kind 10002 event, that means that feed-related events created by the author, which the author wants their followers to see, will be posted there. Normally these would be kind-1 Text Note events, but are not limited as such.
Clients SHOULD presume that if their user has a pubkey in their ContactList (kind 3) that it is because they wish to see that author's feed-related events. But clients MAY presume otherwise.
If an author advertises a read relay in a kind 10002 event, that means that the author may be subscribed to events that tag them on such relays. Clients SHOULD publish events that tag someone on at least some of the read relays of the person being tagged.
There is a common nostr use case where users wish to follow the content produced by other users. This is evidenced by the implicit meaning of the Contact List in NIP-02
Because users don't often share the same sets of relays, ad-hoc solutions have arisen to get that content, but these solutions negatively impact scalability and decentralization:
- Most people are sending their posts to the same most popular relays in order to be more widely seen
- Many people are pulling from a large number of relays (including many duplicate events) in order to get more data
- Events are being copied between relays, oftentimes to many different relays
The purpose of this NIP is to help clients find the events of the people they follow, to help tagged events get to the people tagged, and to help nostr scale better.
It is suggested that people spread their kind 10002 events to many relays, but write their normal feed-related events to a much smaller number of relays (between 2 to 6 relays). It is suggested that clients offer a way for users to spread their kind 10002 events to many more relays than they normally post to.
Authors may post events outside of the feed that they wish their followers to follow by posting them to relays outside of those listed in their "Relay List Metadata". For example, an author may want to reply to someone without all of their followers watching.
It is suggested that relays allow any user to write their own kind 10002 event (optionally with AUTH to verify it is their own) even if they are not otherwise subscribed to the relay because
- finding where someone posts is rather important
- these events do not have content that needs management
- relays only need to store one replaceable event per pubkey to offer this service
Even though this is user related metadata, it is a separate event from kind 0 in order to keep it small (as it should be widely spread) and to not have content that may require moderation by relay operators so that it is more acceptable to relays.
{
"kind": 10002,
"tags": [
["r", "wss://alicerelay.example.com"],
["r", "wss://brando-relay.com"],
["r", "wss://expensive-relay.example2.com", "write"],
["r", "wss://nostr-relay.example.com", "read"],
],
"content": "",
...other fields