Let me preface this by saying that even though Read and Noise are part of the same family, it still feels weird posting a tutorial on here for how to use there. Noise apparently has a character limit on their posts, and my tutorial ended up having to be broken into 3 different smaller posts. I think posting here will be better in the long-run, as not only can my post be longer, but I can also use some proper formatting and include screenshots. That said, this is still a work in progress.
This whole thing came about because I notice a lot of similar questions being asked around the site a lot, and I've noticed a lot of new users mistaking spam posts as proper etiquette and ending up going down the wrong path.
Please feel free to drop a comment with any corrections I need to make, or any points that I could expand on. If the Noise admins want to take this and turn it into something a bit nicer and more official, be my guest... Same goes for anybody that wants to do a translation of this guide.
DISCLAIMER: I do not work for Noise. I just really dig the community here and wanted to contribute something back that I hope will bring positive change.
1. GETTING STARTED
Welcome to noise.cash! Before fully embracing the community and engaging on this site, I'd suggest lurking a bit to get a feel for the basics of how things work. The site is pretty simple and intuitive, but there are some traps you could fall victim to without realizing it. I hope this guide will help you become one of the upstanding members of the Noise community.
Let's start by looking along the top of the site - you'll notice at the top, it's broken down into 4 sections: Subscriptions, Chambers, Explore, and Search.
2. SUBSCRIPTIONS
The subscriptions section will show you the posts from people that you have chosen to subscribe to. As each member creates new posts, they will appear in your Subscriptions section. For more information on subscribing, see 13. SUBSCRIBING TO ACCOUNTS/CHAMBERS
3. CHAMBERS & CHANNELS [Updated 2021-07-23]
Chambers and Channels are communities where you can post content. They function similarly, but are quite different at the same time.
Chambers function somewhat like hashtags. You can post to a chamber (but only one per post) and have it set as almost like a "topic" for that post. Chamber posts will show up on the explore page, and in the main feed of people who follow you. Users that have you "red belled" will also be notified of posts you make in chambers. Chambers can be really good for expanding your reach by helping more people find you, and also by helping you find other, like-minded users. There is one downside to chambers, though - they're not moderated. There's nothing (outside of their good conscience) from stopping somebody from posting some absolutely unrelated garbage into a chamber, and said chamber turning into a dumping ground for low-effort garbage posts. To post to a chamber, go to the "chambers" link on the top of the page, then find a chamber you want to post to. Upon accessing the chamber, you will be able to write your post and have it apply to the chamber. It will also show you all the other posts that have been made to that chamber.
Channels are similar to chambers in that they are still small communities in which you can post content that relates to a particular topic, however unlike chambers, channels are moderated. Every first post made in a channel will sit in an approval queue until one of the moderators has had a chance to review and approve the post. At this point, the moderator has the option to allow all of your future posts to be automatically approved as well. Also unlike chamber posts, channel posts may not appear on subscriber feeds unless they are also subscribed to the channel, however users who have "red belled" you will still get the notification of your post. Channel posts are a great way to make niche posts that you don't necessarily want to bother your whole party of subscribers with. There are also some really large channels that you can try posting to to expand your reach as well. They also have some decent content.
4. EXPLORE
The Explore tab is pretty much the "wild west" of Noise. By default, the Explore page will try to show personalized recommendations. I'm not too sure how this filtering works, or how accurate it is... but it seems to do an okay job at showing me things that I might be interested in. Clicking the "Show All" text link will (I think) show you all the posts going on Noise, with the newest at the time of the page loading being at the top. This page includes self-posts and chamber posts. The explore tab is a great way to find users that you might be interested in following.
5. SEARCH
The Search section is pretty self-explanatory. It lets you search a topic and will return users, chambers, and posts that relate to the term you searched.
6. ETIQUETTE
This is a big one, and one that I think a lot of new users don't fully understand. While there are a lot of decent users on this site, there are also a lot of spammers and beggars that might be giving new users the wrong idea. These people often post comments like simple emojis, or one word responses like "wow" or "good". Often times you will also see people mentioning that they have subscribed and/or tipped a person, and are asking that person to do the same back. This is also very much frowned upon and in violation of the first rule of the site. If you want people to sub/tip you, please take the time to leave insightful comments and write meaningful posts. Don't copy pictures from google and quotes out of books and flood the site with them. Be original. Be creative. You can still create funny posts that are creative and relevant to the times.
7. CREATING BETTER POSTS
This might also be a tricky topic to think about at first. If you're new to the site, that's cool. Explore a bit and get familiar with things. The posts themselves are plain text-only. At the time of writing this, there is no markup/markdown to do bold/italic/underlined text. There is no way to create links with alt text. It's quite cut-and-dry. Posts are also limited to a maximum of 5 pictures. So be mindful of these limitations when creating your posts. If you're having trouble thinking about something creative to write about, consider the fact that Noise has a pretty global audience. What's normal and every day for you, might be something totally new and different to somebody else in another part of the world. Share bits of your life, culture, and/or country that you're comfortable with sharing. Sometimes creative content is easier than you might expect! Try to make your posts engaging, too. Ask open-ended questions for us to respond back to. We can all learn something new! Also, be mindful of your subscribers. People probably don't want to see 500 posts from you a day. Try to limit the things you share and ask yourself if the post you're about to make is *really* worth posting - especially if you just posted something else a few minutes earlier. Posting too much could lead to people unsubscribing from you.
8. CREATING BETTER COMMENTS
Despite the flood of "SDONE" and other begging comments you might see, these accounts very rarely get any sort of positive engagement or tips. They rarely get subscribers, except for other spam/beggar accounts. Do not let these people convince you that their ways are acceptable as falling into their ways will lead you to further problems...
9. HEAR TIPS (formerly free tips) [edited 2021-05-07]
As of May 7 2021, the Free Tips program has ended and been completely replaced by the Heart Tip system. With each heart you leave on a post/comment, you give the person a tip from 1-3 cents under a few conditions:
Your account must be in good standing (see 12. ACCOUNT RATING)
The person whose content you are hearting is is good standing.
10. TIPPING COMMENTS AND POSTS
There are two ways to tip posts. The most commonly used method is the previously mentioned "Free Tips" option where you'll use the money given to you by the site to tip with. The other option is the QR Code to tip from your own wallet. It's a nice way to still give money to people when the free money has dried up, and I'm sure the site admins and donators (or just Marc? lol) appreciate us using some of our own money when we can to pay it forward. You can even just tip out of the wallet you have your FreeTip money going into so you can pay some of your earnings forward. When tipping with FreeTips, you'll notice a few things. At the top of the window are preset values that you can quickly select, or if you want to tip something not on there, you can click "Custom" and manually enter the value (or use the slider). There's also a "Percentage to yourself" that you can change. When tipping with free tips, a percentage of the value you choose is given back to you. If you wish to change this, you can click the "change" button and select a new percentage. The site will allow you to pick anything from 20%-80%. Keep in mind, the intention of tipping is to reward other users for their content. The information is all relatively private, but I think most people would agree that taking more than 50% of somebody else's reward is a bit selfish. The other thing to keep in mind is dusting. Dusting is a term used for receiving very tiny transactions - at a very surface level BCH network fees are based on the number of transactions that make up the value that you're sending. As you can imagine, lots of very small deposits to your wallet will end up costing you more to move. These tiny fractions-of-cents transactions are known as "dust". With this in mind, remember that all FreeTips use the %, so if you tip 1 cent to somebody, even with the slider all the way down you're really only giving them 80% of 1 cent and dusting yourself with 20% of 1 cent. It's completely personal opinion here, but I prefer to wait until I have at least 2 cents before I tip anything just to prevent as much of the dusting as possible.
11. "HEARTING" COMMENTS AND POSTS
Much like other social media platforms, Noise has a "Heart" feature, which is another way of like acknowledging a post. Hearting doesn't cost anything and doesn't notify a poster when it has been done. It's a good way to track how popular a post is, but doesn't hold much function beyond that. I still suggest hearting anything you like, as it's proper etiquette and helps content creators get an idea of how many people are interacting with their posts.
12. ACCOUNT RATING (Feature has been removed)
As mentioned earlier in this post, being an upstanding Noiser is important. It means access to FreeTips and also lets you get away with a bit more in the comments that might normally trigger the word filters. The intent is that if you're a good/excellent user, you're probably using those terms in good faith to explain how NOT to do something, whereas if you're a spammer, you're probably just using them to beg. Account rating can be done by any Good or Excellent account on the site. To rate a user you'll need to have an account that has an overall rating of GOOD or EXCELLENT. Go to the user's profile that you wish to rate and look at their overall posts. If the content appears to be unique and original, then they're off to a good start. Next you'll want to click the "Show Replies" link on their page to get an idea of what sort of comments they're leaving on other people's posts. Often times this is where you'll discover whether or not the user is a spammer - many appear to have good posts, but then you see the replies and they're all just simple emojis, one-word posts, or subscription/tip begging. Based on how you feel, give the account the most appropriate ranking from SPAM to EXCELLENT. If you're unsure of the account, use the middle option with the "shrug" emoji
13. SUBSCRIBING TO ACCOUNTS/CHAMBERS
To subscribe to an account or chamber, go to the account/chamber and click the "Subscribe" button. You'll notice the "Subscribe" button turns a darker shade and says "Subscribed". You can cancel your subscription at any time by clicking the button again. In the case of account subscriptions, you will notice a little speaker with an "x" beside it. You can click on this to change it to a red bell, meaning that you will get a notification any time the person makes a post. Should you wish to turn this off, just click the bell again and it will go back to the speaker with the "x". Accounts can also be subscribed to and managed by clicking on the username at the top-left corner of their post/comment. It will drop down a little window with some basic options (Subscribe/unsubscribe, notify/mute, and view profile)
14. REPORTING CONTENT
As a functional member of the Noise community, you'll want to try to keep the site clean by reporting spam/begging and other potentially unsafe content. To do this, just click the little "⦸" icon on the bottom-right corner of the offending post. The section will then darken and you'll be given choices from there. You can report the content, ignore the user, block the user, or undo if you accidentally clicked the icon. In most cases, you'll want to click the "Report" choice, select the most appropriate REPORT type from the list that shows up (most likely the begging for tips/subs), and then click "Send" to send the report. A text box is also included before you click "Send" in case there's any context you may need to add. This is especially important for non-English content that the admins may be totally unaware of and/or unable to understand.
15. TIPS TO GROW A HEALTHY ACCOUNT
To really get the most out of noise.cash, you'll want to form healthy friendships with people on the site. I've personally found the best way to do this is simply by browsing the EXPLORE section of the site and finding posts and discussions that look interesting. When leaving comments, remember to be respectful and leave engaging comments - something more than just "wow" or "cool". Tell the person what exactly you find so cool about their post, or what it was that really drew you in. Letting them know you're human is the best way to get things started. As previously mentioned, also remember to not overdo it with posts - much like you probably wouldn't want your SUBSCRIPTIONS feed to be completely flooded by one or two people, your subscribers probably wouldn't want that from you, either. Do your best to limit the posts you make. If you feel that making a post soon after a previous one, just make sure that it's for a good reason and provides something that you feel other people would also enjoy. The occasional 2-3 posts of "okay" content now and again probably won't bother anybody... just don't make it an all-day-every-day kind of ordeal.
16. RENOISING CONTENT
Renoising is a way to share content that you've found from other users that you want to help share. Renoising is done by clicking the little loopy-rectangle icon on the bottom of the post. When you renoise, you'll have two options - you can either just straight mirror their post to your feed (and all your subscribers will see it) - this is called "renoise", or you can renoise with a comment so you can add your own comments to the top of the post. It's important to understand the difference in the two - if you straight renoise, all tips, hearts, and comments will go straight on the original author's post. If you renoise with a comment, then the comments and hearts will go to your post, and the tips will be split - The way it is split will depend on how much you choose to take for yourself, and the breakdown itself will be visible in the tips pop-up showing how much you, the renoiser, and the original author will receive(no longer relevant). In either case, the author of the post being renoised will be notified that you have shared their content. Content that has been renoised will show a small number beside the "renoise" button to show how many times it has been renoised. There is currently no way to see each of the renoised copies from the main post.
17. LINKING YOUR WALLET
If you're not sure where to start, I would suggest using Noise's recommendation of the "bitcoin.com wallet" app. Once installed, you need to go to create a BCH wallet and then go to the "Receive" section to get a link to receive money. Copy this code, and then go to your Noise profile, click your username at the top-right of the page, and then click "Wallet" from the menu. The Wallet page will ask you for your code - paste the code from your bitcoin.com wallet in there, then click save. Once completed, you should find the tips you receive on Noise appearing in your Bitcoin.com wallet app.
18. DON'T BE A SPAMMER!
One major issue on the platform right now is spam comments - people begging for followers and tips. You'll notice a lot of posts like "sdone", "tdone back", etc. These are people basically trying to tell you that they have subscribed/tipped you and expect you to do the same back to them. These spammers will comment on every post and comment that they can and it really pollutes the site; but sadly it's an endless battle against them. Your best course of action is to report the content (see 14. REPORTING CONTENT) and move on. It's important to remember that your account is totally yours to manage. You should be subscribing to accounts that you find interesting and/or engaging, and you should be tipping comments and posts that you feel are good quality and deserve a tip.
Anyway, that's all I can think of off the top of my head. I kinda wish I ordered this a bit differently, but what can ya do? lol. Hopefully this helps get things started. Feel free to drop a comment on here if there's anything I missed, or anything I could explain better. I look forward to seeing you around here!
Noise on! 🤘🏻
Good post. How does one block a user?