Thread

Steve here - saving first pass at this after prompting this up based on the OG thread here: <<<https://primal.net/e/nevent1qqs9jggva4lgfrs2wacv6cnqerzekf6y7vf0jaqn878ktqhzqs6k97sx80z9x>>>

I think this is a good start... and I may even have a NIP coming together for a CR-style review event type. If someone sees this and thinks it's worth submitting, I'll likely need some help figuring that out. 👀🔥💪 I do like the looks of NIP-345.

Below is a drafted article followed by a concrete, implementable NIP proposal for “Source Review” events that fits naturally into Nostr/Primal-style ecosystems and consumer-report use cases.

Know Your Source (KYS): Trust, Transparency, and the Next Evolution of Online Marketplaces

Online marketplaces have grown faster than the trust systems that support them. Today, buyers are routinely asked to surrender personal information—government IDs, selfies, biometric scans, addresses—before they can transact. This framework, commonly referred to as Know Your Customer (KYC), assumes that shifting risk onto the buyer is acceptable, necessary, and effective.

But KYC only solves one side of the trust equation.

The Asymmetry of Trust in Modern Commerce

KYC demands a high degree of implicit trust from buyers toward sellers and platforms. Customers must believe that:

Their personal data will be stored securely
It will not be misused, leaked, sold, or repurposed
The platform itself is acting in good faith

Meanwhile, sellers often remain opaque. Consumers may have little to no insight into:

Where a product comes from
Who produced it
Under what conditions it was made
Whether claims about quality, ethics, or sustainability are true

This creates a trust asymmetry: buyers are fully exposed, while sellers face minimal obligation to disclose their practices.

Introducing Know Your Source (KYS)

Know Your Source (KYS) flips this imbalance.

KYS is the idea that products, services, and producers themselves should be inspectable, reviewable, and verifiable—without requiring buyers to compromise their privacy. Instead of forcing consumers to reveal more about themselves, KYS encourages sellers and communities to reveal more about origins, methods, and accountability.

KYS does not replace KYC in regulated environments, but it complements—and in many marketplaces, improves upon—it by shifting transparency upstream.

Why KYS Matters in Decentralized and Emerging Marketplaces

As marketplaces move toward decentralized infrastructure (Bitcoin payments, Nostr-based identity, peer-to-peer commerce), traditional enforcement mechanisms weaken. This makes reputation, provenance, and shared knowledge more important than ever.

Without a structured approach, information about sources becomes:

Arbitrary
Fragmented
Hard to compare
Easy to game

KYS requires standardized, machine-readable structures so that source information can be aggregated, filtered, and evaluated over time—much like consumer reports.

From Products to “Sources”

A source in KYS terms can be almost anything:

A farm
A factory
A brand
An individual producer
A service provider
A digital product origin
A supply-chain node

Sources may link to products, services, or verifiable items, but they exist as first-class entities that can be reviewed independently of any single listing or platform.

This distinction matters: products come and go, but sources persist.

The Role of Open Review Events

In an open protocol environment like Nostr, KYS can be implemented through signed review events that allow anyone to publish consumer-style source reviews. These reviews can be:

Pseudonymous
Censorship-resistant
Publicly auditable
Aggregated by clients like Primal

Trust then emerges not from identity disclosure, but from history, consistency, and collective assessment.

Mockup/Domain concept and NIP planning

There are several intuitive, brandable and recognizable domain names available for testing and development of an end user review or reporting system.

nostreview | com
nostrrate | com
nostrvw | com
enduserreports | com

Shakespeare AI mock-up planning

Go to <https://shakespeare.diy/> (sign in with your Nostr keys—npub/nsec).
Start a new project and describe something like:
- "Create a Nostr client for decentralized product reviews."
- "Users can search for a product (by name or URL), submit a star rating (1-5) and text review as a kind 2020 event."
- "Display a feed of reviews for a selected product, filtered by tags (e.g., 'p' for product identifier)."
- "Include update/delete support via replaceable events."
- Reference existing ideas: "Base it on the open NIP proposal for reviews (kind 2020/32020) or use NIP-32 labeling for ratings."
Iterate: Ask the AI to add features like aggregation (average rating), sorting by zaps, or trust weighting via social graph.
Test live: It connects to real relays, so you can publish/view actual events.
Export/deploy: Download code for further dev, or share the live preview link to gather feedback for your NIP PR.

Draft NIP: Source Review Event

Below is a proposed NIP-style event format for publishing Know Your Source Draft NIP: Source Review Event

Below is a proposed NIP-style event format for publishing Know Your Source reviews.

Event Kind

kind: 34500  // (example – final number TBD)

Purpose

To publish structured, consumer-report-style reviews of sources (producers, vendors, service providers, origins, or supply-chain entities).

Core Fields

{
  "kind": 34500,
  "created_at": 1700000000,
  "content": "Optional free-form review text describing experience, observations, or concerns.",
  "tags": [
    ["d", "unique-source-review-id"],
    ["source", "source-identifier"],
    ["name", "Acme Small Batch Spices"],
    ["category", "food", "seasonings"],
    ["rating", "4", "5"],
    ["review_type", "product_origin"],
    ["location", "US-GA"],
    ["verified", "false"],
    ["link", "https://example.com"],
    ["product", "sku:survival-seasoning-batch-2"],
    ["service", "optional"],
    ["method", "small-batch", "hand-packed"],
    ["date_observed", "2025-01"],
    ["confidence", "medium"]
  ]
}

Required Tags

| Tag | Description | | ---------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | source | A stable identifier for the source (npub, URL, DID, domain, or agreed string) | | name | Human-readable source name | | category | One or more high-level categories | | rating | Simple rating system: score, max (e.g. 4/5) |

Optional Tags

| Tag | Description | | --------------- | --------------------------------------------------- | | location | Country, region, or city | | verified | Whether the reviewer personally verified the source | | product | Related product identifier | | service | Related service identifier | | method | Production or operational methods | | date_observed | When the reviewer interacted with the source | | confidence | Reviewer confidence level: low / medium / high | | link | Reference link (website, listing, proof) |

Rating System (Simple & Composable)

Integer-based (1–5 recommended)
Clients may display stars, bars, or numeric values
Multiple reviews can be averaged or weighted by trust metrics

Design Principles

No mandatory identity disclosure
Signed assertions, not claims of fact
Composable across clients
Human-readable and machine-indexable
Extensible without breaking compatibility

Toward Accountable Markets Without Surveillance

Know Your Source is not about forcing compliance—it’s about enabling informed choice. When buyers can easily inspect where things come from, who made them, and how others have evaluated those sources, trust becomes emergent rather than coerced.

KYS shifts marketplaces from permission-based trust to evidence-based trust.

In an era where privacy is scarce and centralized guarantees are eroding, knowing your source may be the most powerful consumer protection tool we have.

Know Your Source (KYS)