I think odds are high this war with Iran won't be short. Russia benefits from the US being bogged down in another long conflict, just as the US benefits when Russia is bogged down in Ukraine. China is winning.

I think the only real solution might be simple. Simple but very difficult. Never assist evil. If people truly followed that, America and Israel would be nearly empty of people fleeing who could not in good conscience pay taxes to those regimes. But people rationalize, say they don't have a choice (even though they know they do have the capability to move). And thus evil wins. The only people who think clearly on this seem to me to be the Muslims.

IMHO regarding coverage: clients don't need to find a minimum set with maximum coverage. Clients can just connect to 500 relays to follow 500 people. It still works. But of course it is more efficient to do otherwise, and especially if some relays are down, to find the set that is up and covers everyone.

I think (as you describe in (8) that real world considerations probably far outweigh theoretical algorithm choices. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't bother to get the algorithms right.

Yeah, I got cobwebs in my brain still about nostr.

Clearly relays need to filter nasty things.

But if the option Leo suggests (asking the relay to filter by WoT) were filtered at the relay (rejecting events outside of the WoT when they arrive, instead of when they are downloaded) then that relay could only really serve as a personal inbox relay for the one person.

Sorry I keep thinking about write relays not inbox relays. Just ignore my wanderings here. I need another coffee.

Like I say, I'm not sure what the performance impact is without trying it. It saves some, it costs some. Should be explored. In any case if I follow 500 people, which relays am I asking this of? My presumption is that I still find those 500 people's write relays and go ask them, which means I wouldn't be "subscribed" to many of these relays, or I'd have to sign up to a lot of relays, or else relays also have to shuttle from other relays.

looks good

In general I agree with both of you. Filtering can be done either side. Personally I prefer client-side filtering and dumb relays because it puts me in control. I don't get to choose the relay that has the right censorship policies. The people I follow choose the relays, not me. But that only affects their posts and it makes some sense too.

Asking relays to compute WoT so you don't have to upload long lists of pubkeys has performance consequences and I'm not sure if it is better or worse.