Views=156, comments=39, and votes=105. That is an indication of being a good post. Number 1 people looked at it. Number 2 is a good amount of those that viewed the post interacted with the post, and Number 3 the votes are in-line with the views.
I wish that if a post is going to go on the trending page, or hot page, then it should have absolutely nothing to do with votes, but should be based on the number of views it received. After all a 868 votes does not equate to 868 people actually taking the time to read, comment and vote on that blog post, just an indication that they may have bought a lot of votes.
you have a good point, the trending page being driven by post returns rather than post engagement is definitely a negative for the site. Surely Steemit can create some algos that will churn posts to the top which are attracting community engagement through a combination of views and comments.
Agreed. The argument for the current system I've seen, though, is that the big numbers at the top will attract people to sign up. But I'd argue great content would be more of a draw.