RE: The Apathetic User Problem
That's an interesting idea and by itself given a clean slate I think it may work pretty well. On the current blockchain I feel that many new users would simply attach their posts to popular users regardless of the quality of their content. The popular users could simply form a ring (point to each other) and thus that small group is elevated by everyone else.
That is not to say that this is a bad idea. This may also work better in smaller communities and sub-communities as a means of organizing information and providing structure within the group. Rather than sort the information via a list, you essentially have a reputation tree / network that could be used to find related content more effectively than the disaster of a system that the current applications use.
Yes, you got it as I had thought it. The issue of attaching content to the most popular could be fixed with reward and visibility for more than one level of the tree: The more steps to the first post there are the more a post is highlighted and in return the more attachments your own post has (no matter on what subsequent level) the more you get out. Ideally,that would lead to an equilibrium in which first-posters try to get users to reply to them or reply to their repliers and repliers try to find the ideal position in the top while still getting enough highlighted.
yeah, this is really something that needs to be fixed here on Steemit as well. The search bar doesn't work at all for me. I have go via google site: if I want to find something here. The lack of love they have put into steemit is astonishing.
PS: your q-filter works. I found 2 interesting posts with it:)