Make the trending page great again - 'organic trending'
Hello Steemians,
Unless you are extremely new to Steemit, or have been living under a rock, you will at least have some idea and views on the state of the ‘Trending’ section. The trending section is where the blogs with the most attention/payouts appear, however with the rise of upvote bots the payouts of the trending sections has been increasing (making it harder and harder for minnows to compete and get noticed).
As at this stage there is no real quality control over buying votes, the overall quality of the trending section is arguably quite low. I am even starting to notice the same trend in the ‘hot’ section. There is tons of great quality posts out there in the land of Steemit, but it is getting buried by these inflated posts.
Yes there is a ‘promoted’ tab, where the idea was for Steemians to pay to have their posts boosted and seen by more eyes in the promoted tab. This has been a bit of a failure - I know for me I don't even look at promoted tab, and most eyes tend to be on the trending page. I’d love to hear whether others actually look at the Promoted section
The trending section is the first page that opens up when someone new comes to check out Steemit - and eyes light up when they see what people are posting and making thousands of dollars.
Articles like this aren't helping: How to earn thousands of Steem dollars (SBD) daily on SteemIt
Yes there are a very small number of people on Steemit that make huge amounts of money, but most of them were early investors to Steemit, when the price was considerably lower. I have been on here for 2 months and some of my posts are now earning 1 - 2 dollars - and I consider myself to be doing quite well. I think there is potential to earn $20 - $30 or more on excellent posts without paid upvotes, if you realise how Steemit works and build a genuine following. Just realise this will not happen overnight!,
It seems for now that the bots are here to stay (although in the future lets hope there are some regulations put into place - they are helping underrated posts steal from the reward pool). So rather than focus on the bots I suggest that Steemit creates an ‘organic trending’ page to even out the playing field and help out minnows and Steemians with great content be noticed for their efforts.
Organic trending.
I have no real knowledge of programming so this is just an idea I wanted to share to start some discussion and see whether it could be an option in the future.
I propose that Steemit has two trending pages - the regular trending page as it is and an organic trending page. The organic trending page would subtract any votes that have been paid for (this should be able to be done fairly easily, as the majority of bots are on www.steembottracker.com).
I think the organic trending page should be the front page of Steemit, as it will give a more accurate view to new Steemians as to what they might expect if they make exceptional content (I imagine the payouts would be far less than posts that have been upvoted by bots).
I think what this could lead to is that the trending page would turn into more of a ‘promotion’ type page where certain posts are paid for, and the organic trending page would act as a ‘curation filter’ and give minnows, and un noticed authors who write great content a lot more a chance of being seen and getting the recognition they deserve.
What about self upvotes?
I think if the idea of organic trending were to be successful it would also need to take into account and deduct self upvotes - why? Some of the whales on Steemit have massive amounts of SP, and so if they post something and self upvote it will still make their post alot more likely to make it to the top of the organic trending page, and thus make it less effective.
I think that as Steemit starts to mature and become more popular there needs to be a way to help out minnows and get more eyes (and upvotes!) on great and unnoticed content.
I think that my proposed ‘organic trending’ section could fix some of these issues.
Thank you for reading and I would love to hear your thoughts!
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Loved the idea!
I've been on Steemit for 88 days now (just looked up on steemd and my God, time goes really fast!) and I don't remember even remembering the promoted section; I've probably clicked it in the first few days, but I have been having this same view of the trending page: bots, bots, bots (and some steemit abusers with multiple accounts).
Something that's always on my mind nowadays is to always make content you like, and especially that you like making! The quality of posts depend directly on that, even though we don't think about it that often.
I've always liked creating content, writing and all this jazz, and I've never seen something that combines so well with this new "environment" created by the Internet as the blockchain and Steem.
Keep steeming mate, great post!
Thanks for the awesome reply 😄
Yeah its tough at first when you realise that most of the posts on trending are inflated and it will take months if not years on here to build a solid and genuine following
I think comments should also somehow matter as well as votes. Although that can be automated/botted as well. I never look at the promoted tab.
I'm really enjoying Ginabot that you suggested and it's made it so much easier to keep up with the writers I like. Sometimes I think if Steemit would just invest in some UI features and upgrades to make it easier for people to keep up with the content and manage it better would be helpful. I hear what you're saying about the Trending page but I also do see some "celebrity" (i.e. known names in their respective genre, or having come from being popular on youtube) types Trending usually and people who work hard to build their audience. To be honest those posts are genuinely popular... I haven't seen a lot on trending that I thought "oh man that's totally fake pumped and doesn't deserve to trend." Do you have stats or something you saw that makes you think that or is it just personal observation? Thanks man!
Yeah totally agree although Steemit is still relatively new so changes will come over time! Yeah Ginabot is brilliant, glad you are finding it helpful - sometimes peoples posts can get lost in the feed.
Yeah I see a few from time to time - I hear what your saying there are popular people who make trending aswell - some just put more effort in than others. There are a few I have noticed but I wont name names
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As a newbie, and without knowing very much about how the site has developed, I appreciate your contribution. I'm here to post good quality content and be modestly rewarded, but it seems visibility is a problem and the playing could hardly be less level. Your organic trending page idea is clearly desirable but just as clearly certain to be unwelcome to some those with the power, who are presumably happy with things as they stand. It seems to be the flaw at the heart of Steemit's decentralized model: there are no enforceable rules, which brings out the worst in people, just as it only takes a riot for people to go right out and start looting the stores. The encouraging thing is there seems to be a feeling that something must be done and I've seen plenty of posts beside yours putting forward constructive suggestions. Good luck.
Thanks. It seems like the reward pool is more and more being transferred to the whales. Lets hope over time there is a solution to encourage and help us new Steemians get some more recognition
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