STEEM internals #4: Active and Trending posts.
Today I would like to explain the difference between active and trending posts, and why trending post algorithm is applied to two payout windows.
Active posts
A top-level post is marked as an active post after upvoting it or submitting a reply to the post or to any of its children. By marking I mean updating the timestamp of its last modification time. You may want to ask what is a top level post and what is a child. When you submit a story, it becomes a top level post. Comments to the post are its children. A top level post and all its comments form a discussion. Currently comments in Steemit can be nested up to five levels deep.
A Top-Level Post
- Comment A : level 1 (a root level, top level child)
- Comment B : level 1
- Comment C, a response to B : level 2
- Comment D, a response to C : level 3
- Comment E, a response to D : level 4
- Comment F, a response to E : level 5
- Comment E, a response to D : level 4
- Comment D, a response to C : level 3
- Comment C, a response to B : level 2
Steem utilizes the concept of nesting and taking children into account. A discussion is active even when a comment level 5 is added. Active tab in Steemit displays top level posts sorted by the active timestamp.
The conclusion is that active post tab does not display the posts that attracted a lot of readers or have received a lot of replies during last 24 hours. It just means that the posts were recently updated, upvoted or commented.
Trending posts
I found a trending post concept to be quite interesting. Trending means sorted by total cumulative payout. Total cumulative payout is a value of the payout that will be received by the top level post including all of its children.
This means that not only the post payout is taken into account but also payouts of every comment that go with the top level post. The rationale behind it is that a nested comment of a high value should promote the entire discussion. The post itself may be interesting and it will be highly rewarded but also its comments may be highly valuable and make the post trending. It is also possible that a post may have not a huge prospective payout but the comments will be so lucrative that the post will land at the top of the trending page.
Currently Steemit uses two time windows for showing trending posts: first 24h after post was submitted and then 30 days payout window. The thirty day payout window was created to help posts that do not have immediate viral success. The posts during the first month after initial payout can continue to accumulate votes (R-Shares or reward shares) and receive a big lump sum payout in the long run. After the second payout is done the whole discussion is frozen. It means that new replies are disabled and the post will not be rewarded anymore. What is interesting that users can still vote on comments in these discussions but it will not decrease their voting power. The number of upvotes will increase but there will be no more payout coming with the new upvotes.
I will try to describe a payout reward using a real example in my next post.
DISCLAIMER: THE INFORMATION IS DELIVERED FREE OF CHARGE AND 'AS IS' WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. I HOPE IT IS ACCURATE AND FREE OF ERRORS AND YOU FIND IT USEFUL.
dickbutt
https://steemit.com/dickbutt/@skeptic/dickbutt-has-taken-over-steemit
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Funny
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nice info
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