When you look at the Trending header on Steemit, you're actually looking at the Whale Picks on Steemit. Trending indicates that more people are voting for a post, not select individuals with huge accounts. So, trending is not exactly accurate. I think it would be more accurate to have Steemit with the Whale Picks header. It would at least be more honest and transparent:
Then, the hot category can be used for people who want to see what is getting the most votes. I have no idea how the algorithm can be fixed, but the unfair quality of Steemit, with whale accounts determining the monetary rewards for bloggers is, I think the central problem with Steemit.
I just took an informal survey from some of my friends who have abandoned Steemit for good, and one of them says the unfair rewards, with the Trending page not really meaning trending is one of the biggest reasons she left.
If we look at a very successful platform, Medium, you will notice that they have a section clearly marked at the top indicating the Editor's Picks.
The Whales on Steemit are the same as the Editors on Medium. Steemit could learn a lot from Medium about user engagement. Also, notice how inviting it is to look at on the opening page. (More on that later).
I'm currently tracking down a bunch of dead users, and so far I've found many of my friends whom I dragged in and others I used to converse with here: @veralynn, @ann-hoy, @patrick-g, @trevorjenglish and others. I've reached out to many of them on Facebook to find out why they left Steemit. So far here are their answers:
unfair voting scheme
casino-type posts getting huge rewards
lost my password
got a really good job so don't have time......
Anyway, I still feel that the skewed reward system is problematic, hindering Steemit's growth and I would like to see some work done in this area. If it was truly working well, we would not need curation guilds, and all that stuff. They are a good idea, but a solid algorithm that really showed true virality would be a much better product. I know there's the bot issue, and surely, we can figure out a solution?
I think the Whale Picks tab should be implemented, as that is exactly what the Trending page is in reality. This could be a first step in addressing the reality of rebalancing voting and rewards. At the very least, it would show what the trending page really is.
And Top Stories could be reputation-weighted popular stories that are not necessarily backed by whale votes.
Cool! I'm at the top of the Whale Picks tab!
But seriously - I don't think there's an immediate need to "fix" curation. This will play out over time as (if?) the platform grows its user base and as the distribution of stake improves.
What needs to be fixed right now are expectations of new users with no followings. If they're coming here, then getting frustrated and leaving because their first two posts earned them pennies - or nothing - that's a problem with communication/marketing/expectations. And I really don't think it helps when long-standing members (not singling anyone out - there are many who do it) are always complaining about how unfair the system is. When new users see this, they tend to believe it and repeat it without even learning about it. I've seen this happen frequently.
Onboarding and expectations need to be better managed. The system is working how it's supposed to, but the community is too small and the stake is not distributed enough to make it more "fair" - whatever we want that to mean. We'll see what happens over the next few weeks/months with the road map and the Busy.org site and whether or not we can increase active users and investors enough to make a difference.
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good points. Maybe Busy will be the killer platform?
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Good point. Managing expectations is key for everything in life where you deal with people.
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I fully agree!
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If we called it "whale pick" we would underestimate all the other votes which contributed to get people on trending positions.
I go with @ats-david here: it's an expectations problem not a reward problem. Everybody can be "picked" at any time! People just need patience and consistency.
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The reason there is an issue, is because of rewards, not voting. It's the perceived "unfair reward scheme" associated with voting. That's what bothers people. Get rid of the rewards, and then people having more voting power wouldn't matter very much at all. People have expectations through comparative assessment with others. Then reality doesn't work like their misconception believed, and they get frustrated and leave. It takes time to post and get recognized.
If users took the time to understand how this platform works, then maybe they would stay. I did. I learned how Steemit functioned by going to search and read up on things. People are very lazy in the social media short-attention span field, so that seems like a "demanding" requirement for some. They want to stick to their false implicit correspondence to existing platforms, and assume and expect things to function the same way.
Steemit is something new, and has it's own way of operating. Money changes everything. People who have a stake in shares (SP) have the power. To incentivise holding the token as a share (STEEM->SP), it holds the power in the system. If we created a new rep token, then the investment side and their influence would be greatly affected. That's not good for a monetary model system like Steemit is.
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Actually, for those of us who like to read, I'd enjoy finding truly great content that is liked by a lot of people. My tastes may not be the same as the whales, so I have to sift through tons of posts to find good stuff. A few of my finds have made it to the trending page, but the whales are not all so good at finding gems......
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Yeah whoops I forgot to add that I agree about the topic, since that's how things work, it is basically the Whale's Picks category, since whale power = trending content. We should at least have an "upvote" section to find upvoted content, that we hope aren't upvoted to shit by bots lol. But at least it would be there to view.
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the "most upvoted" category could be messed with by whales like you said. since they could curate an article, then send it to the top, with bots ex: 1000 different accounts, and they would get half of the eventual curation payout, I think how it works. At least we don't have so much of that abuse now, with spam voting.
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This was tried. The Hot ranking used to be weighted by votes not SP. It was upvoted to shit by bots.
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my point is that there are two mechanisms going on: high SP accounts choosing posts and the masses choosing posts. There are good posts that the whales never find, but that the masses have voted on.
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Over time won't the distribution of steem power be better?
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maybe but maybe not. It all depends. I doubt the big power holders will give up their power.
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If all it took for posts to show up on the trending page was "lots of votes from the masses" you would start to see all the technically smart users create armies of bots and upvote their posts with thousands of votes.
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not if you add reputation-weighted voting algorithm.
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Reputation is not part of the consensus, though - which means it could potentially be hacked by a malicious miner/witness.
Also, it would not be very hard to boost reputation in order to manipulate votes if it meant it would be used in rewards. (As an example, I believe one upvote from someone like @blocktrades can take a new user from reputation 25 to reputation 50.)
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@stellabelle
Yes, that's because there is currently no incentive to mine up the reputation of bots. Change the incentives and you will rapidly see bot armies with higher reps.
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but crappy bots usually have a 25 rep score. It's hard to get a big boost in rep score without being active.
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That would change very quickly if having a higher reputation score meant you could influence rewards.
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true true.
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You are correct it is not really trending. It doesn't have much to do with quantity of votes and thus people interested. Though Whale Picks is kind of negative in connotation. I don't care if that choice is there since I don't tend to look at it. Yet I think a better and more accurate title might be something like "Highest Earning" or something like that. Since it seems more about payout than actual quantity of people interested.
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"Whale Picks" is only negative if you market that way. Steemit should go with a branding strategy built around whales, including a Whale logo and a "Whale's Picks" link replacing "Trending". Everybody wants to be a whale, in this place, so it is already built into the zeitgeist that is Steemit. Instead of fighting this, go with it, use it, capitalize upon it. There is no major company using whales right now, except perhaps Shamu for Sea World and the mis-recognized whale that is Charlie the Tuna.
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This is true.... we all happily show our badges with minnow, whale, dolphin, etc. It could be spun positively and then labeling it as such might not be a bad move. Yet without that it becomes subjectively positive or negative.
I do think it is funny my badge shows me as a dolphin. When really to be a dolphin I believe I need at least 100m vests. I only have 16m.
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I always thought of you as a dolphin... eyes of the beholder! :)
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As far as power... the break down seems to be as follows: https://steemd.com/distribution
Newbie (0.01 - 0.09m), User (0.1 - 0.99m), Super User (1 - 9.99m), Hero (10 - 99.99m), SuperHero (100 - 999.99m), Legend (1000m+)
So if we translate that to the ocean we should have a lot more levels than minnow, dolphin, whale.
Whale would obviously be the Legend.
Dolphin I usually thought was the Super Hero level...
Though there are a lot of missing levels so perhaps Dolphin could span several of those ranks.
It'd be cool to actually break this into many levels and have badges and such. :)
EDIT: Plankton, Minnow, Fish, Dolphin, Whale, Kraken :P
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oooooh the KRAKEN!
That's the top spot or 10 lol
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I agree. Steemit is a game, so we might as well capitalize on what it is in reality.
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"Highest pending first payout" is technically the correct objective title for it.
I don't really know why it was ever called Trending. The name doesn't fit at all.
I mostly agree with the OP that treating it like the payout leaderboard that it is would be the first step toward recognizing it shouldn't be viewed as the main or only ranking. It is just one way of looking at active posts.
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but Whale Picks is exactly what it is, IN REALITY.
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Yes it is. That doesn't mean it is good for the platform to call it as such.
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I think it's great. It's ocean-themed. Just like Dory.
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Yeah, I think I had some of the negative whale bashing memories from people posting when I thought of it being called that. Which is part of my reaction, plus it is possible (and likely more so in the future) to end up on trending without a whale vote. So calling it whale picks will encompass almost everything there but, there will be exceptions. It seems to be focused exclusively on highest payout posts... which almost always will be whale picks.
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If we did a PR campaign to spin the minnow, dolphin, whale type things as actual ranks and achievements then this might actually be a cool label for that column. It'd be cool I think as others have said to gamify the system more. Have achievements, badges, etc as part of the platform. :) That is primarily just a website thing and would not need to be implemented at the blockchain level.
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Third reply... sorry. It is theoretically possible for something to get onto the Trending page with out whale votes. It'd just take a phenomenal amount of up votes. Yet it is still possible. So if we called it "whale picks" it is possible (though currently highly unlikely) that you could end up with something there that wasn't actually picked by a whale. :)
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Sort by reputation weighted votes.
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yes
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Interesting thought. It might be worth experimenting with some different feeds. Have some fun, mess with the algos on a 'flavor of the month' basis and see what sticks.
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This post has been ranked within the top 50 most undervalued posts in the second half of Dec 29. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $5.41 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Dec 29 - Part II. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
If you are the author and would prefer not to receive these comments, simply reply "Stop" to this comment.
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It's funny, because when you were on trending page and a lot of whales upvoted you, there wasn't a problem. Now Steemit must change things and fix problems!
These are not problems, Synereo really has problems and you talk a lot about how great they are!
I don't say this to upset you, this is the truth!
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Actually, I've been criticizing this aspect of Steemit for months. Here's the one from 3 months ago where I talk about redistribution:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@stellabelle/if-i-ran-steemit-an-open-letter-to-the-steemit-community
And 4 months ago I wrote about the issue of minnow frustration:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@stellabelle/a-questionnaire-for-whales-and-solutions-for-frustrated-minnows-comments-are-needed-don-t-have-to-upvote
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I have seen my votes dropping by a lot, I was reaching around 100 votes now its around 50... I am finding it very frustrating
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Don´t be frustrated, life is about patience and consistency - and steemit works exactly in the same way.
We try, survive failure, stand up and try again - that´s it :)
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I am used to failure but I'm still trying :)
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I like your diff of hot (votes) and whale pick (money).
But I think hot would prob better served with votes*reputation. So one 75 vote is worth 3 votes with 25 Rep.
Easy to see why, right?
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yeah, good point.
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At least you brought ideas to fix the problem instead of just a complaints @stellabelle.
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i brought this solution to the table a month ago. I still think it has merit.
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Yay for Whale Picks Tab!
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glad you have enthusiasm for this idea!
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Excellent analysis.
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thanks
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I am feeling similarly frustrated watching others saying the same thing also. On this post and elsewhere and actually in PM's with people.
I want this to succeed but something is def. off or not right. TY for the article
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Something definitely feels off, and it's putting off a lot of users. It's time to try and figure it out......
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Good suggestions. Strange that you with a reputation of 73 are not a whale yourself.
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I didn't mine or invest my own money. The rewards came as a result of being an early adopter, prolific writer, luck, persistence and curiosity. Luck and timing were key. But I am nowhere near a whale.
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I like this idea, and do feel it is definitely a more accurate title for the header.
Another idea could be to add Whale Picks in addition to Trending and then Trending could reflect posts with the most votes, and Hot could reflect the most active posts (mainly discussion in comments and resteems).
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And remove Active. It's pretty redundant then.
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Good point.
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yes, i hardly ever look at the active tab.
You see, maybe the viral header could help whales find posts to upvote.
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Hi @stellabelle
I think the trending should just be the post with the most votes, as trending work on other platforms, and then there could be a tab for highest earning posts. It will be interesting to see how the high earners do on trending.
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