Great post. You have a ton of ideas. I particularly agree with this:
Naturally they want to know what is trending and when they go there they see a bunch of bullshit posts who are earning hundreds of dollars in rewards. They see these posts and think this is what I need to do if I want to make money.
Yep, I have been there myself. It was only when I started ignoring the Trending Tab and focus on the New and Hot tabs that I started to find really interesting people in SteemIt.
Going through the Trending Tab and trying to engage with those folks got me under fire, twice.
It's not worth it to discuss with those rich folks... I advise everyone to avoid discussing with the authors of all those high paid posts in the Trending Tab.
Only answer Trending Posts if you're feeling like a sheep which agrees with everything they say.
I say this because they cannot take any kind of criticism and will crucify you if you even dare to show a different opinion.
Another thing that I have found very helpful is Busy.org. Let's face it, SteemIt.com has a very ugly design and it doesn't even have notifications.
Busy.org is a lot more appealing and for a starting Steemian, it can make a huge difference!
Besides that, everyone can benefit from a vote from Busy.org.
Keep up with the good work!
There are some landmines that people need to avoid aren't there...lol. Know it's not funny when it happens to you, but luckily the effects aren't forever and can be overcome.
Trending page should be completely removed IMO and replaced with a new one. It serves zero value other then making whales much richer. Think any and all paid promotion should go to a Burn account and the SBD/Steem used for the promotion should be removed from circulation. There would be zero financial gain from the paid promotion and it would be integrated into a real trending page. It would be true paid placement/advertising and the platform as a whole would benefit from this as the amount of Steem in circulation would decrease each time someone did this.
I guess you will need to become a witness and put that idea up for voting. 😋
That just might be on the long term growth map that is in my head. Will need to make it a team of like minded people and not a single person witness account. Would like to pull in some talent and enough vests to make an impact right away.