A lot of the issues I hear about on SteemIt seem to have to do with the trending page. People buying their way onto the trending page, too many posts from the same user on the trending page, or xyz content is at the top of the trending page which looks bad for new users, etc.
So I was thinking - what if we just got rid of the trending page altogether? What purpose does it really serve? I hardly ever look at the trending page myself, except sometimes to see what all the fuss is about. When I come to steemit.com I just go to my feed which lists new posts from the accounts I choose to follow.
For new or logged out users who don’t have a feed to show, does it really make any sense for them to see the top recent posts by pending payout from any category on the entire blockchain?
I would like to suggest replacing the global trending page with a list of popular tags and some search options. Then users can choose what type content they are actually interested in when they first arrive rather than seeing a list of seemingly random posts about topics which they are unlikely to care about.
I don’t have any designs or anything for this, just throwing an idea out there. If anyone wants to take this to the next level by designing it and even potentially submitting a condenser pull request they would have my full support (for what it’s worth!). Here’s an example of a similar idea from Pinterest:
I still think there should be a “trending” page for each specific tag showing the highest pending payout posts for that tag. My guess is that tag-specific trending pages would create much less of a problem than the global trending page does right now.
I’ve also seen a great idea (in my opinion) proposed a few times that we should allow searching by multiple tags. For example, maybe I want to see posts tagged with both “photography” and “animals”, or with “cryptocurrency” and “funny”.
The point is that perhaps it would be better if the first page that people land on when they come to steemit.com focused on content discovery rather than just the top earning content on the entire blockchain.
Again - just an idea. Let me know what you think in the comments! I try to always upvote quality comments to try to encourage a good discussion which I feel Steem posts are often lacking.
Thanks for reading! If you would like to help support my work please vote for me as Steem witness!
Mhh i think getting rid of it may not be the best approach. But I do agree with you that content discovery is one of the biggest thing that limits the value of steem.
I think we probably need a 3rd party app to come up with a better way of discovering content or maybe if someone builds a better algo steem will implement it or merge into steemit.
I think the trending thing is generally a cool thing, since money matters on steem, but it should not be the only way content is discovered.
The problem with it is that 99% of content only has a short shelf live and there is no way anyone will see relevant content to her if it is not new and popular. So this needs to be changed as you suggest.
Fortunately this is just a front thing and not a structural problem.
Yea this post isn't really about fixing all the problems on Steem - it's just that there always seems to be a lot of drama over the trending page, and i think it's a bad thing for new people coming to the site to see first, so just throwing out the idea of getting rid of it for now.
I'm fine with leaving it there but not having it be the first thing people see when coming to steemit.com.
We have already implemented categories-based home page in our app https://oneplace.media where customized tags are selected during registration step or in the user profile.
This is what the tags setup page looks like, quite similar to what you suggested:
Trending posts with favorite tags are then aggregated to the users' home screen.
Searching multiple tags is an idea we also like but this needs to be supported by relevant blockchain API and not easy to realize just on the front-end side.
This is super awesome! I have a question though - how can i log in with my steem account on your site? I only see options to create an account with an email address and password.
Thank you! You need first to create profile with email/password, then you can add multiple blockchain accounts by giving posting authority permission to the app. After that is done you can just login with email/pass and you can switch between different accounts easily.
@oneplace Just checked out your site, you guys are basically doing the same thing and pool reward monopolizers like haejin (who happens to be front and center in Money) and sweetjsss are still on the front for all to see. So, whats the point then?
@yabapmatt Your idea is super dope man hope @ned can see this is of value
Well basically we don't want to ban anyone, whether we like them or not, from trending tags and by default we show you selection of most popular tags in Steem. Only when you customize your tag selection you will get the real experience of our platform, for example, if I am subscribed to #steemdev, #open-source, #design and #art, I don't ever see haejin or sweetssj in my trends.
It may not be perfect for now but we are open to suggestions.
I am pretty sure I did see something like that in the RPC documentation somewhere.
fun and updated ... thanks
I agree with you, the trending page doesn't give any advantage... I mostly follow my feed as well...
What I see very interesting is a popular tag view and your idea about the multiple tag search would be very useful as well...
There are many things to improve and seems that everything is going a little bit slowly with the steemit development
I agree, with the new influx of wealth (billion market cap) need to ramp up game, feeling slothy again 2 months into '18
Yes I agree, would we interesting to see it get removed entirely
So much could be done with the IA of steemit,
Currently it’s hard to see when people are commented/replied to you without checking the
individual tabs. Is it a bandwidth issue?
My believe is that communities will solve a lot of problems - incl. the trending-page problem
So perhaps changing the default feed when we visit the site can be a good solution.
Yeah I don’t use the trending page very much as my following feed...
Back in April, Google began showing trending searches in the autocomplete search box within the Google Search App. It is cool, but tapping in the search box to see trending searches, is not always that relevant and many searchers didn't want to see it.
So Google, a week or so ago, announced quietly in an ongoing Google Web Search Help thread that you can now opt out of these trending searches. To do so, you must be on the Google Search App versions 6.1+. Then go to Google Now, click on the menu (three-bar icon) and select Settings. From settings choose Autocomplete and then toggle off the "Show trending searches."
Here is what trending looks like in the search box:
Yes I agree, would we interesting to see it get removed entirely.
One thing I’ve been wondering is why Steemit doesn’t have a notification system? The psychology of FB notifications is very powerful, for many it’s like a turn on the slot machine when they log in, to see how many red notifications they have.
Currently it’s hard to see when people are commented/replied to you without checking the individual tabs. Is it a bandwidth issue?
Yea, I believe there was something about notifications in one of the SteemIt, Inc roadmaps but don't quote me on that. Notifications are really important though, can't expect everyone to use @ginabot!
Thanks for letting me know about @ginabot to give you notifications via Discord. I just set it up (instructions), and can't wait to start getting notifications. Notifications are essential to having conversations!
Haha wow I learn something new about Steemit every day, I had never heard of ginabot.
Gotta admire people’s initiative and ingenuity here!
My wife asked me one time who this ginabot is that i'm always getting notifications on my phone from lol :-) Don't know how I would get along without her!
Lol! Thank goodness it was all perfectly innocent!
Lol, that's awesome! I feel like there's a great idea for a sketch comedy hit in there some where.
With Ginabot, do you have to have your discord open for the notifications to be received? My discord is constantly binging, so I never keep it open for long.
So much could be done with the IA of steemit. The existing folksonomy is pretty powerful - and surfacing more of what lies under the surface would be great. I like the idea of topic related trending areas - that would help a ton. Although some would get messy ...
Interesting thoughts. Thanks for sharing. I agree that it's frustrating to see reposted content or content from the same users on the hot or trending page. Perhaps instead of getting rid of them altogether, there could be new algorithms developed for what shows up on those pages and how long they stay. It is definitely nice to be able to see the popular posts and read the discussion, but I can definitely understand the reasons you give for doing away with them.
vote for You as Steem witness...Done 😊
Thanks - and to be clear I'm not saying remove all the trending pages, just the global one. You would still be able to see the most popular posts but they would just be organized by tag.
That's creative and cool idea😊
totally love this concept! when i first joined steemit, of course i went to the trending page like everyone else. i thought there must be something special about the people there. i didn't understand the system yet. as i read their posts, i was like some of this isn't even good- this site must be easy to make money on.. .lol! that's pretty funny. so it's incredibly misleading, too, to show people what steemit is all about as most look at the trending page first. the best posts are found in our feeds, by the quality content producers we choose to follow.
i check individual tags to find content i'm interested in and usually prefer HOT over trending as that dictates more people's choices rather than $$.. it's actually a more valid way to gauge what posts people are actually interested in. I say do away with trending. it's scammed and gamed and shows the same people over and over. Make the HOT tag the main tag that's shows. Newbies and other quality content creators who don't have whale followers or tons of SP will actually get seen more!! <3
I’m not sure I would want to show hot over trending. I like hot too but it only shows posts that are very new, so i think trending is better overall since it lets you see posts from the past few days. For those of us who are on here all the time the posts on trending might be old news, but more casual users will probably miss a lot if hot was the default.
I suggest you try our app https://oneplace.media for content discovery by tags. Although we currently use trending to form our tags feed we plan to later let the users decide if they want to see trending or hot.
I agree 100%.
Rarely do I ever look at the trending page...the main one at least. Maybe it is because I know it is nothing but circle voting or bots...either way, the same people on it. If I am interested in something on there, odds are they are already on my feed since I follow them.
I prefer to focus upon the hot page...there is more useful information in there.
I also tend not to vote on the posts there (unless I catch them early on my feed) because they already have the money in them so curation is low.
The trending in the categories is much better especially the smaller ones. Topics such as bitcoin, steem and photography tend to mirror the main trending page since those tags are so popular (and misused).
Great idea...not sure it gains any traction sadly.
It probably won’t be implemented on Steemit.com, but maybe it could be implemented on some other steem blockchain based sites that pop up in the future. Also if someone actually could design it and code it and submit a pull request for condenser you never know what might happen!
Interesting concept matt. But to be honest - the trending page isn't the problem.
The problem is that whole Steemit has one single trending-page.
And I personally find that Steemit is actually fairly similar to reddit in that regard. And just try to imagine what would happen if all subreddits would disappear and reddit would only have one single trending-page.
Chaos.
My believe is that communities will solve a lot of problems - incl. the trending-page problem.
Well that's exactly what I'm proposing we get rid of. Tags are the closest thing we have to subreddits at the moment so was just thinking people can choose what they're interested in and then see the trending posts tagged with that subject.
I'm definitely very excited for communities though!
Hm. I understand. But don't we already have tags? https://steemit.com/hot/crypto
However - creating a frontpage just for tags would be interesting too.
But honestly - I just want communities :D
What he means is that instead of a trending page that is the first clickable thing we see, the same spot to lead to a tag selection page, then to a trending page to that tag.
Tags exists, but they are a pain to browse through.
Since the current community tends to talk about some tags a lot more than others, the ability to exclude certain tags in views/searches might help with discoverability, for example "news without cryptocurrency".
Now that is awesome! I would totally use that all the time!
Well said @ yabapmatt but I think adding the list of popular tags to the already existing search options tags is quite a great idea to help the new users pick exactly an area of interest easily and the trending should still be there because it shows some people their level of improvement and I encouragements as well.
Another big mistake we the minnows do is not being able to use the correct and suitable tags for our articles thats where the multiple tags comes in to help as well.
Thanks
I find myself rarely visiting the trending page. It normally is the same whales on the trending page, with the exception of a few really good #introduceyourself posts. I agree that a lot of the people on the trending page buy upvotes from smartsteem, steembottracker, etc. I think there really would be no harm in taking it down. Maybe replace it with a trending page that has an algorithm that shares promising minnow content. Thanks for posting this, it lets us steemians have productive conversations about things like this that can improve steemit and make it a better place!
I am not sure about this idea.
I think there should be a section where important news and events can be shared so the whole community can be properly informed. But this doesn't necessarily needs to be the default feed. So perhaps changing the default feed when we visit the site can be a good solution.
I think this is a great idea, and this could be expanded to things like autovotes. Like for example, setting up an autovote when a certain user uses a certain tag. This would be of huge help to groups like @sndbox I think.
This is a fresh idea! One of those ones where when you see you say "why didn't I think of that?"!
I need to think about this more, the implications etc., but this sounds like a really neat and tidy idea. Looking forward to hearing the discussion on it.
I definitely like the idea very much.
I’d love to see two other things happen in conjunction.
A couple changes like this (particularly a useful promoted feature) would really change & lessen the vote buying industry for the better.
The promoted section definitely needs a re-think, and i know that is something that has been proposed by some of the top witnesses recently. What you described is similar to how promotion works on Google or Facebook which would be much better than what we have now.
I could go on about the promoted section for a while, but that’s a topic for another post!
Yeah, I may have to sit down & do a post or two myself! It’s fun to imagine! Other than promoted posts, I do think we should have advertising, albeit in a very user focused & friendly way.
I’d love to see Steemit Inc. partner with a service like Anonymous Ads, a bitcoin based, non intrusive ad management system. Whitelist their links/code (they don’t work on Steemit now... I played around), & get them to accept & transact in Steem & SBD of course.
Then everyone who wanted could put a banner ad in post footers, etc. and we would have the option of buying targeted adspace in relevant blogs, with popular creators, etc. Minus a usual fee, the money goes to other Steemians, value stays entirely in the ecosystem, (and even draws money from outside advertisers into Steem) and our blog content gets a built in continuous revenue opportunity. Anyone who goes over the top with their use of ads would run the risk of being unfollowed and losing support, getting flagged for spam, etc.
Doing webcomics, I used another similar service, Project Wonderful, that could also be a candidate to convert to crypto and partner with. I actually enjoyed managing my ad slots and ad buys and it was far more effective and targeted than any kind of search promotion. When I saw a Project Wonderful ad slot on a popular favorite site of mine, I knew I had the opportunity to place my content directly in front of that audience.
An internal, user driven, user rewarding ad system could replace post promotion or complement it wonderfully and serve as a responsible “workaround” to the 7 day payout limit.
I think the trending page does serves a purpose for the new user. At least the idea is not bad at all (The bests posts are there, so the new user goes "wow! really?")
The problem is, the best posts are not there.
I think what we need is to create a new way for those posts to be on trending. NOT BASED ON THEIR REWARDS. Maybe based on a combination of views/reputation, comments or whatever.
Let's be clear about this: The purpose of the trending right page now is for steemians with a great SP, who can buy high SP or directly sponsored by whales, could be there so they make more power, money, and influence. So it is a circle. Quality is the last thing we usually see there.
That doesn't mean the trending page is a bad idea. It is a good idea with an awful use.
Just my two cents.
Yes I agree. My suggestion was based on how things actually are currently which as you said is not representative of the best posts. I don’t believe that is going to change any time soon, if ever, so in the mean time I think it would be better to just get rid of that page.
That actually I could agree with. I just think it is a shame, really. There are multiple ways to fix it or at least make it better, and we are reduced to getting rid of it because there is no will at the top to do anything abut it...
I don’t think it’s that there is no will at the top, i think they are focused on other priorities (namely improving the Steem blockchain) which I generally agree with. I believe Steemit.com is really just supposed to be an example, or proof of concept for what can be built on the steem blockchain.
I don’t speak for Steemit, inc obviously, but I think they want other people to make sites built on the steem blockchain that are better than Steemit.com and eventually for Steemit.com to fade away and not be the public face of the Steem platform as it is right now.
I agree with that concept but the more things keep moving forward with Steemit.com being front and center the harder it will be to get away from that, and at some point we might just have to accept that Steemit.com will be the face of steem and then focus on making it as good as it can be.
When I first got started on here I searched for topics, then hit trending. That allowed me to find the more popular people posting on a given topic. From there I was able to start growing my web of people posting quality content on topics I care about. I have an awesome feed in just a short period of time (including you).
I think what you're proposing is basically to make what I did an easier default. Instead of having to think to search before hitting trending, the page prompts you to select a category before showing you trending.
I haven't really been back to look at trending since my first few days on here, but as a starting place, it can be helpful in this way.
Multiple tag search would be awesome!
Yea that’s exactly what I’m proposing, and it sounds like that idea worked out well for you!
Well this conversation really planted a seed in me. I wrote a getting started post yesterday and instead of doing the typical "this is what curation is; this is what your wallet is; etc." I decided to walk them through the steps of getting started well on here. Half are about skillfully navigating the system.
The technical parts are important too, and you're suggesting here a technical implementation to make ideal navigation automatic. But in the meantime, I'm trying to spread the word that this is what people should manually do!
Yes! This thought never occurred to me before, but your idea is perfect!! I think it would help underpaid content creators be noticed. Better yet, don't sort people based on potential payout. Create an algorithm that sorts out such things as grammatical and spelling errors, "articles" that are too short, authors that post 10 times per day, copy/paste content, ect. and only the highest quality bloggers would make it to the top...
I don’t think steemit.com will change the trending algorithm, at least not anytime soon, but I’m hoping other sites built on the steem blockchain do try some different approaches like the ones you’ve mentioned.
I think we should leave the trending page as-is, as terrible as it is from an actual users' perspective, if it were to display the payout amount in a visitor's native currency in FIAT I think it would still serve as a huge draw just by showing some of the max potential payouts the platform can deliver on.
But as far as user experience goes steemit is terrible by design, by making everything about money and none of it about content it really pushes the idea that you need SP to have any say on the platform, which is both why it's had limited success to this day and why anyone ever invested money in the platform. I think if we went with a larger vision we could go further, but that's just me.
Don't know why we can't just have a column that's just based on number of votes, not accounting for vote strength.
And yes, communities aka subs should change things up.
This sounds kind of silly to me, if it’s terrible for users why should we leave it as is?
It currently displays the rewards in USD (although with the assumption that 1 SBD = 1 USD) and it does show that some posts can earn a lot of money. I just think it would be better to let users easily see posts in categories they are interested in.
Because it's not really a useful page to normal users, but it's a funny page to see who has the biggest voting circle or who has invested the most into voting bots, and if anything looks abusive it gets dealt with by the community a bit faster than it otherwise would if there wasn't a trending page. It also must be at least a slight ego boost to those who finally land on it to see themselves up there, and we all know that stroking the ego is a big reason why money is so desired in the first place.
If the SBD wasn't assumed to be 1 USD and it actually displayed the correct ultimate fiat payout amount then we would have perhaps drawn even more (of possibly the wrong kind of) attention these past few months if people were to come in and see the absolutely insane valuations on posts.
I don't disagree about letting people see what they actually want to see and find, I don't think the trending page should be the first page people see, I'm saying that we can have other pages but still leave the biggest hitters trending page somewhere for people who are interested in seeing that kind of stuff.
Great post and I appreciated your old post on calculating vote payout. We've used ur info in our new app @SteemSmarter.
"I still think there should be a “trending” page for each specific tag showing the highest pending payout posts for that tag."
We plan to implement this in a weekly report and I agree with you that being able to easily sort by tags and find the tags where your community is engaging is a much better system. Only following people has it's limitations since (even I) will write about all sorts of random stuff as I blog my life and thoughts.
Also, love the idea of being able to search for multiple tags like "photography" + "animals". I believe we'll be able to roll out similar reports for linked and related tags as well, but we currently have no plans for building a front end interface (like Busy.org or Steemit.com) which I believe would be needed.
Keep up the good work :)
I think we should leave the trending page as-is, as terrible as it is from an actual users' perspective, if it were to display the payout amount in a visitor's native currency in FIAT I think it would still serve as a huge draw just by showing some of the max potential payouts the platform can deliver on.
But as far as user experience goes steemit is terrible by design, by making everything about money and none of it about content it really pushes the idea that you need SP to have any say on the platform, which is both why it's had limited success to this day and why anyone ever invested money in the platform. I think if we went with a larger vision we could go further, but that's just me.
Don't know why we can't just have a column that's just based on number of votes, not accounting for vote strength.
And yes, communities aka subs should change things up.
My Proposal
(The numbers and scoring can be changed, this is for sample purposes only)
When a blog post is made, it needs 25 votes to be eligible for trending. As soon as it hits 25 votes the post would be given a boost trending score. This boost trending score would start at 96 and reduce by 2 every hour for 2 days.
Every comment made on a post will be worth 3 points
Every resteem will be worth 2 point
Every vote will also be worth 1 point
Although this is rather simple, by removing $$$$ from the trending algorithm, minnows, dolphins and whales will all have the same chance of getting to the trending page. Posts that create engagement and activity will be rewarded.
The problem with these systems is that people would just make tons of fake accounts that will upvote, comment, and resteem their posts to get them on trending which would probably only make things worse.
I agree with you, the trending page doesn't give any advantage... I mostly follow my feed as well...
What I see very interesting is a popular tag view and your idea about the multiple tag search would be very useful as well...
There are many things to improve and seems that everything is going a little bit slowly with the steemit development
Yea I was very happy with @ned’s recent update post but was very disappointed that they couldn’t even give vague timelines for any of the planned upgrades.
I agree the trending page is useless. Whatever is done needs to work on the problems addressed in this post: How To Use Steemit To Trick People Into Reading Your Poorly-Written Garbage.
I do believe the original intent of Steemit was to provide a platform where writing skills could be developed and rewarded. It's not happening!
I’m not sure that will ever happen on steemit.com, but I’m hoping it will happen on other sites built on the steem blockchain in the future.
You sure have a good point here. I personally look only to my feed and occasionally head to the New tab, as there maybe more folks to follow. I do think people will get fed up with promoted stuff... as Facebook, Twitter and others over use promotions and many are getting fed up with it.
Hopefully here as well.
I'm hoping communities will make trending less dramatic.
if that ever comes to fruition
I’m excited for communities as I’ve mentioned...I should re read the spec for it to refresh myself on the details.
Fuck the trending page, it's part of what's wrong around here, everything around here is too top heavy, new people come in and think Steemit is all or nothing .... It's not what decen is all about
Peace
No offence top authors ... But i think i wouldnt miss it. Not saying its an improvement but at least worth a discussion.
Steem plus offers the possibility for a dedicated feed with multiple hashtags 😁
Oh yes I’m well aware. I love steem plus! But I’m talking about for brand new users who come to steemit.com, not for us experts :-)
YES! This is an incredible idea. Kind of like the "explore" tab on instagram where its not necessarily the highest paid posts, but posts that are catered to your personalized interests.
I 100% agree that the trending page is useless, I never use it. I also think that searching with multiple tags is a fantastic idea! I also think that Steemit should add some type of language recognition feature, or require one of the tags to specify the language. Don't get me wrong, I love that we've become such a diverse community but when I go to welcome newbies in the #intoduceyourself tag, I can't understand over half the posts. Again, I'm not suggesting this as a method of segregation, but if I only wanted to see posts in a particular language, I should have the ability to search for that language tag and potentially other tags together.
Just my two cents...
best ever post
Yeah great idea,i m also agree
Really this is one of your creative work. Your fascinating word in poetry really impressed me. Thank you very much for sharing this post with us.
Already im give u steem witness vote
Well said, however I think including the rundown of prevalent labels to the officially existing hunt choices labels is a significant incredible plan to enable the new clients to pick precisely a territory of intrigue effectively and the drifting should even now be there in light of the fact that it demonstrates a few people their level of change and I supportive gestures too. @yabapmatt
verily, if thine trending page offends the, do not click upon it
hi @yabapmatt
what is your name on steemit.chat ?
i am trying to contact you there
Same as here - @yabapmatt
nice learning post sir @transisto
great information sir @transisto
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Intriguing idea matt. Be that as it may, to be straightforward - the inclining page isn't the issue.
The issue is that entire Steemit has one single slanting page.
Also, I for one find that Steemit is very like reddit in such manner. Also, simply endeavor to envision what might happen if all subreddits would vanish and reddit would just have one single inclining page.
Not a bad idea though...
Hi How are you, you're very right, early adopters come knowing everything, I know that there is much information of Steemit but I think that a page that displays the contents as Pinterest would help a lot to new users, very important your publication
You've made a point sir. We've got your back as witnesses
I am a lowly person, expecting the generosity of others.
Same here, there are 2 reasons for me, to look into the trending page
:))
Did you look into top voted posts?
Does it even exist?
I had a bot running, posting a table. And the difference was quite interesting.
Top payout posts where always from the same users. Top voted post where most of the time from different ones, some where spam, and a lot where non English.
When was the last time a non English post was on trending?
Are you looking into the new page?
That would also be an option, but a messy one, I guess:)
So much spam.. Everywhere
The area/tag/community idea, I don't like so much.
For example in your picture here, I wouldn't know, what to choose.. Every topic is worse.. Even 2 times fitness related stuff.. :)
Also, it would build bubbles and separate users even more. It would just speed up the circle voting in my opinion.
I think most people that are complaining about shut post on trending page, don't like the fact that people they don't like are on trending page.
They don't vote your post, and you use bid bots to take up, and when they see it on trending page, they start complaining.
People are forced to use bid bots because their post are been ignored by this very people complaining.
What we need is more manual upvoting and curation and less bot upvoting. One thing that would help in this is getting people to create a good feed for themselves and stick to upvoting and curating what is in there.
It would also help if people would look more at the new posts and ignore for a while the trending pages.
There are two ways. We can change the algorithms and program or we can change the people. The second option is harder but as long as we have bots there will be manipulations.
Together we can do it! 💪