I agree that there is no back room deal. We simply want to change “trending”. I voted many posts for no monetary gain. All top 20 witnesses know that and most spammers know that as well. If people can’t understand what hive is all about, please stop mis-information. I am part of this project, this project is Hive. No apologies needed.
This is never meant to be a curation project. It started when trending page of steemit looked un-appealing to non-steem people. Today, the trending page of hive still look unappealing to external folks. I understand hive is new and it is normal to have "hive" related items on trending. But soon we must have actual excellent content on trending. Isn't that we are trying to do with #posh? @trendthis is nothing but accomplishing that goal.
Agreed, #posh is the alley-oop, we were the dunk. People with a lot of HP were voting with no thought to who would be voting after them to maximize curation rewards. It was actually reassuring to see folks shirk monetary incentives for the greater good of the public face of trending, among other things.