1. What is the goal of promoting a post?
a) To increase the posts visibility
--- This gives the post, irrespective of the quality, the inertia it needs to attract more upvotes
- Predisposing factors:-
General voting behaviour. Majority people, aiming to maximize curation rewards, upvote without even a glance at the content of the post, provided they see it is already heavily rewarded, or is going to be!
Is increasing post visibility using bidvotes bad? (this exempts community awareness posts which ideally should decline payout).
The answer is Yes, if it is a poor quality post. And No, if it is a good quality post.
But then, who determines post quality? The author of the post or the reading community?
Frankly the answer is irrelevant. Post quality is a matter of subjective opinion. Which is why solution cum argument which involves quality as a factor cannot offer a sustainable compromise).
A bot is a bot. You cannot give it a 'post quality assurance' mechanism. Post quality, as i have already alluded to, is a matter of subjective opinion, which moreover only 'human accounts' are capable of.
b) To grow one's reputation (I have seen several low REP accounts overnight sprint from 25 to 65+. This is long term play)
---This calls attention to one's blog, and also attracts more thoughtlessly given upvotes on one's posts, irrespective of their quality.
- Predisposing factors
Posting behaviour:-With a high reputation, 65+ to the best of my little experience, you can just about post anything, (heck there are several whales who post sentences and still earn hundreds of $) and people will rush in to upvote. As before, to maximize curation rewards.
Is increasing one's reputation bad?
The answer is yes, if it is bots who do it. Reputation alludes to one's social standing in the community. Only thinking humans, and not programmed bots are qualified to determine that.
As it is, bot accounts and human accounts are clumped together as one, given the same privileges and rights! Both can determine one's rewards, and one's reputation, two of the most fundamental aspects of the platform's integrity.
Question/answer to ponder:- is it possible to change the algorithm such that a difference is drawn between human accounts and bot accounts? This way we can allot specific rights between the two.
Of course if these were possible, then my opinion is that both would be left the power to influence post rewards, but not the reputation. The reputation should be the preserve of 'human accounts".
Knowing that bots can not increase one's reputation would discourage low post quality accounts from just about resorting to bots to build their reputation with the long term calculation that once high enough, they will, to augment bot powered posts, be able lure curation-reward seeking members to their blogs to add the upvotes.
Overall, this way, however much you are upvoted by bots, your reputation would still not be affected, positively in case of upvotes or negatively in case of down votes.
This is even the more true, when you consider that because bots hardly post, their own reputation cannot be affected by 'human accounts'.
But of course the reverse is true. And that is just about the root of the problem. 'Human accounts' should retain 'control' of the platform, and not bots.
As it is, bots (never mind that they have owners) in my opinion, wield the highest influence in the platform.
b) What is the effect of promoting a post
This now brings us to the 'trending page' question.
What is the trending page premised on? If i am right, and i want to think that i am, the trending page is the landing page of the most popular posts?
What are the most popular posts?
As it is, they are the posts that the most rewarded. Overall, 'post rewards' determine whether or not a post lands on the trending page.
The question is: are post rewards the right algorithm criteria for determining if a post is popular and belonging to the trending page?
Of course so long as just post rewards are the primary, if not only determinant of this, bots will continue to determine which posts land on the trending page , moreover to be read, ideally by 'human accounts'.
You can see the crisis! "unthinking bots" determine what 'Thinking human accounts" read. But don't mind this. Honest to say, very few, maybe even no body ever really genuinely reads those posts anyway!
So clearly, the problem for me, has to do with the algorithm criteria used to qualify, and sort out 'popular posts'
What, in my opinion, is a trending page post? Simply put, it is the is the most read, the most talked about, the most engaging in terms of comments, and as the least of the reasons, the most rewarded.
c) What is to be done?
When all is said and done, the question, 
Should we get rid of bots? Besides being impossible, this is also not correct, because the problem, for me, is not bots.
It is the steemit algorithm which has set that that trending page posts are those which are the most rewarded.
If we are interested in a permanent solution, then i can only, in my opinion recommend that we start debating how to fix the 'system rules' rather than the 'system players'.
I am not sure if it is possible to change the steemit algorithm, or if it is, under what circumstances, but above else, that is the direction any such debate on the 'trending page' crisis should go.
In a paragraph.
The algorithm if it can be changed, should be changed to ensure:-
- A clear distinction between 'bot accounts' and 'human accounts.'
- Any such classification should ensure that bots are allowed the power to influence post rewards, but not account reputations.
Overall,
- Change the algorithm criteria for determining which posts land on the trending page.
What do i suggest?
- Let the first criteria be consistent to the premise upon which the trending page is founded, namely, popularity in terms of engagement.
Rather than use post rewards as the first criteria, for determining post popularity, change it to something to do with post engagement, determined in terms of:-
New algorithm criteria
- (i) The number rather than the weight of upvotes to ensure that a minority high SP accounts do not collude to game the system to promote their own posts. And as well to ensure that even $0.01 minnows have a say on a posts popularity, and therefore place in the trending page.
- (ii) The number of 'human account' comments by the community . This is with cognizance of the fact that bot commenting will become a menace and another problem to contend with. But of course, it will be a problem already contained, if like i have already recommended, a clear algorithm classification between 'bot' and 'human accounts' is made.
- (iii) The number of reply's to the comments by the post author/account holder. If a post is popular, and has inspired more engagement, is it not only proper that the originator/author of the post should be at the heart of the engagement/discussion?
- (iv) The number of resteems by the community in general. Whereas people are quick to upvote, i have noticed that few are so quick to resteem posts, unwilling to dilute their blogs, and/or overwhelm their followers. As such, resteeming would be a big qualification factor of a posts quality, and popularity. The number of high REP accounts that resteem the post, would, in this case again, sway the balance, to avoid multiple account creation to game this particular criteria.
- (v) The number of resteems by the high reputation accounts rather than the weight of their upvotes on the post. as already indicated, using the weight of upvotes disenfranchises minnows.
- (vi)And finally, the overall post rewards as a secondary qualifier after the rest above.
And there you have my thoughts on the dilemma you above pose.
These are only my thoughts. I may be mistaken on some points, and certainly wrong on others, as i am only been around a few days.
But i hope they can augment the other more informed recommendations by the more experienced, and more knowledgeable commenters here.
RE: Open Discussion: Fix Trending & Stop Promotion Abuse