I'm fairly famous for getting sidetracked, but at least I admit it.
This post is actually a sidetrack from reading 
Sorry Ned, I Don't Think There are any Easy Fixes...
Let me preface this by saying I have nothing against Ned or his vision for Steemit, but we do have some problems that are currently interfering with any ambitions involving major growth of the Steemit platform, and the Trending feed is squarely in the center of them.
We have mountains to climb!
I realize that Ned's vision may not place very high priority on the Steemit front end and the social platform... and that the goal here is ultimately to "tokenize" the Universe... but that doesn't get us past the FACT that right now Steemit is the visible window to the world for the Steem token and blockchain.
And whereas other things may come along and have more priority, FACT remains that Steemit is pretty much the world's premier avenue for introducing "regular folks" to cryptocurrency and giving them a "soft, non-technical" entry into the markets.
That little snippet is a huge asset, even if it's not directly a "profit center."
If you don't think the statement "I got my start in cryptos on Steemit" has value, think again!
To use a retailing analogy, it may be that what we have inside the store is what matters, but in many cases it's the public FRONT WINDOW that draws people into make purchases.
The Problems with Trending
A lot of Steemians say that the Trending page isn't a serious issue — to them — because "they never look at Trending, anyway."
Madrona tree by the water
Whereas that may be true — and I can appreciate that pragmatic approach — that's not really the primary issue with Trending.
The REAL issue is that the "Trending" feed is the de-facto front page for anyone looking at or browsing Steemit for the first time, as a non-member or when not logged in. If I tell any random friend or family member to "Go check out Steemit!" what they will see is Trending.
And that's just not a pretty picture, in its current form.
The secondary issue with trending is that a determined person can buy their way there, regardless of the quality of the post.
Sailboats on the bay
By extension, that means that Trending doesn't actually represent the BEST of Steemit, but the RICHEST of Steemit.
Now if you're a rabid free-market capitalist, you might not see the problem with that... but let's back up for a moment and remember that "Trending" is a MARKETING piece, like the front window of a shop. And if you're a shopkeeper, you want your very best and most alluring goods in your front window.
At least if your objective is to grow Steemit into an every larger and more mainstraeam social content site.
But I am not writing this to analyze and give another opinion about what's wrong with the Trending feed, I'm here to explore what to DO about that.
The Solution: Community Curators
What if the only way a post could make it to "Trending" were if it had been "passed" by some minimum number of members of a Commuity Curator team?
Joshua Tree at dusk
Bear with me, for a second.
We have Witnesses, who run the nuts and bolts of the Steem Blockchain. They are voted for and elected by the community-- ALL of us. In essence, they work by consensus of popular vote. They are not "appointed" or "hired" as employees.
So what if we also have "Curators" who were voted for and elected by the community? In fact the selection/voting model could be very similar to the process for witnesses.
The "job" of a curator would be to manually review posts and greenlight them as being of sufficient quality to be released into the "Trending" feed. Once passed, the rest would be in the hands of the community.
Perhaps each post would need a minimum of FIVE "green lights" to be released-- so there's a sort of consensus, and one Curator couldn't just patch their personal friends through.
No, it's NOT "Impossible"
Some skeptics might think it would be "impossible." And too labor intensive.
Fence and mist
But let's remember our objective, here: To create a "Trending" feed that results in presenting an attractive front to the world. Nobody's expecting the Curators to read every post. Let's say with 50 active curators -- ELECTED by the community, remember — it would not be extremely difficult to create a very attractive "Trending" feed.
Now, for those who are starting to mmumble "Yeah, but CENSORSHIP!" it
Let's ALSO keep in mind that this in no way interferes with someone's ability to buy bid bot votes to make themselves $700 on their post. They are still free as birds to do that... their post just won't end in the trending feed, unless it also passes the quality test.
"But what's the point of buying votes, then?"
Well, presumably you're trying to game the system for profit, and nobody's telling you you can't do this.
If you are truly buying votes "to be seen," then perhaps the answer would be to have a new category between "Trending" and "Hot" called "Richlist," which could be sortable on dollar rewards, number of upvotes or number of comments.
That way, there would still be a "game" to play for those who are into the whole "upvote contest" gig.
Why Would Someone WANT to be a Curator?
The tricky part there is to make the job of Curator attractive.
Fiery Sunset
One of the benefits might be that once a post is "greenlighted" part of the rewards is set aside for the five (or however many) curators who discovered and checked the content... using the same "revenue share" algorithm now available for those who run free standing apps with rewards.
If a post makes it to the AUTHENTIC "trending" feed, 10% of that post's rewards automatically goes to the Community curators. The remaining 90% is distributed as usual.
You might be thinking that would be "unfair" to the authors and conventional curators... but let's consider that for a moment:
If the "Trending" feed now represents "the very best of Steemit," which was selected by hand, by trusted curators... isn't it likely that a bunch of those people who currently say "I never look at Trending!" would start actually LOOKING at Trending... because really excellent hand-picked stuff is there?
My guess is that the 10% "loss" to curator compensation would be more than offset by actual readership of posts in the Trending feed.. more votes and more interaction. And therein lies:
An Unexpected Fringe Benefit
With increased readership (internally) and engagement on the "Trending" posts, Steemit would present itself to the external world as a very engaging community.
Koi pond
Meaning, in turn, that the idea of the "Trending feed as Marketing tool for Steemit" would actually become more effective.
Someone examining Steemit for the first time would see a series of high quality posts that a LOT of people actively interact with.
Which would be more likely to serve as an effective recruitment tool; where someone might look at Steemit and think "I want to be PART of that!"
And isn't that what we're really trying to achieve here? Regardless of our chosen path and objectives here, we ALL benefit if the Steemit platform grows and thrives, right?
Postscript
While on the subject of "Trending," I encourage you to check out Asher's "Trending Challenge" for this coming Sunday.
In a sense it's an attempt at a sort of "Occupy Trending" where those concerned with quaklity content and Steemit presenting well to the world select post(s) and vote the hell out of them with the intent of sending them ORGANICALLY to Trending.
It's yet another social experiment... so why not give it a go?
Also, if you think this idea has merit, why not share it around with a re-steem? The more possible solutions we put out there, the better our chances of getting change for the better!
How About YOU? Would you like to see a "Trending" page that represents "the best of Steemit," not just whomever could afford to BUY their way there? Does quality content matter to you? Does the long-term future of the Steemit community matter to you? Do you think it matters when
created by @zord189
(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 180511 17:23 PDT