I have always wanted there to be a separate trending page on steemit: a front facing one with normal blogs, and a circlejerk internal trending page. My post here would fit in the latter. Perhaps communities, when they arrive, can help this this kind of separation.

Precisely, communities should solve this issue, but it would also require the voters to act responsibly. There'll no longer be an excuse of "Oh, this is important, it must be trending!", but the voters still have to learn to vote on valuable posts that'll attract users to the network.

Top authors can also disable curation rewards on their posts to disincentivize vote piling. That seems like an altruistic act, but most top authors are holding Steem/Power that stands to gain value if they help reshape the Trending page.

I'm aware some people are listening to me, but at the end of the day I prefer working behind the scenes. I don't have any political skills and don't intend to learn. I don't really have any ideas on how to push this forward, but that's where I'm counting on influencers and witnesses. As the abit experiment proves, the community has the power to unite. If a couple of influential people got together and made a pact to not vote on circlejerk posts, pull back delegations to irresponsible curators, look to vote on new authors, I'm sure it'll happen. It's as simple as someone taking the initiative and making it happen.

That someone isn't going to be me :)