What if we got rid of the trending page?
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.
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:
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
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.
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😊
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 ...
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!