Hello @steemgoblin,
I don't know you but I was curious to see who @everittdmickey unfollowed. I want to argue your point and hope that you do not take it personally. The system itself makes sense to me, but not when considering the recent mentality shift because some people want to abuse Steemit.
When a new user comes to the Steemit and runs into a wall for posting too frequently, their very first thought should be; "How can I use the bandwidth I have more efficiently/wisely?"
If I could change something (I know this isn't burger king) I would literally make the trending page inaccessible to new users/entirely, so that users don't become disillusioned with what they think they are supposed to be doing to make more rewards, and just be themselves. A new user is not going to be interested in the Steemit's Eco-System or ethics, but how to make the amazing rewards that they see other people getting.
All of the positive and negative things in trending work, and when someone sees it, they will naturally want to replicate it, not understanding any other person's perspective.
I'm starting to realize that it isn't as much the abuse that we are supposed to be stopping or preventing, but this reactive thinking that causes someone to view abuse as the best course of action. By having categories, tags, and front-end GUI improved upon by @steemitdev, I believe that the act of curation, discovering authors, and sorting out low-quality content would greatly improve while being the most cost/time effective solution to the host of the issues currently plaguing the entire site.
Although I won't say it's impossible to build an account from the ground up, I do believe that there are far more content creators competing now. There does need to be some reorganization to better accommodate this rapidly growing population. I learned that part in World Civilizations class c:
P.S. I still feel that if you produce high-quality content that your work would be found, no matter how many people joined!
Mahalo,
@shello
Ah, gee, did little ole Everit get his panties in a twist and flounce? Oh well. Yes, you got it, and no, hiding trending won't help, because the incentive is what brings them here in the first place, and yes, they are interested, there's 20 of them right now in #dolphinschool with @markrmorrisjr doing great things. And Everit must have missed where I told people what he had done was amazing, but whatever.
Welp, and true- Seeing what's possible makes people want to stick around a little longer. I've taken a gander at #dolphinschool and seems to be a pretty good initiative. Just my thoughts on trying to deter abuse. I think Everit does some great stuff too, rough around the edges sometimes though~
Well, his stuff isn't great. That's not what I mean. It's amazing he's been able to get where he is. He did it the hard way. Dolphinschool is really helping the authors so far. And yeah, I know what you mean, there are a lot of ideas, but not many solutions.