I agree that in case a short 'bla blah post' leads to a lively discussion in the comment section, it has served the community/platform more than a long, elaborated article with no comments.
However, most trending posts (correct me if wrong) show no or very little user engagement in the comment area, which in my eyes is a hint that in many cases their main purpose is vote accumulation/farming ...
Someone is basically using trending for staking now which is great because they could just dump the 1+ million Blurt but they are holding it.
I never really looked at trending much, it's better to cultivate your own feed.
Lol, I 'stake' a lot here, too, but I disagree that it's beneficial for a platform in the long run, if such behaviour is profitable: if big accounts just 'stake' (self- or circle vote), there is no reason at all for other, smaller users to join such a self-centered microcosm - and as we all know: the value of a (social) network is measured among others by the number of its users.
What are your long term plans for Blurt?
I am just a curious observer. I hope that you get a system running which is so attractive for new users and investors that the value of the Blurt token will significantly rise.
I have my doubts that removing flags was a good idea - but I will be more than happy in case in the end you could prove me wrong!
To be completely honest: I just didn't power down (at least a part of my Blurt) because it's not really worth it. Even if the value of my Blurt went to zero it wouldn't harm me much. So I decided to hope for the small chance that the value of all my Blurt may rise.
Nevertheless, I am always there to discuss with you about my points of view (what could be useful, what causes damage?), and for sure I accept if you disagree with some of my opinions. Just let's see what the outcome will be ...
Very cool. Happy to have you watching along on Blurt!