Couldn't have said it better. The lack of filters here is an abysmal situation. The problem is, it's people like us that are expected to fix it.
This should be the number one goal at sites like Busy.org. Yet, it seems like they are more concerned with other details that don't matter much. Where is Busy.org's version of the trending tab?
There are so many things you can track with the Steem API. Average payout, Steem Power, followed/following ratio, account value, delegation, etc. Even more important than these things is that we can individually modify the weight of accounts if we want to.
A custom filter could look at someone like @haejin and say, "You know what? I'm going to divide the weight of @ranchorelaxo's vote by 100." That way @haejin wouldn't be taking all the spots on trending. You could also make your custom trending tab only allow one post per account. A custom trending tab creator could have so much functionality on this platform. In addition, you could use the same logic to allow big accounts to filter/order the hundreds of comments they get on their posts.
Instead of viewing the multitude of problems with Steemit as a bad thing I think we should be seeing it as an opportunity. It is the Wild West out here. Let's mine some crypto gold. I know you got burned with q-filter but I still think you could make an amazing filter. If we bring real value to Steemit @ned will give us a delegation to continue on.
Let me know if you'd like to help with this project. I talk about it a lot but do nothing. Learning JavaScript and Chrome extension logic is a daunting task, but I think this is the way to go. With browser extensions and JS we can mainline the Steem API directly from the witnesses without having to host our own server. Ultimate decentralization. Let me know if you're interested.
And the biggest issues with the filters that do exist is that they don't cater towards easy traversal. It's not necessarily that I want something good based on some metric, it is that I want to get results that match my expectations when I enter some type of query.
I think a worthwhile project would be instead to focus on developing a primitive form of PageRank on the Steemit blockchain and then expand from there with additional metrics and such that cater to individual users. Most people want a simple search with the option to add additional parameters. That way they do less work. Using Google is a cake walk. Any search engine or filter should be the same way.
As for dedicating time to such projects, I didn't have a job when I wrote @qfilter and had a lot more time to play around with those ideas and mathematics behind them. I wouldn't mind chatting around more conceptual ideas or helping to troubleshoot issues, but my ability to go on full-fledged open source adventures is kind of limited at the moment.
Fair enough.
Sometimes it's just very hard for me to get started. How do I connect to DSteem with JS from an HTML file? Do you know?
I spent a while trying to figure this all out but I got frustrated and have been busy with other things. I believe I downloaded node.js or something like that... just need to get started with some simple commands.
Usually you keep HTML and JavaScript files separate in your project, but I haven't used JS in ages. But hey if you grind hard enough I'm sure you figure it out. It's a shame that Steem's documentation and APIs aren't better.