easy to notice this. alot of tangible questions! It's all good though!

With bots from the past already set, authors who are established and people who already have a lot of the currency it is understandable that you will see a lot of the same names.

nice post @abit
i like, thank for sharing

nice post, thank you @abit

Obviously things have changed since you've started *the experiment*. I don't think I am the only one that appreciates the new distribution of power. It's definitely a plus for the majority of the community (formed by minnows and dolphins). 
The only doubt that I have is: do whales miss their curation rewards badly?

Lol, new boss, same as the old boss,....

We are still playing crapitalism with crapitalusts, it's the nature of the game.
http://www.steemimg.com/images/2017/01/10/money-simply-doesa0930.md.jpg

This "whales not voting" experiment has been great! I feel like the platform is actually starting to function like it was intended to. Except now people will be in for a shock if/when the experiment ends and their votes go back to being worthless lol. Do you feel like this experiment can run until some other solution is implemented... i.e. reward curve, capped voting power, etc.

@abit, popularity  is good to have in school  and a must on steemit.  Steem On!

![image](https://i.imgur.com/1hF5t4S.jpg)

yes, it is as you say, is always the same person on the trend. @abit
Good job

Yes, the same authors still trend.  
It is true, it is better, but still not good.  If they have to vote with bots, maybe they could work on better bots.
Yes, the new whales or rearranged accounts still vote, bots or not for the same darn thing.
Yes, there are more posts and more replies getting votes.
Every day I wonder when the experiment will end and there will be no point in being here again.

Yes the new whales are not much different than the older whales. and bots remain bots, but with bigger influence. Trending is another issue.

With a relatively small userbase, I'd expect the 'best' and most consistent content creators to trend. That is the nature of the creative industries. Some creators will strike a chord with the audience and reap the rewards.

If you take @good-karma for example. He has put up a couple of great posts on marketing and that has caught the mood of the moment (Spirits are high following the recent pump and the userbase is keen to get the message across about this platform).

This happens in all sectors of the creative industries, from music to book publishing to film etc. "People" trend just as much as certain topics and genres.

The main difference with whales not voting is more people feel like their votes count for something. In my view, this is more likely to effect the long tail of payouts rather than determine who trends and who doesn't.

Yes it seems like there are still alot of the same authors at one point during the experiment during the beginning it seemed more mixed. I dont know whats up with the bots they seem to come and go? Like right now I had no bots? Think some replies should get votes.

@abit, it`s okay that we are using bot, but we do not merely depend on bot. Using bot as auxilary is good whereas manual bot as mainly purpose. So we mix it, using both. Nice !

so this is the end?

I agree with many observations as commented here, but would like to point out one dimension that might be overlooked sometimes. That is,

Current reward curve and *the voting habits* that have been cultivated by it contribute quite a deal to current situation

Voting for established authors is the less risky strategy for curation rewards - *even without* whales supporting, because they have become the focal points among all authors. I am not denying that they deserve it (many of them are indeed great), but the advantage they have built *could be* a greater-than-should-be obstacle for late comers. It is not uncommon for early established players to enjoy a bigger advantage, but to what extent it should be set for the long term success of a developing group, it is up to the society to decide.

I'm not sure that "changing trending" should be a goal. This is a small community and it has a small number of popular bloggers. Whether voted by whales or a larger user base, many of those will be successful either way (and I told them this when they first started complaining about "losing money" by not getting whale votes). And indeed many of the reward amounts are comparable  (adjusting for STEEM price changes).

However, there is a massive change in the number of vshares in the pool, which means non-whales have vastly more influence. This plays out not only at the top (Trending) but more importantly also at the bottom (less recognized posts and comments) where a few minnow votes or a dolphin vote can now make a real difference in terms of meaningful rewards. Those are the places where whale attention is and always was unlikely and even guilds have never been incredibly effective because it is simply work that is better suited to broad crowdsourcing.

Humans....

>Always the same authors on trending?
Is it true? Is it good?
The new whales* are always voting for each other?

*The guilds.

At this point, a simple photo by one of them goes insta-trending with hugely inflated payouts. @ned picked his favorites.

Not really sure whether I like whales not voting or not. I miss you up voting my posts, which was almost daily. Maybe it was a bot with your name, now turned off. Things have changed while I was away. Are they better? Worse? Or just different? I don't care. I've got a new Steemit novel to pound out. Chapter 7 coming tonight, morning EDT. I still like Steemit.

I can agree that 20% of creators produce around 80% of content. They do that almost as day job - so that is natural. If people vote for them - that is ok, if botes votes for them - then this is a problem.

Agree with @abit. I'd never been on trending list which I know i'm not popular. So sad.

https://media2.giphy.com/media/k61nOBRRBMxva/giphy.gif

Is it true? I've only been here for a week, and I'm simply getting my "fins" wet -- and I'm not sure how this "works". By 'this' -- I mean Steemit.
Initially, it appears to have been a watering hole for crypto currency gazelles being chased by lions and eaten by crocodiles. 
These gazelles jumped into their own sea and swam happily.

But whales eat minnows and shark eat whales.

Who are the sharks? And how can we avoid a nepotistic ocean when it's the circle of life?

@abit, since you were a central part of the original experiment, you no doubt have access to better statistics than I... I can only go by observation. 

I think "the experiment" worked pretty well... in general, there was an increase in positivity around the community as a result of people feeling like their contributions had value. What's more, the recent uptick in the value of Steem can *actually* be traced to several "mini rallies" that happened several days before the big rise... and they coincided with the experiment having a positive impact.

I'm not sure the same authors are "always" in Trending-- right now, there are many people whose names I have never seen before, including a couple of newbies. I think what many be *more* true-- for your consideration-- is that some subjects/topics tend to always be more popular, and we have certain contributors who *happen to be* specialists in those areas. So maybe a more accurate question is *"why are crypto related posts always in Trending?"* if you get my point. Well, because that's a popular topic... and (as such) they *should* be in Trending.

I'll suggest again that there may be a case for a "maximum vote" for whales... let *everybody* vote (because that encourages community), but once you reach some specified level of vests, that's as much as your vote can ever add. Or maybe something like "nobody above has more voting power than the person in 100th place.* Or something. It still allows for people to build influence, but nobody can really become the "Rockefeller" of Steemit.

The whales have the power, use it well.. I came up with a new "show" called: DASH is TRASH, lets see how many episodes I come up with:

https://steemit.com/dashistrash/@lasseehlers/steem-is-the-solution-dash-is-trash-part-2

https://steemit.com/dashistrash/@lasseehlers/dash-is-trash-open-invitation-to-amanda-b-johnson

Same authors on the trending page has become a trend on steemit. Same people are earning well. Hope this trend will be corrected in due time because this is the only way that other steemians will be inspired in making content. When that happen, that lots of people are earning in the platform, it would be easy then to promote steemit.