@steemed a good bot for the community would be one that upvotes posts as they start trending. amplifying their rewards.  therefore not interfering in the popular process of determining what should be trending or not. 
at the moment your bots  single-handedly can make a post a "trending" one (shouldn't even be called "trending"  but  "whale selected content").
predetermining trending posts by a whale bot List IMO is not a good idea. will disenfranchise  the vast majority of users who is not on the List and make them feel it is a rigged system. you say you're trying to do what's best for steem but the @linda episode raises doubts . also you pretend not to understand how people are self censoring and posting to appease you to have a coin thrown at them.  this feudal system is hardly ideal.
I think for the bots dilemma in a decentralized community a voting system (through witnesses) could determine which bots are benign and which are nefarious.  I think some bots have already been neutralized.
but thanks for making it public so frank discussions on this can be had