An Experimental Steem Content Filter

This is now the official account for the q-filter experiment. Updates for the q-filter account will be posted here for the future. To those who do not know about q-filter, I first like to say hello to you all. I will now go over the project and invite you to explore the experiment if curious. If not, I hope that you have an excellent day or a good evening wherever you are.

What is Q-Filter?

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q-filter basically provides three different feeds or views of the q-filter tag. Consider these alternatives to "trending", "hot", "new", or "promoted." These feeds are based on weighted averages depending on different variables beyond simply the earnings of a post. Why make this decision? To provide an experimental alternative to explore different ways of organizing information.

q-filter provides three different feeds. The stake-based feed is the default feed that welcomes you when you visit the -filter website. It uses Steem Power to weight the votes of the different users on each post. A view of this feed as well as the interface can be seen below.

The second feed is the reputation-based feed. It uses Reputation to weight the votes of different users on each post. The feeds can be accessed via the menu panel on the right hand side of the application. The third feed is the contribution-based feed. This last feed gives more weight to people who more regularly post and vote on q-filter posts. We'll go over this last feed in more detail a little later.

Displayed are the title and author of the article as well as a 0-10 rating for each feed. By clicking the title, one is transported to Steemit and able to interact with that post as they normally would. Rather than be an alternative Steemit, q-filter is designed to be a higher level interface that organizes posts in alternative way in order to attempt to expose different posts that might not otherwise be discovered.

How do I participate?

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q-filter scans for new posts using the "q-filter" tag. To participate in the system, you can either vote on q-filter labeled posts or add the q-filter tag to your own posts. The application stores pointers to your post for seven days before removing them after a week when posts rewards are delivered.

You'll notice there is a 0-10 rating but an up-vote / flag system on Steemit. On the Steemit blockchain however, you are allowed to register partial votes. It is not uncommon to see users of the platform to issue 1% or 10% votes on different posts they up-vote. These partial up-votes are translated from a percent to a number between 5 and 10. Flags are also translated in the same way, but range from 0-5 depending on strength. Multiply each vote by a weight (reputation, stake, or contribution) and you get the final score. But if you are averse to math, feel free to continue to use up-votes as you normally would otherwise.

At the end of the seven day period, the posts are removed from the interface and contributions rewards are applied. Remember that contribution is the weight used on the third feed. You get 1 point for up-voting a post and up to 25 points for authoring a post depending on how highly it scores in the stake-based feed.

In order to prevent users from spamming on the q-filter interface, posts that earn a rating below 5.0 will incur a negative 25 point penalty on the contribution score and prevent that user from having their posts from showing up on the interface until they have a non-negative contribution rating which they can earn by up-voting other's content on q-filter.

Why participate in the experiment?

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q-filter offers smaller users potential exposure that they might not receive otherwise on the Steemit platform. It is my hope that through future experimentation and additional features, an interface is created that provides readers with compelling content, authors with more exposure, and curators with a richer pool of content to pick from.

Additionally, q-filter will reward the top contributors to the q-filter platform. Contributors are those that vote on and produce content that use the "q-filter" tag. In our first trial period (from now until January 10th), I will reward shares of this account's SBD to the Top 10 contributors of q-filter. The top contributor will receive 10 shares, the second 9, and so on. This will divide the SBD of this account into 55 shares.

Although this account currently has no SBD, all SBD ever held in this account will go users of the q-filter system. This account is not meant as a means of cashing out but facilitating communication, giving updates on this experiment and rewarding those that play with the tool. This stands in direct contrast against the current profit making philosophy that plagues the current ecosystem. Steem Power will be used for manual curation of content within the ecosystem.

How to get started

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If you have account on the Steem blockchain, you're pretty much done. Feel free to explore the q-filter site and read and vote on some of the content or if you are feeling up to it, include the "q-filter" on your next post to have it displayed on the q-filter site. Also if you're curious about the development of the project, feel free to follow this account.

Lastly, if anything breaks or something expected happens don't be shy about sharing it. This is an experiment so things are not going to work 100% of the time. Unlike Steemit Inc., I don't have to think about SMTs, Hardfork 20, or Communities, so I'll try to be relatively quick about it.

If you have any suggestions or requests, leave them in the comments below. I love stealing good ideas from smart people because that means I have to think less. I appreciate you taking the time to read this far and look forward to the future of experimentation, development, and creativity on the blockchain.