RE: Proof of no brain
Namings definitely matter. Names greatly influence human psychology. If you ask any random person that isn't part of the Steem blockchain what a "thumbs up" means, they will say it means "good" or a sign of approval. Likewise, a "thumbs down" means disapproval and a sign that something is bad. On Steem, a thumbs up is supposed to mean "this post is worth more than it is" and a thumbs down should mean "this post isn't worth as much as it is". This creates confusion and makes people resistant to downvoting. That means overvalued content will probably stay overvalued. Steem is currently failing at showcasing the best content on the internet.
So when the interface has a thumbs up and thumbs down button, people will only use the thumbs down button if they disapprove of something (i.e. the content sucks). Why are we going to use a symbol or word that people associate with something being "bad" when we actually want people to decide as a whole how much a post is worth? A different presentation needs to happen if we instead want people to vote on how valuable they think it is. That is the point of "wisdom of the crowd". The idea is that if you get a crowd of people to vote on something, the answer will probably be closer to the truth than randomly selecting an individual person. This will allow a lot of overvalued content to decrease and increase undervalued content.
We have that same functionality, I'm sure changing the packaging will change how people see it, but right now you can do what you said above, if you don't like a post, or for whatever reason want to downvote, you can. Stake is still king as in your interpretation.
We do have the same functionality, but it isn't used effectively because of what I said. Having something more neutral than thumbs up and thumbs down will remove biases in voting habits more effectively.
So in theory your idea is what we have right now, plus a bit more complicated on the front-end, seemingly a simple solution, but it won't change anything.
Nothing needs to change on the blockchain if this is implemented. You're right; it is a seemingly simple solution. Stake is still the king but it is currently biased towards overvaluing content remaining overvalued. The only thing is changing the voting options that are more synonymous with voting on value as opposed to a post being "good" or "bad". I have to disagree with you. I think it will change.
first paragraph is why I say it doesn't matter, people should understand and then see through, thumbs up and down is associated in history as the "wisdom of the crowd" the emperor hears the crowd and kills or boasts the gladiator...
hence we have that problem since we have crowds and we have that since we have people, so we have a lot of problems we keep naming differently, hence namings don't matter.
And
But we just said people have biases and now we are saying if we make a bias based on biases, we would have a objective measure of value...
The only thing that will change the current result is a different behavior, so think differently, act differently, make a difference, stand by it, in this case, make a dApp, run it, change people's behavior, come and bring light to the forsaken :P
but yeah you can't remove voting biases, you need them in fact, you need more bias as you say, people are too positive to downvote the trending crap, trust me many have tried, :D people just like business as usual, it's not bad to be good and say things need to change, people have been doing it, actively, that's what I like about this place, but still you have the problems persisting, because we are human and we have them and we allow them.
The idea is quite vast, so a perception of a metric won't change the outcome much, we are talking about poeople's interactions, a simple framing could have great consequences, but do you think that just that would change everything necessary for a whole behavior to change.
Personally I think when you go into a new place, you don't carry the old stuff with you, you go seeing what is different, then you go back to your old stuff and change them, that's a better approach than going somewhere with your problems and asking for solutions.
So I was quite active here or quite a long time, trending back then was 70% same old, as some say whale-voted authors, didn't matter, didn't care, it bothered me, I saw better things elsewhere, it's not fair, that's life... it's not better now, it's not gonna become great tomorrow,
I've been saying people need to talk to each other and read more, that's not feasible in scale, but it sure would help everyone out more, it would build more bridges back and forth, the economics will still be broken because the whales will still have the stake, but hey who needed to be visible, wasn't me I bidboted one post about bubbles :D fake visibility doesn't make you famous, if you are crap in real life having 500 payout on a post might feel good, but that's not real value.
Still that has been proposed at least 2-3 years ago, it's not that well argumented as a solution I suppose, it's just a name to a mechanic, sure it will give you a different perception, but people don't go to the trending page to read good content, nither do they go to downvote to make content more deserving of rewards, I go there to sift through 50 posts, get some new updates, read two good posts and get out to people, at least I used to when I was here all day.
so yeah alternative trending pages are made, steemit.inc hasn't announced changing the condenser front end also called steemit, so no updates on the upvote/downvote popups, in fact it used to be called flagging, it was said that it should be used for what you said sooo now it's downvote, because that's what it does on the blockchain to better reflect the true behavior or something. Even back then downvoting was bad and people were arguing much like we are now :D call it downvote not flag and so on, flag is associated with reporting bad behavior ... :D
merry christmas also :)