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Thanks @carlgnash. Only a few weeks into things here, so I'm still quite ignorant on all the details. My working assumption was that the bots were essentially a pay-to-get-your-own-stuff-upvoted type of mechanism. Perhaps not all bots work like this...will need to investigate @gentlebot ... I certainly didn't pay for an upvote here. Confused on this end... bumping into walls, cornering me nuts on the coffee table and accidentally pulling down curtains like a lout, but I will evolve.

a bot does what it is programmed to do. Certainly not all bots are paid upvote bots. @gentlebot and its cousin bot have an algorithm that looks for "good comments" to upvote. They occasionally get it wrong, but more often than not they are actually upvoting a good comment (like this case!). Cheers - Carl