It is a very good contest, it gives hope to those that we find and pick that, hey someone other than a bot found me. When I make it to a featured post, I often see 3 or 4 other P.I.F. attendees, have already voted and commented on the post, with more than an "oh I guess it's my duty to vote and comment" attitude, but with a real vote, and a real comment to the poster. So they see 3 or 4 nice comments.
They win, their post made a few pennies, maybe even close to a dollar if they get lucky and also end up featured in one of the other groups out there. Word of mouth, and a few followers.
The chance to win an extra reward for our Pay It Forward post is a bonus, we get votes from fellow participants, we sometimes get votes from those we feature, and we get the satisfaction of knowing that we may have made that one persons day, that I think is why a lot of us still participate in the contest, I would like to see more, I would like to be able to get to more than 7 or 8 post and vote for all the selectees, but we all have our vote limit.
So overall a nice update post on how you feel, on the sponsors, and all the work involved. I think the early cut off date and time is fine. I think you are doing a fine job with all of it.
Thank You for visiting other posts and taking the time to not only curate your entries but to reward those who have been featured in other entries.
Do you remember the first time you got some real comments? You know ones that were from a bot, scammer, or someone looking for money to resteem? I do and I think that those 3 or 4 (which I'd love to see this increase) comments are really important to helping motivate new steemians.
I haven't figured out how, but this engagement is something I really would like to see increased in the contest if all possible. This is something that a couple ideas from my "help" post might be able to promote.