Thanks so much for letting me know about reggaemuffin's resteem. I've joined a few contests so far. Jerry Banfield had one for the Spiritual Writing Contest. @rensoul17 has one still going for using at least 4 of 30 words in a post of poetry or poetic prose. There was another about how one might promote STEEM. I'm always looking for contests!
For the bots, some people think they are good some that they are bad. I just think that they're advertising, and I resigned myself to paying for that on any platform about a year ago.
You should look into @ginabot, if you want to know when people resteem/upvote/reply to your posts or comments.
https://steemit.com/ginabot/@ginabot/ginabot-the-best-notifcation-service-in-the-steemiverse
I've been using it for about 2 weeks now, and I love it.
I will look at that. Thanks for the article.