PoeticSnake, you are cool. Just in general, you are fun and thank you for sharing that positivity in your posts.

Bots? Yes and I don't know. I have experimented with them. I tried a few. I tried one or two. And my intentions were to help a post that I felt was useful, get more visibility, which, can end up trending. Although, I doubt I've ever been a major player on trending. My posts, with or without bought votes, hover around $10 average. And I am humble and thankful for that benchmark for me. It has taken over 18 months to get there between dayjobs and life commitments. But I am thankful.

Why would I use a bot for more visibility? I ask myself what I want to accomplish with the post I buy the vote for. The main example are my #HODL Charts. I am not haijin, respect, his charts seem inclined to help active traders. I keep more company with HODLrs who can also benefit from Technical and Funadmental Analysis. It has taken years of learning, and I am still learning, but I intend on sharing what I am learning with others for free. I hope my HODL charts get seen by other people who just want to HODL but stay in touch with the markets just enough to be informed. I know not everyone has the time to chart, so I am hopefully helping people to either feel good about their HODL or help them find times when it is ok to maybe invest more. I want friends and family to be safe when investing in crypto, so I have bought votes for those sorts of things to help others who might be looking for that kind of info, find it. We'll see.

Manual Curation. YES! I have my strategy where I try to be able to vote as many as 100 times a day and still give a decent vote. Usually five cents to a dime. But I know that as I grow, that ten cents will be twenty. I have never had SP delegation, and that is ok. I try to support others the best I can. And I am always helping friends in chat on discord and on facebook. It is encouraging to hear you reflect on manual curation. I appreciate hearing all the different ways that individuals show appreciation.

And I especially look forward to eventually hearing about Your Special Project, "You Got Snekked" , and seeing how it helps lil ol minnows and newbies on their journey. You are one of the genuine fun finds on steemit. Even a touchy subject like votes and trending, was made EZ PZ to talk about from your post.

See ya round Steemian. And hope the visits with other steemians was good times!