the bulk of my curating is already being done manually. There are a few that I auto vote simply to support their projects and make sure I don't miss their posts.

I'll be more inclined to self-vote my own work and if I find that the hits to the author rewards are to heavy, I'll reconsider my practice of Steem being my first choice for content.

Currently Steem is my first choice and other sites are repurposing the content. That generally gives Steem the stronger SEO benefit.

When it comes to downvoting. I rarely use them now and am unlikely to start using them more unless I start coming across a lot more boneheaded behaviour.

As for upvoting comments. I currently upvote comments I really like. If I find that I can't upvote them enough to avoid the vote being dust while preserving my VP, I may just start tossing SHADE at them

!SHADE 5