re: personal upvoting guidelines

I guess I start by not treating anything, post or comments, as equal to any other. That means I'm usually adjusting the slider from one comment to the next, or one post to the other. I am also trying to spread my vote around, too, for as many posts and comments as possible. And, I try to keep my voting power around no lower than 85% or more, so as to maximize the upvote each time. Lately, that's not been working out so well.

Other than juggling those three factors, the only other thing I keep in mind is the dust payout threshold, which basically returns all rewards allocated to posts or comments that come in under $0.02 to the reward pool. That means giving a post or comment no less than $0.03.

After that, it's all on a case by case basis. I've managed to put aside for the time being the frustration of not being able to really ever reward anything what I think it should get, and just try to do my best to reward something. I also try to keep in mind what would benefit my own curation rewards, though I'm nowhere near to getting it right, and would probably have to narrow the spread to maximize it.

re: frequent meaningful comments

It's kind of counterintuitive, because some folks here don't think any comments are worth an upvote, but the primary reason for commenting more isn't for the greater potential in rewards. If it happens, great (and it certainly has some increased chance of getting rewards if there are more comments), but the real reason is just so people know you exist. If they're not seeing or reading your posts, then the only other way to make them see you is to drop in on their post.

I have all day to do this, so those comments are coming within the context of a 10-12 hour day. Things would have to be lined up perfectly for me to do it in less. So, there's the time factor involved. For that, I would say do as much as possible while keeping things pertinent and meaningful. It will take time, and you might need to be choosier where you comment (such as targeting larger SP accounts if possible). The bottom line is, the more you get out there, the more people see you interacting, the more people you will get to know and the more likely some of them will follow, autovote, or consistently engage with you.

Ultimately, obviously, you will need to find what works for you and makes you happy with the growth you do get.