Dear @chekohler

Thank you for your comment and sharing your thoughts. I fully agree that downvotes can serve great purpose. Hope there will be less and less situations like the one described in my post.

Its also seen a shift to manual curation and I'm seeing more rewards going to authors who I personally feel should be rewarded. I just want to see more engagement on posts, I think its still pretty lacking

Indeed. That's a good direction so far.

Also instead of the wallet memos perhaps you should also take advantage of the various promotion services now available on tribe sites and via eSTEEM app

I'm already using steem-bounty and promotions on PALnet and SteemLeo. Any other recommendations?

Memos are still the most efficient way, however I'm already sending them only to those who follow me (the way few other larger accounts has been doing).

Again thank you for your feedback,
Enjoy your weekend buddy,
Cheers, Piotr