Acid - I love the honesty here and I think what it boils down to is:
"Curation is an amazing part of Hive because it is a way for an account to earn large HP Votes based upon Quality of posts and Community Interaction/Engagement."
It has nothing to do with, or rather should have nothing to do with:
"But did you delegate to me??"
"But did you vote for my posts???"
"But did you support my project??"
"How long have you been on Hive??"
"How much are you staking??"
That's what I enjoy about Hive - I can write about anything I want... but the posts that "Add Value" or "Teach Something" seem to receive the largest upvotes.
While receiving autovotes is cool and helps sustain the write-reward]dopamine button - the Manual Curation aspect is what really keeps this place... Human 😊
Yeah, personally and no offense to the creators I don't even necessarily care too much about the KE rating, it's what you contribute and effort you put in I care. I don't know if you're living off of Hive, if you really need the income for something so I'm not always going to judge how much you sell if you're constnatly active, contributing, trying - spending as much time and effort as a person investing in a niche small platform (currently) potentially could - I'd still vote that person and there are a few who've been here for close to as long as I have but have no stake to show for it but have kept up the "value generation" in ways I deem acceptable to continue to earn my votes or be a part of my projects, etc. And the reason I said "not always going to judge" is because this is hard to ignore if someone similar to the one above always sells and has been and is active, etc, but then also flaunts some random stuff I find dumb like "thanks Hive sold all of my stake to buy this new 85" TV I didn't really need but yololol", at that point-- yeah, maybe I'd stop voting that person if they prove they didn't really need those rewards and pick up someone else because there's always someone else and will be.
So yeah, all those things you mentioned and that one too I don't care much about - it's your history, activity and general vibe/intentions on hive I do care about, like you and @cherokee4life who is also in mine and many other people's comment sections being active and learning/engaging and became active on hive recently after being involved in splinterlands for years prior.
That's the best part - all the things we mentioned... all the metrics... all the tools...
They are all there to be used, or not... at the account owners/curators discretion... nothing is "mandatory" but having the tools at our disposal is useful...
It is still up to the human behind the screen to decide whether or not they want to Upvote or Curate - and that's why I love Manual Curation accounts 😊