I really appreciate the time you took to help sort me out. I am greatful you left useful feedback in a positive way on both my original post and then took the time to follow through the link and stop here with more feedback!
I like Dave had no idea about bot armies...
I have thought about your advice and have been watching the contestants and how they missed the upvote someone else part. I am thinking it will be more about comments next week... make the contestants read the other posts, comment and vote. I am hoping it will help teach people about commenting and make sure they get exposure on their own piece, because the contestants will have to read it to comment.
While speaking about commenting and how we met... I am not the only one that is unsure of when is appropriate to link-drop. I found this article this morning written by someone relatively new and thought of you to link or not
Like you, I'm having a heck of a time trying to get people to actually READ the entire post and engage with it by commenting. I like to reward all my commenters with an up-vote to show my appreciation and thus encourage more comments.
I made a reply to the link you provided. It is only my own opinion as there are no hard and fast rules, but I prefer to be on the cautious side. One flag from a whale can knock your reputation back to nothing!