Im rather proud of the fact that the Shadow Hunters community just celebrated over 7 years of weekly contests. It has given newbees a stepping stone into Hive, they do not need to be grand writers or photographers and we have done it without a lick of support from any big curation project. The community has pretty decent engagement and wonderful prize sponsors.
Diversity is huge. There should be room on Hive for everyone, and having space for people to learn and grow and get comfortable is a big part of user retention, even if posts into the community do get ignored by the whales!
none of the really good things like this get supported!
We've done OK on our own (with Ecency support!) To be fair, we were offered OCD support years back but made the decision that we wanted to set our own rules.
good plan and yes you have done very well!