I do think 2018 has the potential to be a great year around here... and it makes me happy that more people are engaging in "responsible" delegations. I realize it's probably less work for some of the big whales to just lease their SP to someone running a "scambot" service than finding responsible manual curators... but it's better for the site in the long run to support engagement.
It'll be interesting to see what "Communities" bring, if they ever get them launched.