it is now almost entirely pay-to-play
Ya, this is really bothering me, and I'm sure many others. It feels like you need to use vote bots in order to find success, otherwise people don't read unless you havebuilt a community of sorts. It's frustrating, but I don't know how it could be changed or fixed, there is nothing in place to stop it and nothing better atm.
I personally would like to see you start pumping out some of those odd topics you have some knowledge on, maybe like one a week, sorry I don't have anything specific, your thoughts on spirituality would be interesting to me