I do a mixture of autovote and manual, with manual far exceeding the votes. I am pretty active on the blockchain, except for odd times when I am away for a few weeks. While there are many good reasons to autovote, especially if it is an author I have been reading for a long time and even though I voted for it, I will most likely go and read it in the next day. My schedule doesn't always allow me to upvote in a timely manner. I prefer to manually vote, which also pushes me to make it around to different people. I may like the comment a person makes on a post, so I will go see what they are all about and so on. It is addictive and helps me discover new people.

I run a small community called #MarketFriday, which is 100% manually curated. I like to see where my upvote is going and be able to stop abuse, should there be any, which is easier if I am visiting each post and voting manually. 

I tell all the newbies with no real power to not worry about the upvote as much as the comment. The comment is what makes them shine. I will go for a great comment any day. I have met some pretty amazing people that way. Long ago and far away, I had no money and would !tip people instead of an upvote. I had no more voting power, but, I left a tip with each comment. It didn't make anyone rich, but, many remembered me. That was my manual curation for that time.  ;)

I need to reread the part about your curation project and what it could mean for the blockchain/people. Thanks for the heads up on the update of thoughts.