That makes sense. I can see where that could lead to a sense of entitlement.

Another thought:

I am but a lowly school teacher, so I can't speak the language of the computers, so this might not even be possible, but:

Could you have someone write some code to check the last 7 days and keep track of how many times a person has upvoted and/or commented on steemSTEM content, as well as how many replies/upvotes their comments have received. Comments such as "Great informations! Keep the work up." generally do not receive any attention, so they could be ignored or weighted less.

When one of your curators chooses an article to upvote, they would plug it into the bot. The bot could check for a minimum threshold of interaction from the user. If the user's participation level is below that threshold, the bot could deduct percentage points from the upvote. Participation within the threshold range would get the base upvote. Those who have surpassed the threshold would receive a boost in voting percentage.

I imagine that this would require quite a bit of math and some strong coding skills. It might even be an absolutely horrible idea that ends up being way more trouble than it is worth. lol I'm just kind of spitballing, but I think something like that could encourage more community involvement.