I have had comments before about this, and that it is too much work and you shouldn't need to do any of this for attention.

This always baffles me. Why do people think they should be given an audience?

Where does that happen?
Facebook (page)? Nope
Reddit? Noooooo
Zeh Titter? Good luck with that!
Your own website? After a year, if you have a clue about SEO, maybe.

That said, I'm also not too big a fan of rewarding just for joining. I would be much more pleased when those curation projects would leave a welcome comment with basic onboarding tips, and engage their community to welcome the member and follow. Mostly with comments first.

An avalanche of genuine engaging comments, with hopefully a growing amount of rewards - if content created is fitting - will be much more fruitful for the community than the current known model, which can but lead to disappointment.