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RE: Dan Larimer. So insecure he has to self vote to put his posts that already are getting enough votes, to the top of trending...
It's not a penalty if you haven't earned anything yet. The "estimated payout" requires a week to gather a clear estimate of a post or comments value. This isn't just determined by upvotes.
Downvoting a post is written about in the Steem Whitepaper as a way to measure a posts value. Not everyone is going to like a given post, so downvotes are a way to guage who doesn't.