Thanks for your input Tim. One option I can think of is to have the self-upvote reward decrease at a higher rate than upvoting other posts.
For example, upvoting foreign posts:
first post 10 cents, second post 7 cents, third post 5 cents.
vs self-upvoting:
first post 10 cents, second post 5 cents, third post 2 cents.
This way, those multiple daily self-upvotes will lose value much quicker. However, the workaround is to create additional accounts and use them to vote (one abuser did exactly that, but we spotted him quickly), which brings us to square one. The self-upvote is a difficult problem to solve. I would be surprised if those abusers have any consciousness to care about the platform at all. They found a gold mine and they're digging as much as they can to fill their pockets, while the rest of us work our asses to bring quality content to benefit us all. But as you say, let's focus on the positive 90% and support the community projects that are willing to deal with the abusers.
@rycharde proposal for new rules regarding rule changes regarding self votes and voting rings
Since I will likely be unavailable for further comment until tomorrow, I would just like to say that I feel this proposal deserves a larger discussion around it. As soon as I'm able I will post about it and hopefully get some fresh eyes and more feedback.
Untill then, I can say that I will be supporting any efforts to protect the reward pool, to the best of my abilities. It's refreshing to know that it appears only 10% goes towards unscrupulous efforts. I would like to know where that number came from, perhaps I will find out when I read the new whitepaper, which is very exciting!!!!!
In this case I agree so are we cool now even though I called you a dickhead?