I think the lines are blurred in a way, I think it's probably a bit of both in terms of engagement with the community versus getting votes, but some people might assign more weight to one of them. At current Hive prices, I think it's enough to weed out people who are just here solely to spam in order to get votes because it's likely not worth the time.
Price plays a big part. As it increases, more "crap" surfaces, but it also means that quality gets rewarded to a higher degree also. I remember the days where I was giving dollar votes on comments.... many of the same people are still commenting for 10 cents :)