I think we are discussing two different concepts ... because the concept of "self voting" from just the creator has been contested quite a bit.
And then there's self voting via "bid bots", which is some other SteemIt account voting for the creator's post via sending some amount of SBD/Steem.
Usually, I'll already have curators who've upvoted me within the first 30 minutes of me posting my post ... and usually the self upvote via bid bots comes in around 20 minutes after post to 1.5 hour after post (all the bid bots upvote at their own time schedule). So NO, those bid bots do NOT upvote my post immediately once I post.
So the people who upvote my post all share in the curation rewards. I've already calculated out that at least 1/4 of the rewards goes to curators on average, and up to at most 1/3 of the rewards goes to curators, of course like you said, is dependent on when the bid bot upvotes the post after the post goes live..
What irks me is that many of these accounts against bid bots do not go over in detail how the rewards actually get distributed, but instead, just focus on the "total rewards" .... when in reality, the total payout NEVER goes exclusively to authors.
In any case, I'm always welcoming the general SteemIt public to figure out the best and most fair way to distribute Steem/SBD ... but unfortunately, it'll of course be political, power ,etc. etc.
Thanks for commenting and aloha :)
Yeah, I'd have to say that the message transparency bot leaves might not be the best worded. If folks are using bid bots to get their posts somewhere that people can see them, and in effect buying advertising or adding to the curation incentive, then I think i'd prefer to see those posts designated as such, somehow. It would be like any other advertising that happens be it Google or Facebook. And that way, the actual reward payout is as much in question because not only do you have the creator/curator split, but you also have the cost of the bids, so there's actually an even smaller net amount. Showing the gross amount of the rewards just seems to get people riled. :) Or as you say, politicized.
Actually .. great ideas you present, they should mark posts with bid bots as "Advertised" or in SteemIt's case ... "Promoted".