I like your honesty and appreciate it @paulag. My opinion is also, that it's o.k. to self-vote when starting on steemit but it's really an ethical choice when being a whale or a whitness. Never expected this platform to be so ethically oriented and socially responsible and I must admit I like this and similar discussions, so thanks for sharing your own story;-)
there are way more ethics involved as your rep grows. Some of self inflicted ethics and some are community driven