RE: Self-votes, low-diversity votes and how the situation changed since 2018
Yeah order of votes is obviously important, I am actually working on an analysis post currently that I hope to publish tonight RE paid votes share of reward pool, and I chose to focus on share of curation reward claimed by bid bots vs. r-shares rewarded precisely because r-shares doesn't reflect curation sniping and vote order. Interesting point RE comments vs. top level, I think it would be worth a quick follow up post from you showing same metrics you have above but split out by top level vs. comments.
I would still expect a much higher % of posts that receive paid votes to have the author's vote on it, than the % of posts that receive paid votes and have no direct self vote. Honestly wouldn't be surprised if it was near 100% of posts that receive paid votes that also have direct self vote. There are social aspects to consider outside of pure curation reward mechanic, the "no bid bot camp" has high degree of overlap with the "no self vote camp" :)
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