When you select decline rewards in Hive it is not declined them in VYB, no. But it is declining them in POB - that is the big difference.

The trap they have us in (us being the blacklisted heathens) is that we can't turn off the comment rewards in Hive so everytime a punk like me comments they can auto upvote my comment, and then nuke it to drive my rep down.

That is why I'm only commenting in the VYB front end where I can turn off the comment rewards.