I actually set 100% of the rewards to @null on this community post, which burns the author payout completely. That is why the punitive downvotes make no sense — what exactly was being "punished" or prevented if no rewards were being taken in the first place?

I understand the desire to keep post quality high on Hive (and my posts are all of high creative quality and — thanks to the AI tool — also a pleasure to read), but downvoting a post that already burns 100% of its rewards doesn't protect the reward pool — it just disincentivizes community participation. Right @antisocialist?