As far as I know, there's to be no expectation of rewards, including curation. If you're upvoting garbage, and someone removes the rewards from garbage because they don't want to be screwed over and watch money fly out the door for no reason, the one upvoting the garbage in the first place screwed themselves, they were not screwed over by someone else.
I'm sure that makes way more sense now lol
And maybe it's worth pointing out, if someone out there is being an intentional menace with their downvotes, that's still not the final say.
You have -14. All that tells me is you pissed someone off and perhaps that individual doesn't handle anger well, and that's still a guess. That -14 doesn't force me to think less of you as an individual. Much like an 80 doesn't mean you're a class act.
Those with the mark are good or qualified? Those without the mark are bad or unqualified?
That's madness, in my opinion.