I am of a similar mind to you when it comes to those who exhibit such behavior. Ignore, and stop voting. I'm sure I end up voting people that do this since I don't really research into people's voting patterns. Of course, you can find users with a small self-vote number that in reality are vote-trading circles. There will always be those that just look to maximize profit by trading 10 votes with similar size accounts.
For me, it's not even an enjoyable way to use HIVE. Personally, I consider my votes as gifts to the author and do not expect anything in return. I try to balance between voting on posts that are likely to give good curation and those that I simply just want to support. I chose a while ago to stick to manual voting even though it doesn't return as much. In the end these are subjective choices and the beauty of HIVE is we can express our values through our votes.
It's not just "code is law," clearly there are unwritten social codes that govern what is agreed to be acceptable patterns of behavior.
Thanks for this "non-cub" post @onealfa! Take care.
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