It is not about the author, the only thing about the author is her lack of responses which may drive away consumers thus her content isn't getting consumed so it shouldn't be as valued as it is being by blind autovotes. It is more about the upvoter continuing to reward such lack of activities/consumption.
If no one read your posts or for a long time there was close to no proof that anyone did, you as well as me in that scenario should get their rewards adjusted if we're riding along on massive autovotes as we are. That is how the system is meant to work and why there is 25% of downvote mana compared to upvote mana among many other usecases.
I can understand your perspective and I do feel bad about this example, but we can't be bending over backwards to justify the lack of certain users activities like this and what it means for their perceived value on the blockchain.
I get it. I've just been rooting for this person for a long time and I think I got a little over-protective of her. But I do wonder if there is some hidden value here. We have been struggling to bring in an audience for years. I think it would be cool if there were a way for people to share their journals here and for others to consume them. Something like "I'm going through a divorce, is there someone journaling on hive about it that can help me not feel alone". I don't think that would be the main purpose but it could be cool to have a "journal room" or something... if we can ever get that big. But I guess we still need to find the way to bring a big audience of content consumers. I thought it would be video games, sports, or humor but that hasn't worked yet. For me, while we are figuring out how to bring in content consumers, I just want to encourage as many good people as possible. I don't want to scare any good people away. All of these problems we are arguing about now will seem trivial if we can actual get masses of content consumers.