On other websites, such as Reddit, posts automatically start with 1 upvote (from the user who posted it). Since users are allowed to upvote their own posts, it should be done automatically since most users will probably upvote their posts anyway. I think this would be better than having posts start at 0 and blocking users from upvoting their own posts since having a 0 on websites like Reddit means the post has been downvoted. This might result in users who use those websites wanting to skim past posts that have 0 votes.
Feature request: Have users automatically upvote their own posts when creating them
Submitted 3 years ago by FeatureRequester to discussion
vpzom 3 years ago
On one hand, it's more fair to users that wouldn't like their own posts if it wasn't automatic, but on the other, it would be inconsistent with other software in the fediverse and would look weird to non-forum users.
The author's vote already doesn't count toward ranking, but as you've mentioned, it could affect user behaviour.
I'm leaning toward doing it