What Steemit needs right now is clear and present guidance to new users on what to do and how to do it, it really does not help that there are considerable amounts of high end users promoting the platform externally by stating people can make $100's per day just by blogging - and then everyone wonders why the new list is cluttered with internet scraped cut and paste content and recycled pictures. I still do not understand what Steemit is about and how I can help it grow - I'm sure the information in the white papers is out there but let's make it easy for people to see - when you try to post content add a click box that says I have read the white paper and include a link to it - most won't look at the link but at least it is a start. Steemit needs new, unique and quality content - to gain it the platform needs to guide the users on how to do this - it's not obvious to new accounts - if they are drawn in by claims of earning money for posting content then they will do that - let's be a little more specific and try to encourage the creativity everyone has inside them to come out.

Returning to the actual post, self voting to me seems rather inconsequential - I have read many posts by the users mentioned in list 1 and their posts are quality and inspirational - they should upvote their own work because it sets a standard for others to follow.

As far as list 2 goes, upvoting yourself only without sharing with anyone else, that's a clear drain on the reward pool and not what Steemit should be about . If accounts 100% upvote themselves with no external comments then they are obviously just automated and need restricting - if people think they can also earn by doing nothing they will try to find a way to replicate it.