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Nope. Selfvoting came with HF 19 (I guess). You remember the April we starved without any reward.
Please @jaki01, do you know, when self-voting came up?

At least since I am here (end of 2016) self-votes are possible (and as far as I know they were from the beginning).
Of course there were also always attempts to punish it.

Anyway, preventing them wouldn't solve the problem, as - for example - the 'dream couple' @haejin / @ranchorelaxo demonstrates us on a daily base ...

If that is the case, how did I vote for this article four years ago?
self voting.PNG

So serious bloggers never used them by personal policy. Much more better way! Until the mentioned hardfork I was not aware selfvotes exist at all. You are right, @cmp2020. Thank you for the lesson. Thank you for the answer @jaki01.