I never really thought about the automatic self upvote on Reddit and Lemmy. But after reading this article Dont let me like my own post, i’m wondering if we should just get rid of it. Its not really adding anything, or does it? Plus removing it would slightly simplify the code, and slightly less federation messages would get sent (probably unnoticable in practice).
I think we should remove it, and it would also provide an extra way to distinguish your post / comment as it would not have arrows.
That said, I think whatever you post should still start at 1. Things starting at 0 is a programming thing that should not carry over to real life, and personally I am used to seeing something with a score of zero as bad or negative (likely the same for most other people). The assumption that you approve of your own post is a reasonable one I think.