Excellent discussion and explanation about dust votes. I used to upvote comments 100%, but as my vp drained and I delegated my HP elsewhere, even at 100% I couldn't cross that 0.02 HTU thresh-hold. I do use dustsweeper (both delegate and contribute) but it doesn't catch everything. Since then, I've focused my upvotes exclusively on posts and use tipping tokens to reward comments.

One thing to mention is that even if a dust vote doesn't pay out HIVE or HBD, it may pay out tribe tokens. I get comment upvotes from various lolz token accounts that rarely if ever cross over 0.02, but do reward nice second layer tokens, like HH or PIMP or LEO or ALIVE. Even these can be considered "dust" since they are valued much lower than HIVE or HBD, but everything adds up and you can count on them actually paying out! Some of the tokens even offer dividends and other benefits and can also be sold for swap.hive, exchanged for HIVE and powered up.

Thank you for clarifying the "dust vote" issue. New users with little HP can gain favor with hivians with good content, engagement and interaction, but also by investing in tipping tokens and carefully distributing them daily.