I wanted to write again about this for a good while now since I am always puzzled why people, especially when they have some experience on Hive, waste their Hive voting mana...
It's not the first time I've written about it either, but seeing how people use their voting mana, especially on comments, it seems this is a topic that needs a refresher from time to time, not to mention there are new users joining all the time who most likely have no idea of what I am about to talk about in this post.
So... what is dust on Hive?
Any post or comment valued lower than $0.02 at payout time is considered dust and won't receive any HP/HBD payout. This affects both the author and the curation rewards.
Note: Dust only applies to Hive base-layer rewards (HIVE Power, HBD), not to Hive-Engine rewards.
Let's say it another way. If the cumulative upvotes and downvotes on a post or comment at the payout time (after 7 days) don't amount to at least $0.02, neither the author nor the curators will receive any Hive rewards. Those virtual rewards will return to the reward pool and will be shared by others.
If your vote counts as $0.019 or lower and you are the only voter on a comment (the most common example), that vote won't count for Hive rewards, it is just wasted voting mana.
Another note here is that the value of your vote from the time when you cast it until the payout happens will fluctuate, based on how other votes are distributed to the same or other posts. Think of it this way: the reward pool is a pie and everyone who curates expresses their opinion on how bigger slice of the pie one should have based on their upvote amount, but the pie isn't cut until the payout time comes, which means until then the slice can virtually grow or shrink as more votes are cast for the respective post or others.
So, if you vote a comment with $0.02 and you are the only voter, it is still possible at the payout time this will be dust, if payout drops below $0.02. That's why I never go to the lower limit. Often a safe lower limit is considered $0.025. Or you can use a service like @dustsweeper. Last time I wrote about the topic I heard it was still functional.
So, what should users who don't have a full vote of $0.025 do?
In my opinion, if you have a small upvote and are interested in the Hive rewards - and I believe everyone should be, even if you are fully focused only on one community - then you should NEVER vote on comments. You should only vote on posts that are likely to be above the dust threshold at payout, so you won't waste your voting mana. And when you have a small upvote, don't bother breaking it in smaller parts by voting with less than 100% (maybe 50%). If you don't make at least 0.001 HP in curation rewards your HP curation reward is 0.
Sometimes looking at what big accounts do and doing the same isn't in your favor. You have to do what is right for you at your account size. When your account HP grows, you can change your strategy.
There can be more complicated strategies made with specialized accounts for different Hive-Engine tokens and HP, so that you don't vote with HP and only with LEO when you vote on Threads, for example.
Your HE curation can have a multiplier for each token, so if you curate less often posts with a certain tag that has a reward pool associated with the token, you can use multipliers (for example, if you have a 2 multiplier for LEO and vote with 20% on a post, you will vote with 20% for Hive and with 40% for LEO).
Your accounts can trail each other's votes, based on certain rules and tags used, for example. But for that you need to understand Hive and Hive-Engine quite well first.
Personally, I don't bother using multiple accounts for posting, although I did at first. But I do adjust multipliers from time to time (from leodex).
If you have any questions, go ahead! if you don't understand something about Hive you can ask on any of my posts, and I'll do my best to answer. Your comments are always welcomed, as I hope you know by now.