Playing new maps in competitive might give reduced SR loss in the future

I stumbled across an interview Alec Dawson did in China recently that seems to have flown under the radar. Most of it is the usual fluff, but this part stood out to me:

另外我们也在尝试进一步优化地图投票功能，比如在投票时出现一张新推出的地图，它会有一个横幅提示，先告诉你这张地图是新的，如果你在高段位挑出这张地图的话，这时如果你输掉比赛只会扣掉一半的分数，以鼓励玩家去优先尝试新地图。

Which Google translates to:

"We're also optimizing the map voting feature. For example, when a newly released map appears during voting, a banner will appear, informing you that it's new. If you select this map at a higher rank, you'll only lose half your points if you lose the match, encouraging players to prioritize new maps."

Source: https://bbs.nga.cn/read.php?tid=44942366

I can see this potentially being implemented in season 19 with the new batch of classic map reworks coming.