I agree that the correlation between number of upvotes on EA forum and LW posts/ācomments and impact isnāt very strong. (My sense is that itās somewhere between weak and strong, but not very weak or very strong.) I also agree that most of the reasons you list are relevant.
But how Iād frame this is thatāfor exampleāa post being more accessible increases the postās expected upvotes even more than it increases its expected impact. I wouldnāt say āPosts that are more accessible get more upvotes, therefore the correlation is weakā, because I think increased accessibility will indeed increase a postās impact (holding other factorās constant).
Same goes for many of the other factors you list.
E.g., more sharing tends to both increase a postās impact (more readers means more opportunity to positively influence people) and signal that the post would have a positive impact on each reader (as that is one factorāamong manyāin whether people share things). So the mere fact that sharing probably tends to increase upvotes to some extent doesnāt necessarily weaken the correlation between upvotes and impact. (Though Iād guess that sharing does increase upvotes more than it increases/āsignals impact, so this comment is more like a nitpick than a very substantive disagreement.)
I agree that the correlation between number of upvotes on EA forum and LW posts/ācomments and impact isnāt very strong. (My sense is that itās somewhere between weak and strong, but not very weak or very strong.) I also agree that most of the reasons you list are relevant.
But how Iād frame this is thatāfor exampleāa post being more accessible increases the postās expected upvotes even more than it increases its expected impact. I wouldnāt say āPosts that are more accessible get more upvotes, therefore the correlation is weakā, because I think increased accessibility will indeed increase a postās impact (holding other factorās constant).
Same goes for many of the other factors you list.
E.g., more sharing tends to both increase a postās impact (more readers means more opportunity to positively influence people) and signal that the post would have a positive impact on each reader (as that is one factorāamong manyāin whether people share things). So the mere fact that sharing probably tends to increase upvotes to some extent doesnāt necessarily weaken the correlation between upvotes and impact. (Though Iād guess that sharing does increase upvotes more than it increases/āsignals impact, so this comment is more like a nitpick than a very substantive disagreement.)