I agree that the correlation between number of upvotes on EA forum and LW posts/âcomments and impact isnât very strong. (My sense is that itâs 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 Iâd frame this is thatâfor exampleâa post being more accessible increases the postâs expected upvotes even more than it increases its expected impact. I wouldnât say âPosts that are more accessible get more upvotes, therefore the correlation is weakâ, because I think increased accessibility will indeed increase a postâs impact (holding other factorâs constant).
Same goes for many of the other factors you list.
E.g., more sharing tends to both increase a postâs 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 factorâamong manyâin whether people share things). So the mere fact that sharing probably tends to increase upvotes to some extent doesnât necessarily weaken the correlation between upvotes and impact. (Though Iâd guess that sharing does increase upvotes more than it increases/âsignals 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/âcomments and impact isnât very strong. (My sense is that itâs 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 Iâd frame this is thatâfor exampleâa post being more accessible increases the postâs expected upvotes even more than it increases its expected impact. I wouldnât say âPosts that are more accessible get more upvotes, therefore the correlation is weakâ, because I think increased accessibility will indeed increase a postâs impact (holding other factorâs constant).
Same goes for many of the other factors you list.
E.g., more sharing tends to both increase a postâs 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 factorâamong manyâin whether people share things). So the mere fact that sharing probably tends to increase upvotes to some extent doesnât necessarily weaken the correlation between upvotes and impact. (Though Iâd guess that sharing does increase upvotes more than it increases/âsignals impact, so this comment is more like a nitpick than a very substantive disagreement.)