An upvote is not a like that sits on a page. It is a distribution signal. Reddit has to decide, every few minutes, which of the thousands of new submissions in a subreddit deserve to be shown as Hot. The posts that gain votes and comments quickly, without a rotten ratio, are the ones it keeps showing.
The path a post actually takes
- 1
New
Almost nobody is here except people who sort that way, and AutoMod. This is where the post lives or dies.
- 2
Hot in the subreddit
Enough early score and the post is shown to people who just open the community. That is most of the audience.
- 3
Home feeds
Subscribers who never visit the subreddit still see Hot posts in their home feed. That is how a thread leaves the regulars.
- 4
Cross-posts and r/all
Rare. Needs a score and a topic that travels. You do not aim at r/all. You aim at Hot in one room.
Velocity beats the final number
Two posts, same title quality. One gets 12 upvotes in 25 minutes. The other gets 80 upvotes over 18 hours. The first one is the one Reddit still shows. The second already lost New. This is why “we’ll upvote it tomorrow” is useless, and why timing is not a personality quirk.
Reddit does not publish a formula. Anyone giving you (upvotes × 1.8) / hours^1.5 invented it. The documented behavior is enough: recency, vote rate, ratio, comments. Details sit in the algorithm guide.
Ratio and comments
A 90% upvoted small score will outrank a 70% upvoted bigger score in a lot of rooms. Downvotes in the first half hour are expensive.
Comments tell the sort the post started a conversation. A 200-score post with three “nice” replies is weaker than a 80-score post with a real argument under it. Stay in the thread. If you need other voices in there, that is hand-written comments, not more arrows.
A concrete picture
Same post, two first hours
Posted at a dead hour: 4 upvotes, 1 comment, buried by page three of New. Posted the next morning when that room actually reads: 70 upvotes and a dozen comments before lunch, sitting on Hot. The copy did not change. The window did.
What we will not claim
- No front-page guarantee.
- No Google ranking guarantee. Google may index the thread later if it lives.
- Removed posts cannot be voted back to life.
If the URL is live and public, post upvotes are $0.08 each. Use them as a first-hour floor, then do the work in the comments.
Questions
Do more upvotes always mean more views?
Not after the post is old. Velocity in the first hours decides whether the post is shown as Hot. A post that reaches 200 votes tomorrow usually already missed the window.
Do comments help as much as upvotes?
Comments are a second quality signal. A thread with votes and no discussion dies sooner than one people are actually answering. Reply in the first hour.
Can downvotes kill a post that later gets upvotes?
A bad ratio in the first half hour is hard to reverse. Later upvotes rarely rescue a post that New already skipped.