Why do you think "upvote conversion rate" is an important metric for anything?

You might enjoy this post by Dave McClure:

http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2007/06/internet-market....

I think it's an interesting to note that site visitors are seemingly understanding our product's value and utility better than before. I see it as 1 out of 21 people "got it" enough to win their vote, and by the 3rd go, 1 out of 7 people "got it" :)

You can't really conclude that from this - you submitted three different products at three different times to three different groups of PH users.

There's data you can use to measure the effectiveness and strength of your company - conversion rates to users and customers, revenue etc. Are you monitoring stuff like that?

That's all the data I could think of (admittedly not a lot), but happy to dive in further if you guys and gals have suggestions!

A sample size of 3 is not a pattern. The plural of anecdote is not data.

You're right! Hence why I disclosed that at the end :)