Automatic cross-posting is a self-fulfilling karma signal.
I think there’s something true about “crossposting is a signal of high trust”, but I’d guess that it’s not necessary to postulate an additional benefit from crossposting. The people with automatic crossposts are respected authors with an established readership, so they get more karma right away, and probably would still do so even if it weren’t a crosspost.
If you have some actual numbers saying that less-high-profile-authors who crosspost also get a karma boost that’d be interested to learn, but I’d bet against it.
I think there’s something true about “crossposting is a signal of high trust”, but I’d guess that it’s not necessary to postulate an additional benefit from crossposting. The people with automatic crossposts are respected authors with an established readership, so they get more karma right away, and probably would still do so even if it weren’t a crosspost.
If you have some actual numbers saying that less-high-profile-authors who crosspost also get a karma boost that’d be interested to learn, but I’d bet against it.
Funny cross-thread coincidence, but I now think that maybe what I really noticed for point #2 is what you described here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4Gbv7tmJs3ADbhJX6/reflective-complaints?commentId=KtekbKMi6SSzsaw4H. Crossposts just do better than linkposts, not necessarily better than “original” posts.