Poking around Feature today out of curiosity, it was interesting to compare these filtered views:
- Filtered results for category:feature status:open order:likes-op
- Filtered results for category:feature status:open order:votes
I wonder what could be done with a Data Explorer query including both Votes and Likes… 
Also:
Automation thought: maybe a “primary” pool based on Likes could escalate requests to votable status.
Manual curation thought: occasionally a request with obvious merit gets picked up by staff regardless of votes, so in a way, some curation happens already. But perhaps everything should face a quick staff review?
Supporting example: I found 8 feature requests around “let users close their own topics” – from 2014 to 2025 – a couple closed, but most of them open with 0 votes. Something’s not working well if the same request is made repeatedly while older versions go unnoticed & unvoted.
If users aren’t searching — or seeing “your topic is similar…” dialogs — I’m not sure what else could be done but have initial requests reach a staff checkpoint: 
if new, move topic to a voting category; 
if similar request exists, reply with a link.
Just thinking out loud. I know everything takes resources…