Will look into it in detail shortly, but would it make more sense to treat the links I upvote as the ones I "liked" rather than the ones I open? Or, is this how it already works?
I don't think so because people oftentimes click on things that may be of interest to them but that they don't want to validate through an upvote.
It's more nuanced than that. I'll often click through a link or comment link and immediately leave. Often times the title was link-bait and I'm not actually interested in the content, or the content was disappointing even if the topic was interesting.