I would think merged pull-request (aka community patches that doesn't suck) would be a better indicator on gh - at least for open source project. Fixed issues a close second.

Linux and LLVM have no merged pull requests on Github. And a lot of these "Awesome x" (Node.js, Rust, Go, React, etc) will merge just about anything.

Also, I know of several project that fix tons of issues, but are relatively unpopular (perhaps because they have so many issues?).

I think the bottom line is there are no perfect indicators of open source project popularity.

Linux has lots of merged patches though. That they don't have merged prs isn't surprising as they handle patches via email.