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"Boost" needs a visual rework on kbin
(kbin.social)
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this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023
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I actually came to this thread hoping for what a boost actually does. So far as I can tell the functionality doesn't exist on lemmy, or it's hidden behind something else. I know it does something on Mastodon but never having used Mastodon I couldn't tell you what that might be. Presumably it's quite different from the up and down arrows which do exist on lemmy and I'm guessing are how the "hot" ranking algorithm works. Suppose I could go to the code and read it, if I get real curious, but if someone has a mental model already, or the right piece of documentation, and wouldn't mind sharing it that'd be real appreciated.
A boost puts that post into your outbox, which means it'll get sent to the inbox of any user who follows you. Lemmy doesn't support following users which is why boosts aren't visible there. Users on pleroma, misskey, streams, hubzilla, mastodon, and the rest of the microblogging fediverse can see boosts if they're following you
I should probably stop boosting everything I find remotely noteworthy. Good thing no one follows me. I'd be a spam generator for them.
I mean from that description, it sounds like it is just like retweeting something. Good to know. Don't boost porn. Got it.
Fortunately, on Mastodon at least, you can set a per person ignore/hide on boosts. Very helpful if they do good posts but are generally spammy with boosts.
Eh. I think a combination of remembering how indifferently casual my sphere of tumblr and old Twitter used to be along with knowing the thing tied to reputation was initially boost instead of the formerly decorative upvote button (it's fixed now) made me fairly free with who gets it.
Doesn't have to be profound, just has to be something I really enjoyed or found important, and which I wouldn't mind passing along to others. If I would normally hand the phone over to show it off irl, y'all get to look at it. Sometimes that's breaking news. Sometimes that's just a picture of a turtle.
I have like four people following me (hi peeps, why tho?) and honestly they made that decision. If they didn't want to hear the things I wanna talk about, they wouldn't choose to follow me and they should be amending that.
That makes a lot of sense, appreciate the explanation!
That's a bit disappointing as it would mean many boosts would have little to no effect at all within the forum atmosphere since following someone isn't a typical thing outside of microblogging. I had read suggestions that it was a refreshing of the post into the feed, so an old or new post that got boosting would get new life for visibility.
This is true for the microblogging services, but boosting is pretty much pointless for kbin/lemmy users (right now). On the microblogging systems, you have two signals you can send about a post, like and boost. A like doesn't affect the post and just lets the author know you liked it. A boost literally boosts the posts and presents it to your followers, even if they don't follow the OP.
A like is mapped to an upvote on lemmy/kbin. But the visibility boosting is probably why kbin originally mapped upvotes to boosts, since they're both about enhancing visibility. The problem is lemmy already used likes and microblogging users dont like being overwhelmed with boosts and users outside a forum are more likely to like a post so like <-> upvote allows non-forum users to affect voting.