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Why is the boost button so underused?
(kbin.social)
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this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
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Boost, to my understanding, is only a thing on Kbin. Ernest coded Kbin to have better connectivity with Mastodon (Boost was originally our analogue for a retweet) then Lemmy does, and that's one of the options he made (the Microblog section being another. The non-Kbin instances (so all of lemmy, and thus most of the people who can read this thread) just don't have a Boost button.
That being said Boost has changed a bit in terms of how it works since it was created, and it's gonna keep being changed (literally they have said they are working on it lol). For me I basically Boost anything I upvote as a force of habit at this point.
Edit: And to those even from Kbin who don't know since I see some of you in the comments - It's currently like a super upvote. Boost something and it'll make the comment rise higher in the thread, like higher upvoted comments on a reddit thread would go up to the top. (Less if it's changed since the time I learned that from some other fediverse schmuck lmao).
I use it differently to upvoting.
I'll upvote something that's funny, relevant, or just what I want to be seeing. It's hard to put into words.
I'll boost something important, or that I think other people should see, such as that an important person has died, or a useful comment.
Thanks for the insight. So if I boost something it's only relevant for kbin-users? I actually like it a lot. I can upvote something but still make a distinction to what I consider a quality contribution or something that requires more exposure.
One thing I try to keep in mind when boosting content is that if (hypothetically) someone is following me from a microblogging platform, what they will get from me in their feed is a) my original posts and b) whatever content I boost. So it has the potential of affecting visibility of content beyond the original threads or community it belongs to. This is especially true if you make use of the microblogging function in kbin to interact with the broader Fediverse, in which case people might follow you from there.
In consequence, I try to boost content that I think has a general interest beyond the specific thread it is located in, and that I think calls for extra attention. If I merely agree with something or find it valuable in context I stick to just upvoting.
There is of course no problem with following a different philosophy - there's no real reason to worry about whether your profile lends itself to being followed by Mastodon users. But it's something to be aware of when figuring out how to use the function. :)
I'm not a person with a qualified opinion by any means but that sounds like it can be abused to streamline shady stuff like astroturfing or brigading.
It's rather the opposite, as it is the alternative to an algorithm choosing which content will be visible. Algorithms are easily abused - a curated list of real people you follow and trust to share interesting content less so.
On kbin it's a little different thhough, as content widely boosted across the fediverse is given improved visibility by default. In this system we rely more on servers full of bad actors being defederated.
Oh I hope it won't cause a ruckus on kbin. But I bet you can easily switch it off it it gets blatantly abused.
I have not tested it with accounts from other instances or platforms but:
Boost - Do so on a Microblog page on a Kbin magazine - Kbin users can see it higher in the Hot/Active, as well as Mastodon users seeing something retweeted via that hashtag (kbin.social/m/gaming's microblog would be visible to them via #gaming).
Boost - On a Microblog page on a Lemmy Instance - Pretty sure only Kbin can see it lol. Lemmy can't see the microblog stuff I don't think, and Mastodon can't see Microblog content there either irc.
Boost - Do so on a Thread on Kbin - Influence the comment order in the same means as Reddit upvotes. I.E. If I boost a particular (parent) comment, and no other comment has a boost, that comment shoots to the top as if on Reddit I upvoted a comment and every other (parent) comment on the thread had 0 or negative points.
Per the above - I HAVE ZERO IDEA IF ANYONE ON LEMMY IS INFLUENCED BY THIS IN THEIR HOT/ACTIVE VIEW. If you know, tell me lol.
Again I may be wrong.
Edit: If someone from Lemmy can confirm: Is the parent comment below mine on this thread by WalnutWalrus? If so, yes kbin boosts in a thread influence the hot/active comment ordering for lemmy users when they view a thread too (I boosted it to test).
Just from quickly poking around, I think Boost only alters the comment order for kbin instances. Lemmy only seems affected by upvotes & downvotes. Lemmy also seems to give each post or comment an automatic upvote (or maybe that is just lemmy.world, idk), whereas kbin does not do this. I am also not sure if the automatic upvote transfers between kbin and Lemmy. This all being said, I could also just be completely wrong and misinterpreting things lol.
As a side-note, I can only seem to get my posts and comments to show if I boost my own post... I am not sure if that is just a kbin thing or something unique to my particular instance.
I'm going to assume the latter. I've made posts and comments (just here on kbin.social mind you) without upvoting and boosting, come back an hour later and others have seen it/commented/upvoted/etc so what you're describing definitely does not seem normal.
When I sort by hot on Lemmy and kbin, I get a different order on each site. Sometimes it's similar, but it can vary quite a bit. It doesn't seem like boosts affect the comment order on Lemmy.
That's what I figured, which makes sense.
That's very insightful, thank you. I hope it becomes standard practice all over the lemmyverse. I think it can optimise what content you see first.
Maybe You can help me Out; what's the difference between a thread, a post and a microblog?