Why is the boost button so underused? (kbin.social)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Hank@kbin.social to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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I mean that's a cool feature Reddit didn't have. There are so many tech savvy people here yet I feel the boost button is mostly ignored even though it can be so much more powerful in how it changes the exposure of a link/comment.
If I can't see the actual amount of boosts due to some fuckery with being on kbin instead Lemmy or whatever lmk.

Edit because I immediately got plenty of confused comments. I enter the lemmyverse through kbin and this federation offers to not just upvote but boost a comment as well. For me this means I can give a comment more exposure.
But I'm really not good with computers plz to halp. There's a very good chance that I entirely misunderstood what I'm clicking on all the time.

Edit 2: I just wanted to let everyone know that this post was boosted eight times 48 minutes after posting which is a lot. Kbin represent!

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[-] GeekFTW@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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).

[-] Hank@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] CoffeeAddict@artemis.camp 2 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] GeekFTW@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] marron12@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] GeekFTW@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

That's what I figured, which makes sense.

[-] DONTBANTHISACCOUNT@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Maybe You can help me Out; what's the difference between a thread, a post and a microblog?

this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023

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