this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2023
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Like the title says, if you want to upvote something on KBin, you should use the Boost link, not the upvote button (Why? Don't know...)

The upvote button doesn't seem to do much, but Boost accomplishes what Reddit's upvote did. So if you're looking to encourage a post, use the Boost link.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As someone from Lemmy land this confuses me.

Have an upvote!

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I think it confuses everyone. I have no idea why these two things exist in KBin. It's a complete mystery the thought process that went into it.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Although the name "boost" is a little odd. kbin is more than than just a link aggregator. kbin is also a semi-blogging platform (View the microblog feed rather than threads) that interacts with Mastodon. If you boost something, it is the same as reblogging (re-tweeting) a post and generates a reblog post on Mastodon. The developer is going to change it to where the up and downvote impacts reputation rather than the current boost and downvote button. A technical oversight but they acknowledge this and plan on changing it in the future however internet points is not really a priority so no one knows when the change will roll out.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

This finally made it make sense for me. Thank you

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

This is the answer.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Because kbin can interface with content from mastodon AND Lemmy.

The boost is for mastodon/microblogs, the upvote is for Lemmy/threadiverse.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Upvotes are likes for mastodon but afaik they don't do anything in mastodon except make you feel good that people liked your post.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

boost is "retweet" or "reshare". upvote is 'like'.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

As I understand it, it’s a feature that is inherited from the underlying ActivityPub protocol which is designed to support all kinds of social network architectures.

If you use Mastodon, their usage makes a lot sense. A ‘favourite’ (upvote on Kbin) is a private thumbs-up to the poster - a pat on the back that has no algorithmic importance.

A Boost is more like a Retweet. Boosting something makes it show up in your followers’ timeline. I guess if you follow a person on kbin, Boosts will do that too and boosted stuff will show on your subscribed home page.