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!
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).
TIL boost exists.
Now i have a question - why have two different systems of showing that you like the content? Why do we need boost AND upvote?
For me it’s about the difference between what I like and what I think people should see. If I like it I upvote it. If I think more people should see it I boost it.
but if you like it, why shouldn’t people see it? and if you want people to see it, why wouldn’t you like it?
There are quite a lot of things that I don’t like but think more people should see. The stupidity going on in American politics right now is a big one. I don’t like what is happening, but more people should be aware.
Most of the time if I do like it I upvote and boost. It was more of how my brain differentiates between the two
