Ernest just posted some comments clarifying recent changes to Votes, Boosts, Favorites, and Reputation Points:
- Upvotes & Downvotes function akin to Reddit
- Boosts count as two Upvotes (link)
- Favorites are added to https://kbin.social/fav if you Upvote (link)
- Reputation Points have been updated
In addition to that, Ernest stated that “there is no connection between reputation points and sorting algorithms. It’s just info in the profile” (link)
Unless Ernest changed this too and I missed it, boosts still work with the microblogging portion of the fediverse, such as Mastodon. Upvotes and downvotes only interact with the “threadiverse”.
So my understanding is that boosts are now reflecting on threads as 2 upvotes, whereas on microblog posts they reflect as boosts and as 2 upvotes but only on the threadiverse sites.
(Someone correct me if wrong please!)
A boost is more like a retweet, anybody who follows you elsewhere in the fediverse will see the thing you boosted in their feed.
An upvote(=a favourite) doesn’t get broadcast in the same way. This is why a boost is weighted as a more significant endorsement.
Upvote = “I like this”
Boost = “I think other people will like this”
Boosts don’t count as 2 upvotes, just as two reputation points on your profile page, reputation doesn’t do anything.
@NotAPenguin
Yes it does. That’s literally what Ernest said and I even linked his statement on that in the post. It would behoove you to read it.
I think you’ve misunderstood what ernest said.
@NotAPenguin Maybe, what is your interpretation of “Hey, boost == 2*upvote. Simple as that ;)”
Boost is doing two things, traditional upvote in Threads, and posting to Microblog. The way I read it is saying that it’s two upvotes is kind of a quick way of saying “one click performs two actions and your reputation points reflect both actions”. It doesn’t logically track that you can upvote a Thread twice, but it makes sense when you consider boost increases visibility in two different places.
Boosts do count as two upvotes when sorting Top or Hot (you can check/prove this by sorting a feed by top, it will not always be in order of boosts if some posts have lots of upvotes and less boosts). This has been the case for weeks now. The recent change just brings reputation in line with this logic.
Yet. Unless prior scores get nuked, it’s going to cause a lot of confusion when they do for OGs in the fediverse.
Maybe I’ll start a new discussion on this - or join one that’s already running once I find it - but the best way to use these three scores seems obvious to me, and needs a standard to be established.
Upvotes/boosts/reduces need to do SOMETHING. I posit a simple structure and reasoning: