PSA: Upvote is not an upvote like you are used to (like Reddit) - "Boost" is the Reddit Upvote

HamSwagwich@kbin.social to /kbin meta@kbin.social – 492 points –

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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I do wish there was a bit more privacy involved with boosting though, as of right now anyone can see what I boost.

I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not, but just in case, that's the point of a boost. You're boosting its noticeability. It's not supposed to be private

Boost as a “shout out” being public is alright. I guess for us Reddit folks it’s like a cross post to our own u/sub that followers could see.

Upvote/downvote, though, should be private. Not sure if that’s ever truly possible though because by the nature of the fediverse it has to be replicated across to other instances and so everything is “open” as I understand it.

It may not be easily visible in the UI but it’s there in the data.

So I try to think of everything here like it’s a postcard not a letter.

Any mail carrier who sees it (and makes a copy) can see it all.

for me, the main selling point of kbin over lemmy was the transparency in user interactions on here. the last straw on the camel's back over at lemmy for me was seeing blatant vote manipulation hiding behind the end-user anonymity; kept an eye on some accounts that would instantly always get the same number of upvotes, dependent on the specific account, less than 3-5 seconds after posting. it was always some single-digit amount (I assume to not get flagged by the system), but that's all it takes to signal others to feel safer upvoting it.

the same can be done likewise to bury others' content that they can view as competition to what they want seen, multiple early downvotes can act as a subconscious deterrent to others