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)
how can I downboost
Hit the boost button twice. The second tap will reduce boosts.
Allow me to coin the term:
Wait so when am I supposed to boost? Upvotes sort now, so I should usually upvote and boost when I think something should be at the top?
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.
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 almost wish reputation and things of that nature weren’t publicly visible. A huge part of Reddit that I hated, the circlejerk-y opinions and same tired lame jokes being told over and over again, were caused in large part by people seeking karma (and that’s not even addressing the actual posts, just the stuff in the comments). I would hate to see that eventually start to come back.
There’s obviously some downside to that and it probably warrants a more nuanced solution if anything.
If it does have to return, I’d like it to wipe regularly. Every 3 months or 6 months everyone goes back to zero. Give EVERYONE the same “badge” that just says “so and so was here in year X” or whatever and leave it at that.
Or go back to what forums did and only count post count and word count and turn those into EXP.
I actually prefer having a visible scoring system in place. Things like that can be red flags that indicate whether or not somebody is participating in a discussion in bad faith. If you take a cursory glance through somebody’s profile and see that they’re constantly stirring up trouble and being a bother to people, you know not to waste your energy dealing with them.
Obviously it’s not a perfect solution for that situation, and doesn’t apply in all scenarios (trolls can also be good karma farmers, too), but it’s an extra indicator that can help determine somebody’s true motives in a discussion.
Reddit turned into an echo chamber because of karma, people didn’t want to express a different opinion than what the ‘masses’ have already decided on, because they would be downvoted and lose karma. The downvote feature itself being misused there too.
Reputation should be hidden or removed imo, keep the up/downs/boosts for sorting.
I feel we still need the reputation system, based on the fact that upvotes/downvotes get abused. Everyone always wants to give their 2 cents with how they feel about a comment if it invokes something in them, and upvotes/downvotes give them that power. As long as reputation doesn’t effect comment/post exposure then we should be fine.
If only the boost option exists and reputation is scrapped, I believe boost will be abused in the same manor as upvotes and downvotes do on Reddit.
Providing people with an outlet still to say “I agree with this person” or “this comment is stupid or I just don’t like it” I think will help mitigate the abuse of the post exposure system.
I do agree with others thoughts that reputation on a post/comment should be invisible though.
people didn’t want to express a different opinion than what the ‘masses’ have already decided on, because they would be downvoted and lose karma
Critical difference. Reddit had groupthink literally enforced by the software. If you had negative karma in a subreddit and you tried to post, it would say “You are doing that too much, please wait 8 minutes to post again”, even if your last post was 2 weeks ago.
