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.
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.
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.
This finally made it make sense for me. Thank you
This is the answer.
Because kbin can interface with content from mastodon AND Lemmy.
The boost is for mastodon/microblogs, the upvote is for Lemmy/threadiverse.
Upvotes are likes for mastodon but afaik they don’t do anything in mastodon except make you feel good that people liked your post.
boost is “retweet” or “reshare”. upvote is ‘like’.
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.