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.

  • dannekrose@kilioa.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    67
    ·
    1 year ago

    @HamSwagwich

    This is a result of the original design. Kbin, up until just before the peak traffic hit, was using boosts as upvotes and favorites/likes were just below the post/thread (where boost sits now). Lemmy does it the way it is now (likes = upvotes) so Ernest changed it to match Lemmy behavior. But just as he changed it, he hadn’t changed the calculation for reputation to match when the server nearly melted down and he has to spend all his time just trying to keep the site alive by himself.

    • garrettw87@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      I see you’re on a different Kbin instance. Was this intended to be a threaded reply, out of curiosity? Because it shows up as a top-level comment on the post for me.

      • Awwab@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        He using an optional feature that lets you auto populate your reply box with the OPs username.

        • garrettw87@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          Yes, but my bigger point is that it’s not threaded as a reply to one of that user’s comments.

          Edit: Oops, nevermind. I saw their comments elsewhere down here but didn’t realize they were OP. Just one of the interface things on Kbin that needs improvement.

          Edit 2: I need to figure out how to do strikethrough text on here

              • artillect@kbin.social
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                8
                ·
                1 year ago

                That’s because I put that in a code block with backticks (`), here’s what it looks like normally testing

                • Manticore@readit.buzz
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  5
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  As a desktop kbin user, there’s no strikethrough. Unsure as to why, if kbin is markdown. Strikethrough is considered advanced markdown formatting so I’m guessing kbin didn’t include it. Now I’m curious to see how much common markdown is visible on kbin’s desktop platform.

                  Guide for those unfamiliar with markdown, so you can see what I’m doing. ✔ means I can see it on desktop kbin, ❌ means it remains unformatted (formatting characters remain).


                  Horizontal rule ✔

                  Testing MD (headings)

                  • bullet points ✔

                    • sub bullets (no tab on kbin; use 4 spaces) ✔
                  • bold

                  • emphasis

                  • ~~strikethrough~~ ❌

                  • escaping *characters* ✔

                  • code (inline)

                  quote ✔

            • jdaxe@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              test

              Edit: doesn’t seem to render properly on jerboa lemmy client

      • ArthurParkerhouse@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        So sometime in the future an upvote will be used to score the post and get it on the “frontpage”, and a Boost is just like a save feature to save posts to my microblog?

        • minnieo@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          i wouldnt call boost a save feature per say, but since we arent on mastodon it pretty much looks like one so i guess you can call it that lol. yes, eventually the reputation will be fixed and upvotes will affect it as it should, its just not a priority for now

  • Shortcake@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    1 year ago

    the dev of kbin will be changing this. so up/downvotes are what affect your reputation. It’s just not a priority right now

    • BedSharkPal@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      Do we know if there have been any releases since the influx of users? Or are they just focusing on backend stuff still?

      There’s still a lot of long hanging fruit *COUGHcollapsingthreads that would be great to have addressed sooner rather than later.

      • ChillChillinChinchilla@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        1 year ago

        they

        It’s just one guy. We were a bit worried if he was even sleeping when the first big wave hit and he kept everything up by cloudflare and prayer.

          • lohrun@fediverse.boo
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            1 year ago

            Yeah there are a bunch of us in the dev chat now. Some of us have set up our additional kbin instances such as myself. I’m still looking through the code and getting up to speed but hope to contribute to the main code base soon. (Right now I’m experimenting with some features I wrote on my instance)

            So yes, it’s mainly been Ernest up until this point but he is starting to get additional support from the community :)

              • lohrun@fediverse.boo
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                3
                ·
                1 year ago

                Thank you! I’m excited to see the site grow as well. We seem to be building a nice place to hangout and have good discussions unlike the site that shall not be named.

                (Also love your username)

                • ernest@kbin.social
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  8
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  Yes, there is a very strong team there now, and I will gradually delegate responsibility in certain areas. I need to focus on my own milestones. However, I want to do it slowly because there are many pitfalls here that are a consequence of kbin being a side project. But the organization on Matrix was amazing, and I didn’t even lift a finger for it.

                  @BedSharkPal @Upvotes_Kills_Birds

      • Kichae@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        There have been fixes submitted by volunteers, but I don’t think they’ve been reviewed and approved. And I don’t think there have been any new releases.

        Hopefully things pick up speed now that Ernest has a server admin to look after things here

      • AnonymousLlama@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        You can have a look here to see a test instance with some of the things that are coming, Ernest (the admin) has been merging in a range of tickets including bug fixes, UI improvements and other bits.

        There seems to be an ever growing backlog of feature requests and bug fixes in the issues list but a fair bit is getting sorted out behind the scenes.

        I’m mostly focused on UI/UX for mobile.

  • ArugulaZ@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    1 year ago

    Not crazy about the design. An upvote should be an upvote. If the upvote is useless, why is it even there?

  • ArthurParkerhouse@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    Why doesn’t Kbin have the [+] and [-] buttons for collapsing or opening comment threads? Or, if it does, where can I find that setting?

    • HamSwagwich@kbin.socialOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      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.

      • riktor@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        1 year ago

        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.

      • HeartyBeast@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        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.

  • TwilightVulpine@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Took me a moment to figure out what you were even talking about. The boost button is translated as “upvoto” in Portuguese, so that doesn’t help…

    Maybe it should be something like “promover” (promote).

  • Sylveon-Z@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

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

    • WhyIDie@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      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

  • Aatube@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    In my understanding, boost is retweet and upvote is upvote. So upvote is the Reddit upvote but it doesn’t change your reputation?