I heard that votes have been changed to behave closer to how people would expect, and boost is staying here as well. So I had an idea how to bring it all together in the interface.

Sidenote: you don’t have to click the links here, the images are also posted inline in the comments below.

An app (either Artemis or an official one) might use a swipe gesture to visually hint at the relation between upvoting and boosting, as shown in the attached animation. Here’s a static app mockup with both swipe levels displayed. I’d also imagine that there should be a setting that auto-upvotes posts when boosting.

And on the web, it’s probably a good idea to consolidate all the voting buttons into a single block by adding an additional button at the top.

Edit: I’m disappointed in you guys. How come no one noticed the memes? :)

  • VerifiablyMrWonka
    36•2 years ago

    I like the overal effect but it’s hiding the true nature of boosting.

    Boosting shares a piece of content with your followers. Favouriting does not. Kbin does not yet contain a follower feed, but it is planned. This is what that looks like on Mastodon:

    • fearoutOP
      5•2 years ago

      I know, but you probably won’t be able to explain it to the whole user base, in my opinion. Making it somewhat visual might add to the general understanding. And probably increase boosting without extra incentives.

      • Ragnell
        2•2 years ago

        I don’t know, it seems fairly simple. Boost posts to Mastodon.

      • curiosityLynx
        27•2 years ago

        imo the boost symbol should be replaced by something like the retweet symbol or the symbol tumblr uses for their reblogging. That would make it clearer what it does. I’d also rename “boost” to something like “echo”.

        • fearoutOP
          6•2 years ago

          That in turn kinda hides the part where it actually boosts the post. Idk, but I feel like it’s a separate entity, not simply a retweet.

          • curiosityLynx
            1•2 years ago

            What about “spread”? Also, the “upvote” side effect of boosting is just that: a secondary side effect.

            • VerifiablyMrWonka
              11•2 years ago

              Secondary? The boosting of a post is secondary to the… boosting?

              I’d be down with the use of a reblog/retweet icon. It’s ubiquitous enough that a majority of people would understand it.

              EDIT. Parent was edited. I agree the upvote is the “side effect”.

              • fearoutOP
                4•2 years ago

                Probably some frankenicon merging retweet with a flying upvote might work.

              • static
                3•2 years ago

                Yes, the double upvote is secundary to the retweet.

                The retweet is understood by the fediverse, for example mastodon. The double upvote only happens in kbin

            • static
              1•2 years ago

              Maybe even remove the scoring from boost, It just makes things so complicated that a retweet has a side-effect

    • laurens
      12•2 years ago

      yeah, its good to mention that boosts is also really relevant for the microblogging side. I actually found out about this post because i follow ernest on calckey, and he boosted it. Thats for me an important usecase of boosting kbin stuff. This looks really pretty, but it does put boosting too much in the category of ‘superlike’ for me.

      • gunadai
        1•2 years ago

        Agreed - I think it needs to be distinct, but could still be an arrow. Maybe an arrow that curves to the right, like an email “forward” button? That’s kind of how I think of a boost - a forward to everyone who follows me.