When I look at Mastodon posts, I see a decent amount of replies and boosts for popular posts, but not very many stars (see example image). I assumed a star is the same as a like, but I feel not a lot of people star a post, whereas I did see a lot of hearts/likes on Twitter posts. Are they not equivalent?

  • Pechente
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    2 years ago

    In addition to what the others said, there was a „campaign“ a while ago that you should boost and not favorite on Mastodon.

    Since there’s no algorithm that promotes liked posts in the timeline, liking something doesn’t do a whole lot.

    • polymerwitch
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      1 year ago

      I never understood this logic.

      I’ve been on Mastodon since 2016 and never really got into Twitter. I just don’t understand why the “algorithm” matters. Who cares if people who don’t follow you see your post? I want my followers to see my posts, and then favorites allow me to know that my followers liked what I posted. It’s a nice dopamine boost and helps me feel closer to my community.

      A lot of posts I make unboostable as well (followers only). “Promotion” doesn’t really factor much into my use of Mastodon so much as being “social”.

  • archchan
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    2 years ago

    On Masotdon, likes don’t do anything to extend the reach of a post or make it popular in an algorithm like Twitter. It’s literally just a regular like/favorite button, so use it if you want to like/favorite a post.

    Edit: also yes, federation as others have said.

  • alex [they/them]@beehaw.org
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    2 years ago

    As said above, likes are virtually useless. They’re more like “noticeable bookmarks”. Mastodon etiquette is to boost rather than like, if you enjoy a toot, and that’s also how it was when the Twitter timeline was chronological and didn’t include likes, a very long time ago.

    • TurboTurbo@feddit.nlOP
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      2 years ago

      Thanks, that makes sense. Just to double-check: replies are synced across servers, correct?

      • Oliver@lemmy.ca
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        2 years ago

        Thanks, that makes sense. Just to double-check: replies are synced across servers, correct?

        No. You will only see comments by users who have at least 1 follower on your local instance, at least in the official UI/app.

  • spaduf@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    I know this is an old thread but I don’t see what I consider to be the most correct answer. While it’s true that favorites are not used in the process of surfacing new content, the nature of the content algorithm (or lack there of) means that you may not want to boost posts that you don’t necessarily feel your followers need to see. For example, suppose I enjoy a shitpost but have a relatively professional audience, here is where the favorite comes in. This way you can encourage the OP to continue posting content of that sort without necessarily platforming it on your profile.