this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2023

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Hoping this is correct. Whats a Thread under a magazine, especially vs. a Microblog (kbin.social)

submitted 1 year ago by VerifiablyMrWonka@kbin.social to c/kbinMeta@kbin.social

33 comments fedilink hide all child comments

And why must I create a new 'article' to make a thread and not a post - which I think makes a new microblog.

I'm coming from a Mastodon POV, I run my own instance and have a pretty good idea (I think) about how federation works. The way ActivityPub is used is close enough to be familiar but also... not; very uncanny valley.

Additionally, if upvotes are favourites, what are downvotes? and how are they federated?

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[–] BaldProphet@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago (5 children)

There's a definition disconnect happening between Reddit refugees and more experienced Fediverse users. Identical terms seem to have different meanings here:

Reddit: Kbin/Fediverse

Post: Article or Thread
Top-level comment/thread: Post
Comment: Post
Microblog (No real Reddit equivalent, profile posts maybe)
Subreddit: Magazine
Upvote: Boost

Thus, making a new "post" is called creating a new "article", while making a top-level comment (starting a new "thread") or response to that article is making a "post". Any other comment is also called "posting".

It's confusing as heck, but it's natural that a different social media ecosystem would have different terminology.

[–] FaceDeer@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

There probably isn't the time or will to do this, but it'd be fun if there was a "Reddit refugee" mode you could set in your profile that swapped all the words out to the more familiar ones. It'd only last until Reddit sent a cease-and-desist over trademark usage but that might still help a lot of people make the transition.

To make it feel extra-familiar for Reddit refugees, perhaps also cause people with that mode set to occasionally randomly double-post their comments, randomly show them a "You broke kbin!" screen, or maybe even simulate an abusive moderator randomly banning them from communities.

[–] fross@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm trying to understand this comment, but i can't get my head around it. Unfortunately I find the reddit vs fediverse table (is it that?) actually more a hindrance than help. It doesn't format, at least where I'm looking from (kbin.social on web) so I don't really understand what it's trying to communicate.

It would really help if you could describe what this hierarchy is. It doesn't even need to be compared to reddit - just a clear explanation. Or of course a link to something that describes it plainly to those who are new to it. Thank you!

[–] speck@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Kinda ditto. I just created a magazine, went to create content and wasn't sure whether to add an article or a post—and whether it mattered. Somehow what I posted showed up as a microblog.

[–] BaldProphet@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Kbin doesn't seem to preserve whitespace, so it came out looking pretty hokey. I made some changes to make it more readable.

[–] fross@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

It's more readable now, thank you!

[–] Kaldo@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

It's extra confusing since if I click on the plus in top right, I get all of these as options. Wouldn't that mean that all of these are just types of threads, as in article is a text post/thread, photo is an image thread, etc?

Basically, thread = submission in reddit terms?

And it's just a comment, it's never called a post in this context, at least based on the button that I'm about to click to send this? Top level comment doesn't start a thread, right now it says that the thread owner is "VerifiablyMrWonka" whos the author of the whole thread, not the commenter.

[–] kukkurovaca@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Likes are now florps

[–] Gordon_Freeman@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Microblog (No real Reddit equivalent)

You can write on your own user profile in reddit, I'd say is the equivalent to Microblog

Let's say you are /u/BaldProphet on Reddit

You go to your profile, click on "Write new post" and this post will not appear in any subreddit, but only in your own profile. It will appear on the feed on people following you and people who enter in your profile can read and reply those posts

This feature is mostly used in NSFW profiles (people self-promoting their onlyfans)

[–] Haunting_Tale_5150@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (3 children)

My question is what does the boost button do?

[–] Kierunkowy74@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Your account can be followed by a Mastodon account. Any Mastodon/Misskey/Pleroma/etc. follower will see on her/his feed not only all your posts and comments, but also anything you boosts. Boosts is retweet/reblog.

[–] ampersandrew@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm boosting this in hopes that it will help someone explain it as well. Presumably it's similar to the boost/"re-tweet" in Mastodon, but I'm not sure how that manifests in a site designed to mimic reddit.

[–] themadcodger@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yup, boosts are a "I think people should see this button". @ernest mentioned in a post that boosts bump a post to the top of Active and add points to it being Hot.

[–] ampersandrew@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So then what does the voting score do?

[–] HeartyBeast@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Upvoting tells the person you are upvoting that you think they are splendid person, who provided good content. It's the equivalent of a 'Favourite' in Mastondon, but doesn't effect any algorithm, I don't think

[–] BaldProphet@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh, so boosts are the equivalent of Reddit upvotes.

[–] Nepenthe@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It would seem. Upvoting things on reddit didn't rebroadcast the comment to everyone else, but neither did it have zero effect on the algorithm, and it's interesting to see it decoupled like this.

Only, now I'm super paranoid about ever boosting anything. It used to take a fair bit to make me reblog things even on platforms where that was expected, because I didn't want to bother anyone with stupid stuff. So I'm probably just never going to touch it for at least a year.

[–] BaldProphet@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Only, now I'm super paranoid about ever boosting anything.
I'm kinda feeling the same way. If I'm going to boost something, it had better be pretty darn important or useful. That's probably a good thing because it means the threads and comments that are boosted are more likely to be higher quality.

[–] artillect@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The boost button bumps the post to the top of the active queue, IIRC
Pinging @Haunting_Tale_5150 too so they see this

[–] fross@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And what is the "active queue"?

[–] artillect@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can sort your front page by "top", "hot", "newest", "active", and "commented". Active uses a similar algorithm to hot, but it sorts by most recent activity.

[–] fross@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Thank you!

[–] Kichae@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So, the way federation works is not dissimilar to the way newspaper or magazine subscriptions work. If you subscribe to someone or something (called an 'actor' in generic terms) on the Fediverse - be it a person or a group - you're asking the hosting server to send you everything that actor published from that point onward.

You don't get the back catalogue, only the new stuff.

So, if you're the first person on your instance to subscribe to a remote community, you'll only get stuff posted after you subscribe.

"Boosting" is basically a way of republishing content. So, if you subscribe to a 3 year old community today, you won't see anything posted yesterday or any day before today. But if someone boosts an older post or comment, the group actor will re-send it to everyone who is subscribing.

In the microblogging sphere, that means the booster is sending the post to anyone who follows the booster. You cna see the same post boosted a hundred times. Mastodon does some light deduplication for users if requested, but that's about it. Here, I assume there is heavy deduplication taking place, so people don't see the same post a dozen times. But if you don't already have the post on your instance, the boost will transmit it and make it visible.

[–] fross@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So a boost is more of a sort of "revive necrothread" than anything else, and only serves to give visibility to content that is no longer on people's radar?

if not, what is the point of me boosting a comment someone else made 5 minutes ago? Is it because people who might follow me but not subscribe to the thread the comment was in, would otherwise not see it? So like, it's retweeting it to bring attention of that comment to my social circle?

[–] Kichae@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes and no. Again, there seems to be some precautions in place to prevent boosted comments or posts from being rendered as duplicates here, and I don't think it's pushing anything to the top of any of the sorted feeds (though maybe it gets counted as an upvote as well? I'm not sure). It just re-sends it anyone following the booster. And then the group re-sends it to everyone following the group.

This is actually really easy to see on Mastodon, since Mastodon doesn't handle groups differently from any other actor. Groups on Mastodon appear just as another user, and you interact with the group by @-ing it. You subscribe to a group by following the group actor, and the group actor will boost any messages it receives. You can create a new thread by @-ing the group in a top level post, or you can reply to a post by replying to a top-level post boosted by the group actor.

And the the group actor boosts it right back at you.

[–] fross@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thank you, this makes sense! I mean, it also makes me think this becomes exceptionally noisy as the boosts may grow at a low exponential rate as the number of users expands, but I will watch it and see how it works here :)

[–] Kichae@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

It is noisy, but it's also the only way to really make sure content propagates content the network.

[–] missingno@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Articles are Lemmy/Reddit-style posts, microblogs are Mastodon/Twitter-style posts. Kbin is interesting in that it can talk to both types of networks this way.

[–] tuctrohs@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

As a new user, I have given you my very first upvote, by putting that in a simple but helpful way. Thanks.

[–] fross@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

microblogs are Mastodon/Twitter-style posts

For someone who doesn't use mastodon or twitter, what does this mean? Can you provide something descriptive about the two without referencing other sites (or at least not exclusively - and this isn't a criticism at you, almost everyone seems to be doing this!).

It's very confusing trying to understand what an article, a thread, a microblog, a magazine are, and what their use cases are, hence why they are all separated. I think if I understood the use case, I would understand the reason why, better.

[–] mmmplak@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think microblogs are like Facebook status, if you ever used that, wherein you announce under your profile page. People that follow you will see your microblog and can comment on it.

[–] fross@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Thank you. So would I be right in saying that it's a post that is published to my own 'space', and that while it's public, it will only be promoted to people who directly follow me (and hence my space)?

I mean it seems to be the exact same entity as a post to a community/subreddit/etc, just into a different context so not sure why it has a whole different name! This is I guess why I'm getting confused.

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