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?
Why do Mastodon posts don't get many likes?
15 Comments
Pechente@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 3y
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@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 3y
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".
mosthated@feddit.nl · 1 pts · 3y
Thanks, I'll do that instead.
alex@beehaw.org · 4 pts · 3y
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.
Krafting@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 3y
Federation, if you go on the server where the toot was made, it has 186 RT and 300+ likes
https://mastodon.social/@jeffjarvis/110599267960420875
mosthated@feddit.nl · 1 pts · 3y
Thanks, that makes sense. Just to double-check: replies are synced across servers, correct?
oliver@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 3y
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.
Krafting@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 3y
Yes they are, just compare the post in your instance, compared to on the instance it was posted!
hybridhavoc@beehaw.org · 3 pts · 3y
Favorites (likes, stars, whatever) don't Federated, so the only favorites that your instance shows are the ones it knows about, being the favorites that are local.
When I view that same post from my instance I also see 0 favorites. But when I view it on mastodon.social there are 366.
Kichae@kbin.social · 6 pts · 3y
Favourites absolutey federated. They just follow the same federation rules as everything else: They federated from actor to follower. So, if no one locally is following a remote user that favourites a remote post, that favourite doesn't get sent to your local server.
mosthated@feddit.nl · 3 pts · 3y
O, I see. That makes sense. A bit of a bummer, because having a total number of likes would be more informative (imho) than only seeing the number of your own server.
beto@lemmy.studio · 1 pts · 3y
Yeah, specially because I run my own server just for myself.
itchy_lizard@feddit.it · 2 pts · 3y
Is there a bug report to fix this?
hybridhavoc@beehaw.org · 2 pts · 3y
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/11339
archchan@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 3y
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.