a small difference, but important to how people use the site
I think actually it’s both.
I think Hot and Top are sorted according to upvotes + boosts (weighted x2) less downvotes. I think the plan is reputation will work the same way (once it gets fixed).
…but reading this thread I wonder if that needs a rethink - people seem to boost rather more liberally than expected/intend in order to game this algorithm.
It was thought/expected that, since boosts effectively retweet the comment, they would be used quite sparingly - this is why they have a relatively high significance.
We could probably do with some clarity on all of this because this line of discussion has been repeated many times and there is quite a lot of hearsay and misinformation being parroted. @Ernest ?
…but reading this thread I wonder if that needs a rethink - people seem to boost rather more liberally than expected/intend in order to game this algorithm.
I think it’s because of all of the posts that say “boosts are upvotes”, and people are just confused, so they use the boost button alongside the upvote button. Once this gets fixed, the amount of boosts will probably go down
