I have been using Mastodon for over 2 years (and Lemmy since August 2024).
I’m still a bit mystified about the use of Favorites.
Personally, I use them thusly:
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If I think a post is good in some way, but that my followers probably wouldn’t want to read it (if it’s in another language, or if it’s personal, etc.) So Favorite only, no boost.
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If I like a post, and I want to give it extra traction beyond the boost I am also giving it. (I use this a lot.)
The second use is based on the statement on the mastodon.social instance Explore page: “These posts from across the fediverse are gaining traction today. Newer posts with more boosts and favorites are ranked higher.” (emphasis added)
But I notice that most posts with many boosts don’t also have many Favorites, so clearly I am out of step with most Mastodon users.
So could people enlighten me on this? Thanks.
Point number 1 for sure.
Favoriting/liking is especially a good thing to do with photo posts, as pixelfed emphasizes likes over boosts and I think a lot of photographers and artists appreciate likes more than your average poster.
I didn’t know that favourites factor into the trending algorithm. Good to know.
I treat it as a like button.
Whenever you like, honestly. It’s mostly a nice acknowledgment to the poster that you appreciated their post. Unlike commercial social media it’s not sending out anything to your followers that you interacted with it (at least last I checked).
I think many people boost more than favorite because it functions a little similarly in regards to acknowledgment, with the bonus that it helps share the post to others which is even more relevant in federated networks than on centralized platforms.
Quite agree with point number 1, moreover the fact that those you re following boost everything they like tends to cause a kind of “spam”, I think developers should dissociate the Boost button from the “Like” button.
