We’re testing out a new feature on Meta — boosts! Boosts offer another way for members to react to each other’s posts, that fall somewhere between a simple reaction (, , etc.) and a full-blown reply.
How do I boost?
The boost button as a rocket icon, which you can select or hover over to add to a post. You can add one boost per post, and each boost allows up to 16 characters (including text and emoji).
How does flagging boosts work? I accidentally clicked on the flag icon (on short boosts those are quite close to the avatar) and got this, where the flag button was disabled
I don’t recognize this word, I assume boosts aren’t translated already
Those are already rare as posts must have a minimum of X characters. The limit exists precisely to avoid this kind of replies. Discourse made things well in this respect, tho the default 20 characters is too high to my taste (I decreased it on all my forums).
I remember “Quip” was also proposed amongst others suggestions. I liked this one for how the word sounds, but it was not neutral enough. Indeed, names are hard to choose, and it’s also difficult to change them later.
Yes, but with more than 15 characters.
Pretty much anything under 15 characters to me would belong to a like or a reaction.
Something more in the range of ~30 characters, perhaps, would fill the gap between a like and a small message we’d like to add without writing it in a full-featured post.
It’s just my feeling after briefly testing this single topic, so it’ll probably change over time.
And how boosts are used will probably differ a lot within different categories or forums.
If the intent is to allow users to emphasize their reaction with one or two words, then it does the job. If the intent is to allow users to add a bit more information or subtlety as a quick note, then 15 chars is probably too short.
Also, what about the possibility of allowing a boost only after liking or reacting?
Anyway, very happy to see this feature live
It’s one of those many, small features that help Discourse stand out over contenders.
, 
, etc.) and a full-blown reply.
