I think you may be confusing 'boosting', 'distribution', and the topic-specific 'recommended stories'/'who to follow lists' here, Yana, all of which are different mechanics that function with different inputs and degrees of human involvement.

I don't think that what is listed under 'recommended stories' for a topic - which few people ever look at - contains the same stories as those that would appear in your For you or Following feed if you have marked that topic as of interest to you.

The wording is misleading and unhelpful, but I simply don't think it works that way.

They have made an active change to 'Who to follow', as it now indicates publications as well as individual writers, which wasn't the case a couple of days ago.

I just think they messed up those changes.