saw the config around while shifting around post settings. i remember being initially hesitent to keep ‘liking posts’ on as a feature because i fear it can drive people away from actually going out to reply to things. i tend to think its a bit too easy on more feed-driven sites to just hit Like and keep scrolling and didn’t really want the same here. i also think likes are used as a type of User Engagement Hack thing internally in a lot of sites; id rather not feel like i’m playing with people’s time like that.
but i also tend to overthink things and a like button is not actually that much of a deal! ideally it’d come with some cute-but-ugly pixelly icon too. it can be easy to get in a mindset of ‘sure why not’ when it comes to adding features but geniunely i wanna hear if there’s merit to the thoughts above, or if’d just be more fun to click like and not worry about it lol
also i’ve made one of those appropriately-sized badge buttons for the web-inclined
i personally think likes are good tech specifically in the context of punctuating a conversation. there’s nothing like a good strong for when you’ve read a reply you don’t have anything meaningful to say in response to, but don’t want to leave the author hanging. like, that’s a really useful social niche, and i think can help things feel pretty good overall
i somewhat share your anxiety about likes, actually. i frequently observe myself just sort of adding something to likes on a website, and thereby “sorting it away”, i.e. putting it in a mental drawer and leaving it there for essentially the end of time.
this is especially a major issue in the way i use tumblr, which is, if we want to stretch it a bit, a blog-platform with a spontaneous, interwoven forum-thread capability. i would not want aregames.art to become tumblresque, if im honest (though the smaller userbase and lack of venture capital involved definitely would be an improvement, i suppose?).
reminds me though that i do have a feature request unrelated to this. ill go check if there’s already a thread intended for those real quick.
this is a big use case for me as well, i do it fairly commonly on twitter and such. it’s also sometimes nice (as the poster) to see who’s dropped by your threads or not more concretely
it seems like its possible to hide it deeper in the […] context button which may obscure it enough for my liking. if i draft up a cute icon i’ll see how it pans out i think
this is a very subjective question, so don’t think i’m harsh i’ll just expose my pov
i personally despise likes, i write ublock rules and/or custom css to disable these stats wherever i can. i don’t mind like or view count alone, but the like/view ratio is something i strongly resent. likes are (to me) a grey pattern from modern social medias, i’d rather have someone write “me likey” than double tap a post to confirm they viewed it (hell, i’d rather have nobody interact with me than get a like)
ps: if there is an option to allow a post creator to disable likes per post/per profile i think it might please most people
FWIW I’m also thoroughly in the anti-like camp. If I’m going to respond to something I’ll take the time to write some words. I do however think it would be cool if AGA received some VC funding and added an AI button on every post.
i like giving likes (lets me say “hey you did a cool thing” to a creator) and like receiving likes (dopamine) but i think public like displays are bad (become a measure of approval, get gamed) and like metrics/numbers are bad (now everything is analytics)
i wouldn’t be opposed to cohost style likes where likes aren’t publicly displayed
i have more thoughts to add - for a while, on the starmen.net forums i used to frequent, there were likes and dislikes on posts.
and while people complained and moaned about it when they were removed, i do distinctly recall that it made the forums a lot… friendlier? it felt less judgmental and curb-stompy when you made a topic erroneously or asked a “stupid” question.
some people always use forums flawlessly, but i for sure was not one such user - and to me, those likes/dislikes being gone was a huge plus.
so just meaning to echo the slowly gathering sentiment: i dont think we should have “likes”. we dont need 'em - we can say something complimentary and good instead!
it sounds like overall the initial sentiment was correct. though its maybe worth investigating a way for one user to ‘poke’ another to signal the end of a chain or back-and-forth replies…
I think if I made it possible to like again I could also hide the public like count - but it would be just through custom CSS rules where you could still inspect element and find it if you were so inclined. maybe we should just adopt that twitter thing where people were replying to posts with the miiverse image macro lol
did some digging on this. it seems the only user-configurable side of Likes is being able to disable notifications for when you receive them.
also found out that internally discourse uses like ratios as a way of filtering post relevancy in categories, which i suppose we conveniently skirt past issues with that by not having any
I wouldn’t use that, even. Conversations end when they end, and maybe start back up again later. In many years of using forums, I’ve never wished for a reply terminator.
Don’t think too hard about it. Forums don’t need a lot of intricate features, I think.
i think it’s seeming the wisest to just continue as is yeah. i think the sites been pretty fortunate to really not need much guidance or manual moderation to push people towards anything. the way you put it, as a feature - the idea of coding/adding a new thing to ‘encourage’ one practice or other totally goes against the original spirit here
I think likes would be helpful in a really simple way in the context of this forum: I think it can be useful to know that people are reading what you’ve written, even if they don’t respond in a post.
I understand the concerns about how it might affect culture, though I don’t think this community is currently big enough that it would be a problem. That’s my two cents, at least. I don’t particularly think it’s a big deal, in either case.
for when you’ve read a reply you don’t have anything meaningful to say in response to, but don’t want to leave the author hanging. like, that’s a really useful social niche, and i think can help things feel pretty good overall