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See, when you say things like this it makes me think you have a closed mind about likes. They are better, you have decided, and no amount of discussion or forum activity (nebulous and slippery to categorize) will change your mind.
I also worry that you will push to eventually nest and hide posts based on popularity, requiring a click to display them. Isn’t that a feature of Discourse? I apologize in advance if I am mischaracterizing it.
To the best of my knowledge, the only place where posts are hidden or suppressed is when you click the “Summarize” button under the first post of a topic. I don’t know what voodoo creates the summary, but the summary is composed of only a fraction of the posts in the topic. During normal reading, nothing is suppressed.
Its an interesting thought, but it’s not like members of the community haven’t condemned likes as the path way to silence and damnation. It seems that both sides have members that can be closed minded.
My question is, what does success or failure look like? Most research starts with a hypothesis and hopefully a methodology, but it’s possible that @tomchick can’t tell us either, since that information might influence our behavior.
Still, I am curious to know what exactly @tomchick is measuring (if anything) and hopefully, after the experiment, he’ll be able to give us some insight into how this experiment influenced his final decision on Likes.
Then again, maybe this is less an experiment, and more an observation study (some those softies in economics or sociology might study). If that is the case, then I take issue with the title of this thread.
Right, I didn’t mean posts were nested here, but that on other boards using Discourse that was a feature that wumpus felt was the better way to manage a message board. Anyway, perhaps I am way off base here and wumpus actually feels that nested posts are bad, and if so I’m sorry. For some reason that’s stuck in my head as something he advocates.
If I remember correctly from the pre-change discussions, Discourse also has some features for community policing based on user level, where posts are hidden if they are flagged by enough people. Maybe you are thinking about that?
I must be missing the point of the thread you linked here, Because the written replies to the post you linked surely beat a simple ‘like’, IMO…
Anyway, having tried this a couple of days now, I have mixed feelings. In some threads, the likes work perfectly. The GIF-thread, the non-gif thread, the youtube thread: I would actually hate to see likes go now, because they are perfect for those threads. Not a lot of conversation there anyway, so liking the image or video is all that is needed, and the button does that job perfectly (particularly when you still don’t know how to post a GIF, like me…).
But in other threads, I don’t aprove of them at all. For example, Jpinard getting a bunch of likes but only a couple of responses feels completely wrong to me. Then again, I’m biased as hell ofcourse, and the Jpinard example is precisely what I’m afraid of. So perhaps I’m seeing things that aren’t really there, not to mention the fact that I’m not on the recieving end of those likes, so perhaps they work just as well as a written response for him?
I’m going to mess with things, and only like posts I don’t like.
If half of us did that, just think of the chaos that would ensue.
Well, that’s where we disagree. Not on the fact that it can be very difficult and scary to write a response to these kind of posts, I totally understand that and feel the same way. I do however think that a written response, no matter how awkward or simple, means a hell of lot to the one recieving it. At least, I personally would appreciate the effort very much if I were in that situation. And I fear that a lot of people who would have written a response when (because!) there was no option to like, will now choose only the easy option of that like. In which case it would not be “yes, and” at all.
Then again, I may be wrong. Perhaps people will still do both, and perhaps the one recieving the likes will appreciate that just as much as a written respons. In which case everything would be fine.
As for your wife’s dad: I’m very sorry to hear that. I know this is not the place or the time, particularly because it might look like I’m trying to prove a point here, but please believe me when I say I’m not. I wish you and your wife a lot of strenght and support in these difficult times.
Actually, Wumpus, it wasn’t. I don’t need to know you to understand that this are though times, and to feel supportive about it. And you obviously don’t know me if you think I would use something like this to make a point. But never mind.
I’ve never replied to those ultra sad thread/replies and doubt I ever will. If only because i expect this^^ kind of response when I do! But i might press a like button or equivalent so that the poster doesn’t feel so completely abandoned. Though ‘like’ is probably the wrong verb for such situations.
In a change of topic: I’ve been awake an hour and already got a message that I’m nearing my like quota for the day. Do they roll over in my time (UK) or one of the US times?
Edit: I’m out of hearts! 8 hours until the Chinook full of hearts arrives, I’m told. I’ll see if i can hold out until then.
I’m one of those people who liked the post in the way that you feel “wrong” about. Why did I click Like and not reply? Because I’d already responded to Jeff in the thread with my sincere best wishes for a speedy recovery, and I didn’t have anything new to say. I did want to acknowledge his post and indicate my ongoing support, and so… If the Like option hadn’t existed, I wouldn’t have done anything at all. Which is better? Which is worse?
Fair enough, and let me clarify that I don’ t think the likes in itself are wrong, or that anyone who just likes a post is wrong. If it seemed that way, and apparantly it did if it caused you to ‘explain yourself’, which you shouldn’t have to do, I apologize.
Also, like I said, I hope I’m wrong and that it will be ’ yes, and’.
And now this thread went from comedy to tragedy?
Weird thing, I can only do likes on my phone or tablet, not my PC browser.
I see you’re open minded about this.
Updated chrome and now I can see like again. Yay.
I think I prefer generalized emoji reactions ala Slack to likes (although I don’t like Facebook’s limited reaction set).
But the problem is that emojis, even sad-face ones just don’t feel appropriate for any mode of conversation besides comedy. If somebody posts “I’m dying”, “like”, +1, or :( all feel wildly disconnected to what is actually trying to be conveyed, especially if I also post the same sad-face reaction to a gif of a little girl dropping an ice cream cone or somebody in the cooking thread burning a lasagna or something.
That being said, I generally don’t post in bad-news threads either, because I fear that my condolences would ring hollow in text as well.
Likes are probably fine though. I suspect I will never use them here.
To elaborate:
Wumpus ignores very reasonable questions about likes and then appeals to emotion when defending them.
Here’s what’s not clear though; just taking that argument at face value, that people want to give validation yet have nothing to say in a serious situation, it’s not actually clear whether people actually feel better getting a gaggle of likes and no responses, rather than fewer likes but more personal responses. Just imo, it’s not at all clear that other forums with likes are in any way more supportive in a way that people feel necessary. Sure being forced to post is uncomfortable but maybe what people really need in times of crisis is serious human-human contact and not popularity contest upvoting? Yes it may be true some people are reluctant to post in difficult subjects but maybe maturing and finding the courage to hang your heart on your sleeve and awkwardly contribute is actually better than social media style liking?
But let’s be fair this isn’t the main reason wumpus wants likes, but because likes allow his software to curate the community’s conversations. This is just a convenient example.
I think you’ll find wumpus has a flexible mind that is always open to new challenges and ideas. He is eternally ready to experience new worldviews and extraordinarily empathetic and sympathetic in a manner that few humans evince in this modern partisan argumentative age.