I find that many response of “me too” and “atta boy” just clutter up the thread. Let’s keep the threads on topic.
The likes are coming from inside the thread!
Sure there is. I’m with the “likes will not change the forum overnight” crowd. But I’m part of discussion sites with likes. And while they are generally innocuous in the blandest of threads, they are also often turned in currency, peer pressure and general popularity contests in many others. And they do change the way people interact over time.
Just declaring no problem doesn’t make it so.
I really love Qt3 for being a discussion forum with generally mature individuals discussing a wide range of topics. And they don’t have to wear “my post got 100 likes” badges to do so. I’m personally looking forward to them being turned back off for a month. I won’t miss them one bit.
This thread never fails to make me laugh. I just imagine one of you guys gets up in the morning, sees a few likes on a post, makes this face:
and then comes here and rants.
It’s like life-affirming “I’m not as old as I feel” kind of stuff. Look at me, with all this wizz-bang kiddie stuff still! I’m alive! Hooray!
*post courtesy of 3:12AM and a lack of common sense.
Edit: Oh gosh, and I don’t mean to say you’re all old or something. My brain is not worky right now. I know a bunch of people who are younger than me are in this thread arguing against likes. My bad.
Yep. That I’m totally onboard with.
Wendelius
I feel the need to once more point out that I love avatars. I’d just love them to be disableable per browser session so that it would be easier to fuck off at work without a bunch of little anime pictures next to every post making it more obvious that this probably isn’t related to education ;-)
Glad to see you’re open-minded about this! If likes change anything, it can only be in a good way!
I expect Tom to open up a discussion post-experiment and then he will make a decision based on that discussion. People will make their arguments, and he will be the final arbiter. My only fear about not having a supporting poll is that the people who are against Likes seem to be far more expressive and vocal than those who are for them. Does the silent majority prefer Likes? It would make sense, since clicking a Like allows them to remain “silent” lurkers and yet contribute in their own way all the same. But do we want a forum that caters to the silent, and won’t that result in a quieter forum? These questions are a bit moot, since I think that Likes aren’t really leading the haters to post less. In reality, it seems as if Likes are being used by those who … enjoy them… and those who don’t are ignoring them or using them ironically.
Again, I remain in the pro-Like camp and want to see them stay. I feel as if they provide an extra opportunity to recognize or respond to a post that might otherwise be read silently. As you can see from my join date and overall number of posts, I tend to read a lot more than I write, and I will always be that way. Likes give me an opportunity to participate in a way in which I’m comfortable, without taking away from those who can simply tune them out.
You mean we have to do this all over again? Where’s my mute button?
I haven’t noticed the likes, that makes it a fail and no point having them. I mean why have something you don’t notice best to not bother having it.
I guess I would say that this is a forum, and likes do not constitute participation in any sort of meaningful way, nor should we encourage the idea that they substitute for actual participation.
I totally dig that. But, like @Wendelius and @wumpus I am full on board with spoiler tags and avatars being huge additive features that I would dearly miss. Likes, eh.
Well, I expect we can continue the discussion in this thread. But we have to wait until the experiment is complete before we can look at any data we have and make final arguments. I’d be curious to see if average post length changed during the experiment or not. I’d hypothesize that it would go up, as people that would have posted a “I wish we had a like button!” or “Like!” stopped doing that, and instead used the button. But is that a metric that Discourse measures? And is post length something Tom values, perhaps as an indicator of quality? I’d also hypothesize overall number of posts to be lower during the Like period vs. the no-Like period. Again, is that a good or a bad thing, as far as the health of Qt3 is concerned? I’d argue higher post length and fewer filler posts is a good proxy for a quality discussion.
Now that I think about it, considering this discussion is titled “The Great Like Experiment of 2017”, I would have like to have seen it run as a more rigorous experiment. A priori hypotheses, and variables that by consensus operationalize concepts (i.e., how do you measure forum success?). At least the methodology seems pretty clear! Perhaps Tom has some of these variables in mind. But I rather suspect it’s more of a qualitative experiment. Which is absolutely fine, but a lot harder to gain general agreement on the results.
A like for you good sir, because it amuses me ;)
I’ll admit, I have that mental image too, and it makes me laugh. I hope the recipients like Tim can appreciate the joke.
And as a guy with two kids and is therefore constantly aware of this sudden feeling of old, this reminds me I’m not such a cranky old man… yet.
For me, while I’ve used likes a bit, I basically ignore them. I don’t really if they stay or go and since it requires work to remove them, I’d just leave them active.
That’s the way you do it
You play the guitar on the MTV
You need to go on the March for Like Science.
Not until the Cheeto HorrorClown turns his attention to forum software. I expect that to happen any day now.
Here’s how I look at Likes…
I honestly don’t care much about them either way.
The folks who are freaking out about them are kind of similar to those who were freaking out about Discourse in general, saying things like “I can’t handle a thread without pages!”
But the forum is pretty much the same now as it was on the old vBulletin system. The spirit of the forum didn’t change at all.
Hehe… Can’t disagree with you there, I still hate the endless page.