The Great Like Experiment of 2017

I liked your post because I feel like you were being left out of the likes.

I got a like notification when I logged in tonight. Is that just awesome?

I think we should limit the number of likes you can give out in a day based on the number of likes your posts get in a day.

I can’t see any way that could go wrong.

I refuse to like this post.

It’s sort of a good prompt/reminder to head back to a topic and maybe jump in again.

It was good to see how it works. I can click on the heart and it shows me who liked the post.

I don’t see this happening. The way I view likes is “this was a fantastic post that I completely agree with and I have nothing else to add”. I could post that instead but it would really be a useless post. If I had something to add I could still like the post AND add my own reply.

It is interesting a couple of months ago, I would have argued that likes are a good thing. However, within the last year or so another forum went from the fairly benign likes to giving people around 10 different options. The really nasty ones like turd, face palm, and bad troll attempt have resulted in most every contentious thread being side tracked with people bitching about the ratings others have given them.

I’ll thank Tom for being open minded enough to do this experiment. I still think on balance positive reinforcement are a good thing, but I certainly won’t be heartbroken if we end up giving a thumbs down to likes.

I mean, you say it won’t happen but as I say it’s been my experience of literally everywhere else I interact that has likes. Facebook in particular has almost no actual discussion. Here I haven’t seen them in most other threads yet so maybe people just won’t use them to speak of, but I’d personally rather not risk it. I’ve yet to see any useful function for them.

Most of the time I view this forum I am on my phone. I hate typing out posts with this thing. So a like feature allows me to participate a little when normally I wouldn’t even bother writing a post. I like likes.

Can we not like our own posts? WTF is that about? What if I actually like my own post and want to give it a like?

Then ask a friend, of course.

Heh, my nephews post Like for Like in their Facebook feeds, and I think what they’re doing is asking their friends for a like and offering to return a like in kind.

Crazy fuckin’ kids!

Let’s not do that here, okay? :)

I would argue that that is because Facebook is generally not a place for discussion. I just check it occasionally to see what people in my past are up to and to get the latest cat memes. I think that Qt3 is all about the discussion hence it’s not going anywhere.

I doubt Qt3 would ever descend to that particular depth, no. But likes have a discussion-chilling effect even on forums. Maybe not a dramatic one, but a real one. And like I say, I don’t see any advantage to them that might offset that negative.

I mean it’s probably letting @wumpus sleep a little better at night, there’s that advantage.

Yes, this was a hot-button issue for him.

Yeah I think there’s some weird expectations for facebook likes among young people. It’s kinda like how some people expect you to call them back if you saw a missed call on caller ID log? (not that anyone calls anyone anymore these days)

I had a conversation with a 23-year old and mentioned a mutual friend missed them or thought she was avoiding her. She then says, more to herself, “oh I probably haven’t liked any of her stuff lately on facebook.”

I don’t get it.

FTFY :)

So far it seems okay.