There also seems to be some kind of (rudimentary?) grammar checker.
While playing around on the demo site, there was some question over whether there was a minimum number of characters for a post, and whether that was some number like 10 or 20. So I made a test post with just some junk text like
“xxxxxxxxxxxyyyyyyyyyyyyyzzzzzzzzzzz”
or some such, and I got a “mod-bot note” that it doesn’t look like a meaningful post. But it gave me the option to post it anyway. This board does a lot of intrusive stuff.
1 Like
When we get an active thread going like this, with several (or many) posters active, it begins to feel more like a chat room than a message board. (This isn’t necessarily a complaint.)
On two other boards I use frequently, that transitioned from a no-likes format to one with likes (and more) … there have been no negative effects of the ability to like a post. Or add “thanks”, or add an icon meaning “BS”.
There’s no popularly contest because collecting likes doesn’t do anything on those boards. There’s no benefit to racking up likes, nor demerits for racking up “BS” tags. It’s just another way of expressing solidarity, agreement, disagreement, gratitude, sympathy, etc.
I remember people saying that the mods said that it would be disabled, but I never saw whatever post they were referring to. Did any mod flat out say it was disabled?
There was another Doper who said it was impossible, because the Discourse software fundamentally depends on likes for its functions–e.g. which posts are on top, what privileges users get, which posts are shown as “suggested,” and so on.
(Also, I tried a workaround of modifying the quote tag to see if it would fix the “full posts not quoted” issue.
For example, I’ve been using likes today when others have expanded my understanding of how this new board functions. And also a few likes to express “I feel you, I know what you mean”.
Did those boards use Discourse? If so, then that would be a relief. Because, as I said, another poster said that likes are a fundamental part of how Discourse works, and not just superficial.
I know other forum software often has entirely superficial likes, but I’m not so sure about Discourse. It was designed to be a new take on Internet forums, from the ground up, and the creator is the guy who made Stack Exchange, which depends on voting and gameification to work.
Just trying this out, seeing if I can post.
No, neither of them is Discourse. One is Invision, the other is XenForo.
Well, I’ve dispensed about 20 or so likes tonight … and received a handful. I’ll let the house know if I notice any changes.
OK, looks like I can. Now, to explore everything else.
Yes, it was discussed how likes work. The Discourse platform is apparently based on a philosophy of crowd-sourced moderation, which of course is not how SDMB has worked. Posters who accumulate a lot of likes eventually get increasingly “trusted” and get more priviliges and powers. TubaDiva and other mods were saying they would do whatever they could to disable this, but it was unclear how that might cripple the workings of this board.
I would assume that SDMB staff retains considerable control over member rights and privileges.
If it’s true that like-accumulation effects can’t themselves be turned off … maybe the numbers can be played with to accomplish the same thing. For instance, if by board default accumulating 100 likes enables a member to (say) delete someone else’s post … maybe that 100 can be set to 1,000,000 likes or something unattainable.
All newcomers to Discourse, see GreysonCarlisle’s nearby thread in ATMB, titled
We’re All Here. Now What? (Basic Tutorial)
I’d call it more than a basic tutorial. It’s actually quite extensive, and includes a table of contents at the beginning.
@TubaDiva, you should definitely make a sticky of that.
4 Likes
And that would be the kiss of death for this board. Passive likes and related “feelies” I guess I can learn to live with, maybe, although I truly don’t see what they bring to the party except a party. But the other stuff, just no.
Can you imagine that Beck-authored pit thread if there were likes and dislikes and if they actually counted for something? Trainwreck doesn’t begin.
1 Like
Admin can set the number of likes we get per day to some ridiculously small number. That would make likes actually mean something since they’d be so limited. IIRC, 10 is the lowest amount allowed, and that’s multiplied by 1.5 at TL2 (so 15) and doubled (20) at TL3.
Minutiae: some text styles do not render like they used to, and this affects some old posts. Example: bold text is OK, but **bold text ** is no longer bold. Bold text with HTML-style tags seems fine, so perhaps it is a result of improper conversion (i.e. lack of attention to details 
On hearing about Sam’s Simple, I tested it and it seemed functional for me as well. I had already “rounded” my avatar though. I will leave it round.
I note that, as of this writing, the above post has 5 likes. I see the SDMB sense of irony did not get left behind with the old boards.
A relatively small issue: the smaller version of the SD logo (just the SD) in the upper left has its colors messed up. They should be the same yellow as the original or the favicon (icon in the tab).
Something also looks off about the full size logo, but it may just be me adjusting to it. It looks too sharp or something.
I guess I’m on the way to some sort of popularity. I hope it doesn’t turn my head, even ironically.
I went to check out my post to see what it looks like to have 5 likes (nothing very special) and I noticed that on the left it says “8 replies” (probably 9 after this post) and if you click the down arrow you can see them all in a row, like a thread within the thread. I think that’s a useful feature, and it should come in handy in a lot of our marathon and omnibus threads (assuming we are able to continue doing those).
Body is limited to 50 characters. Why?