Well, I didn’t say that. I love Discourse, since we switched I actually post (much to the regret of everyone else) instead of just read.
All I am saying is we lost a lot of old time posters when we switched to Discourse. I don’t see any reason to grasp around at other explanations when we have a perfectly good one.
They haven’t been holding off based on any rule, convention, or request. I don’t see any reason that would change.
I’m spending more time on the Dope than I used to, and also becoming more interested in a Like button. What’s prompting that in particular is coming in late to threads that have tons of posts, some of them sprawling multi-quote extravaganzas, and wanting to indicate support here & there along my way to the end of the thread.
That, and sometimes someone makes a decent point, but not one that I’m going to post in response to. I like you, decent point, but I don’t love you. In fact, I’m kind of profligate at heart, and many of y’all are so smart, and I want to give all of you the Like you deserve, that’s just a lot of posting… Please accept my little heart of appreciation.
It’s not going to ruin the culture here. I don’t see people angling for Likes, most of you are too goddamned ornery to do that, believe me.
Can “likes” be private, i.e., I could see who liked my posts but the like counts wouldn’t be visible in the thread? That way you’d know when people appreciated your posts, but threads wouldn’t turn into popularity contests.
Right? We’re better than everybody…until a new feature is added to the boards, then we behave in the worst possible way to the feature. At least that’s the fear.
Eh, I’ve seen more than a few groups sink because of “like” competitions. People start cultivating likes by posting what they think will get them more, people get hurt because their posts didn’t get enough, people feel excluded because the popular person gets more likes, etc. Then the people who don’t want to play those games get sick of it and gradually stop participating, leaving a bunch of attention-starved show-offs.
Don’t fool yourself, we’re not that different.
I don’t anticipate that happening either. How would one go about “angling for likes” anyway? We do have a handful of storytellers and would-be comedians who treat the Dope as their captive audience, but they’re going to continue doing what they’re already doing. I doubt that most Dopers are going to alter their behavior if we have a “like” button.
I’m guessing that your like count would not be visible if you made your profile private. It would be interesting to get a definite answer from @codinghorror on that.
What I’d care more about would be being able to hide all likes on all posts from my own view. I’m not interested in “likes” statistics, but I don’t care if other people want to use them as long as I don’t have to see them if I don’t want to.
I find “likes” counts distracting and somewhat distorting in online discussions, but if I can avoid seeing them then I don’t really care if they’re there underneath.
I wasn’t thinking about seeing it in people’s profile, I meant seeing the number of likes each post had within a thread. Like Kimstu says, but for everyone.
If someone tries to turn it into a competition to collect ‘likes’ I’ll counter that by amassing as many ‘dislikes’ as possible.
The only oddity that sometimes happens with likes, is that once likes are relatively normalized, e.g. most posts tend to get a few likes, you’ll notice a vacuum of likes on posts that the community really doesn’t like. It’s a subtle effect and I don’t think it’s particularly harmful… but for what it’s worth, that’s all I’ve seen as a mild negative.
You’ll definitely lose some users in a big software transition, but the hope is that you’ll gain new users with more modern software that is competitive (feature wise, mobile, etc) with the Facebooks and the Twitters and the Reddits.
One critical measure of a community is how many new users they get over time. Any community that rarely gets new users is destined for eventual extinction, and probable calcification. You need a steady flow of new members to keep things fresh and interesting over time.
That being said, it might be worth reaching out directly via email for any truly valued members that didn’t make the transition? Maybe ask them why, tell them you miss them, encourage them to come back?
And @tripolar there is no concept of dislike / downvote in Discourse. We do have a reactions plugin that we are beta testing which does this:
That is a totally optional plugin though.
So that’s what’s wrong with my idea. Thanks for letting me know.
I’ve seen that happen too. What generally happens is that the comments that are snarky one-line zingers get the most likes because it’s funny for the people who agree but not so funny for the people on the other side. That happens in many of the subreddits as well. That works for some of the humor subs, but not as well for the serious topics.
I’m more curious about what causes some places to NOT go down that road. I don’t personally have a lot of experience with those places. But I noticed early in the thread that someone mentioned a forum that used likes in a good way.
Maybe if people can give more examples of where the like button works and explain why it doesn’t turn into a popularity contest, that might help sell the idea to people who think it will go that way.
Where do like buttons work in a positive way, and why do you they work well in that particular forum?
ETA: It would be even more helpful if it was a Discourse forum, so it would be easier to compare.
Well that’s a board for discussions about tv shows/movies. Do people really go to places like that and bitch about how much they hate a TV show, or gays on tv, or transsexuals in movies or about how tipping should be illegal in movies? (I’m afraid the answer will be yes)Seems like it would be a lot easier going crowd than an all purpose message board.
You’ll have to excuse me, but I just am not seeing the appeal of ‘likes’, ever, to be honest.
Consider a thread where someone announces a tragic loss. The third poster makes a wonderful remark. Now, instead of the, apparently dreadful, repeated variations of, ‘So sorry, condolences.’, etc, it’s just three posts and a dozen ‘likes’.
I think that would suck, in every way. And if you say, ‘Oh, well, we wouldn’t do it for those threads!’ Why? Because it’s kind of cold, callous, impersonal?
Yeah, it is! You’re right! And it is in other applications as well, to my mind.
Most importantly it replaces actual, er, um, discourse! Which, I think, is the whole reason the board exists, so I find the idea silly.
Maybe even sillier then the years long fight for the essential avatars, which resulted in tiny images that mean nothing, are unrecognizable as anything, and so serve zero purpose. I’m glad y’all got your way after your long, long crusade, but really? This nothing little unidentifiable digital image was worth all that? For what? This made a big difference for you?
And now it’s ‘likes’, because other boards get them, we must too! For what? So people can avoid the onerous challenge of typing a few words? On a board designed for exactly that kind of exchange?
I doubt I’ll every comprehend this particular type of ‘progress’.
Conservatism of any kind is often couched in a very paternalistic mindset. “We can’t make the changes you want because [awful bad things] will happen. It’s for your own good.” In the early 20th century, one justification for denying women the vote was that their gentle natures would be tainted by the naturally corrupting influences of the political process.
That’s what I hear in threads like this. “If we allow [awful bad modern change] on these boards, the tone will be lowered. People will post less. The content of their posts will be lower. Dopers simply can’t be trusted with this sort of power. It’s for their own good.”
Don’t get me wrong - the curmudgeonly attitude is one of the things I love about this place. But as with avatars and in-line images and the Thread Games forum and emojies, nods to modernity aren’t going to break anything.
I’ll never tell anyone they’re wrong for disliking something that’s subjective in nature. If you hate the idea of [big bad change] because it offends your sensibilities, fine! It’s just silly to presume an erosion of cherished values resulting from those changes. It’s silly when conservatives do it in real life and it’s silly when we do it here.
On the flip side, did avatars lower the tone of the boards like some people were worried about? Have copyright and decency issues in avatars become a headache for mods? Has anyone been mercilessly teased for their avatar choices? Has anyone utilized their avatar as a space to promote hate speech? These are all arguments I saw in a very quick skim through some old ATMB threads on the topic.
Well… not yet, but you wait, the sky WILL FALL!!!11!!1!
I don’t think I said or implied that things would rapidly decline and hell would break loose.
I simply said it seems shallow, unneeded, and seems kinda against the objective: discourse!
Nor did I say anything about ruination resulting from avatars. Simply that is was a long fought battle, for what? This tiny, unrecognizable image makes all the difference to you? What’s it contributing exactly? You feeling ‘seen’? I’m glad you got your way and all, but just fail to see it made any iota of difference, to be honest.
(You’re arguing against positions I didn’t take here, I think.)
The battle for ‘likes‘ strikes me as much the same, change for no real need but to follow the crowd apparently.
I apologize if it seemed like I was ascribing all of those positions to you, that wasn’t my intent. I was just pointing out some of the very silly arguments made before avatars were enabled, contrasted against the perceived minimal effect that they actually had.
It makes some posters happy. If the value to you is absolutely null but the value to somebody else is a positive, isn’t that a net gain?
And if the “battle for ‘likes’” is the same - that the only change would be to make some posters happy but be a null value for you - isn’t that also a net gain?
FTR, I really couldn’t care less about whether avatars are active or not. But other posters like 'em, and the only time I see them mentioned in threads (these days) is in a positive context. So yes, if something is useless yet inoffensive 99% of the time and a good thing 1% of the time, it should be implemented.
Those one percents do add up over time. They translate to more engagement, more new users, and better retention.