I’m not sure why you feel the need to be so reductive and insulting, but for the record: I’m not suggesting a change just to “follow the crowd” (in fact the crowd seems more against than for, so I could turn that argument back on you), avatars were never intended to “make all the difference“ to me, and it’s not clear to me why a Like is “shallow“.
A like button will lead to the fall of western civiliization. Fear change!!!
I think what you said in the tipping thread applies here: “No one is making you tip. If you truly feel so strongly then don’t tip and leave the rest of us to do what we wish. That’s clearly the most obvious solution, for everyone.”
Change ‘no one is making you tip’ to ‘no one is making you use likes’.
Your stance in the tipping thread is that if you don’t want to tip, don’t do it, but leave the rest of us alone because we want to continue tipping. Why not apply that same approach to likes/dislikes. If you don’t want to use them, don’t use them and don’t worry about what other’s are doing.
ETA, looking further back in that thread, I see your stance is more from a position of ‘don’t change something I like just because you don’t like it’ with (just like in this thread) a sarcastic comment about this being some type of crusade.
"I think changing a system that works for most, because you don’t like the peer pressure is a bad plan, You want everybody to do things your way, though yours is very much a minority position. Again, sounds silly.
But I nonetheless wish you good luck with your crusade."
You’re absolutely right. I was explaining my view only, and comparing it to the ‘Must have or we’ll die,’ avatar issue. I am simply surprised that there was such a push and insistence on something, which upon final manifestation was so, so significantly underwhelming.
I guess I see this place as more of a conversation. And several people adding only, ‘like!’, every couple of minutes, would be offputting to most, in a real conversation, I expect.
In real conversation, (though indeed less frequent), ‘Well Said!’, or, ‘xYZ said exactly what I was thinking!’, or even, ‘I love how you put that!’, is something that I think others enjoy seeing. I know I do, and I would miss that.
I just feel it contributes more than a 10th ‘like’, I guess.
Funny thing is I feel the avatars are a very welcomed changed. I don’t recall how I felt about them previously. But by 2009 I was in favor of the change and I think they help a lot.
Really? In a real conversation, and indeed extremely frequently, people nod in agreement or smile at a well-phrased retort . . . wow, almost exactly like a ‘like’!
Personally, I don’t really have a dog in this fight. Likes/dislikes, especially when they don’t rearrange the thread (like on Reddit) don’t really matter to me one way or the other. I’d probably use them from time to time, I’m sure I’d enjoy seeing people ‘like’ posts I’ve made, but I’m also not going to die on that hill. In fact, I’m not likely to walk more than a few steps up that hill.
Like you I’ve always been of the mind that if you like a post enough to hit a like button, you can probably find something to say in the thread to make that point and add to the conversation. On the other hand, there’s something about being able to hit ‘like’ and be done with it.
Also since I mentioned Reddit, I always hated reddit. It was hard to follow a thread, if a thread was long, you’d only see the most popular comments, things were out of order etc. I finally realized you can sort comments by ‘newest first’ or ‘oldest first’ instead of Hot or Recommended and suddenly reddit became a very usable place for me.
If we were to implement that on this board and the posts still stayed in chronological order I don’t think it would have any more effect on the conversation than being able to see a user’s post count and/or join date.
These arguments about fear of change and avatars are really annoying. They allow people to get on their soapbox without addresses the actual issue: what are the advantages and disadvantages of likes? Not everyone who doesn’t like them is scared of change; many of us have legitimate concerns about them. Avatars have fuck-all to do with this.
There have been specific reasons people want them, and it’s not because they are new or other people have them. A comment above said that normal conversations don’t have people saying “like” throughout them, except that’s exactly what you’re doing in a live conversation when you nod or smile at what someone said.
There have been specific reasons people don’t want them, and it’s not fear of change. Groups that use likes can become popularity contests and change the way people post, especially on a board that sometimes addresses contentious subjects.
Address those points, and quit reducing it to “You just want/don’t want change.”
For me they sorta helped. Whether I’m reading here or facebook or any other message board, for whatever reason, I tend not to see the usernames as I scroll through the thread and just read the posts. The little splash of color next to each post does help me keep track of who said what even if I’m not consciously looking at usernames.
Like 
.
I agree that nonverbal acknowledgements are a valuable way to express approval without interrupting the flow of a conversation.
!
I checked my preferences over on the Discourse support board (which does have likes activated), and there doesn’t appear to be any setting to suppress the display of likes in a thread.
However, while I was over there, I checked to see if there had been any discussion of this idea. Apparently there’s a way to do this by setting up a “user group” for people who don’t want to see likes. This would involve tinkering, so implementing it on the SDMB would require some willingness from the board administration.
I suppose it would also be possible to do it with a custom theme. IIRC, there’s been some talk in the Site Feedback forum about a theme that hides avatars, but I don’t know if anyone’s actually working on that. Maybe we could have a no-likes/no-avatars theme.
I happen to like avatars, and even on my tiny little phone screen, I have absolutely no problem identifying images for all who use them; I find your characterization of them as “tiny, unidentifiable, and with zero purpose” to be rather… strange. They serve the same purpose as your user name, after all.
I’m ambivalent to them myself, but I agree completely that @elbows’ characterization of them being indistinguishable indicates they’re of low vision or using a really crappy phone.
I even noticed when you @Kron changed your pic a couple months ago. FWIW I sorta like the other one better. The “new you” is friendlier, but also more conventional.
Dear @LSL, doesn’t sound all that ambivalent.
I rely on the avatars to ‘people’ my Dope experience. I find them to be like real people’s faces, it’s how I recognize individuals. Chalk me up as a devotee of avatars.
It’s pretty simple: if likes affect sorting, e.g. the most “upvoted” posts go to the top, that’s where all the incentive comes from. Once you remove sorting, if likes are merely a part of the normal ambient data displayed on any post, like the date, time, username, view count (for topics) and all that… there is way less risk of people behaving in odd ways to get likes.
There’s a good overview of “why likes?” on the official Discourse forum:
Avoiding repetition
Likes help you keep your forum clean. On forums without a “Like” button, when someone posts something that other users agree with, you end up seeing a lot of very short, redundant replies. For example:
Game Company OP: Every player gets 100 free loot boxes for Christmas!
Reply 1: Awesome!
Reply 2: Heck yeah
Reply 3: So cool
Reply 4: Thanks
…
Reply 100000: OMG this is amazingSince forums typically have a lot of vertical space for each post, this means that a casual reader has to scroll past dozens or hundreds of such posts!
I’d also add that it simply feels good to express “wow that was a cool post, thanks!” in a straightforward way that doesn’t clutter the discussion. 
I do miss the like button here for that reason. So many great posts by really interesting people – and a few total dipsticks, per the official byline. 
It’s probably OK for a forum with a decade long history of not having a like button, to take some time deciding if they want to add it. No rush. Hopefully this place will still be around and chugging 10-20 years from now… one of my personal doomsday scenarios is “everything becomes a Facebook company town” and that’s, to be totally honest with you, why I wake up every day and work on this open source project 
I can’t recall ever seeing a thread like that here. Maybe in one of the ones I never visit, like the Game Room, but I think it may be expected there.
As for likes, if I can opt out, I say go right ahead. I just don’t want to see them on every post like Reddit.
Where are the “likes” on Reddit posts? I have never really used Reddit and I don’t remember even seeing them.
I don’t know if it’s on all forums but there are all kinds of those things on the reddit forums I visit. They are usually located next to user names. There are also thing like silver coins and gold coins and a bunch of stuff I don’t even know what it is, I have not bothered to check. To me, it just looks cluttered. Plus there ate the upvote things which are the worst, but codinghorror said that is not an option on Discourse.