I frequently don’t have much to add to a conversation and when someone says what I wanted to say, and they say it much better than I would’ve, a “like” is a perfect response. I tend to think making someone try to find something to add in order to show appreciation for a post is pretty lame and probably hurts any conversation more than it helps it.
That hasn’t been my experience. The things I’ve seen are on forums that don’t do sorting by likes. People will still recognize the opinion that gets the most likes and repeat it.
I’d still be interested in seeing other places where this works, particularly forums like this one on Discourse or a similar platform…
I dunno, we have quite a few Discourse communities in the wild these days and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone effectively weaponize likes, nor has anyone reported that. 
The only minor side effect is a conspicuous vacuum of likes on posts from people the community has decided are persona non grata, but it’s fairly subtle.
Which is why I added this to the end of that paragraph…
Those of you that have seen “likes” ruin a message board, has this been recent? With “likes” so ubiquitous, I can’t imagine they would have much impact anymore (outside of Reddit style sorting by “likes”). I have never noticed much impact on any message board I’ve read in the last five years.
I’ve seen it most recently in some Facebook groups. One was a group for photography. It started with nice artistic photos, but when a picture was posted of an adorable kid (or a pictures taken by someone’s kid), it would get more likes. So more and more of those pictures start showing up. Some people could resist the urge to gather likes, but some people get sucked in. “Oh, you don’t like my picture of a sunset? Fine, I’ll post one of my puppy.” And even when you could resist the urge, it was still frustrating to see your nice picture “lose” to something stupid.
Another group has more political discussions, and there is invariably a point in every argument where someone says “oh yeah? If your point is so good, why does it have only 10 likes and mine has 20?” Then people pile on with complaints about argument ad populum, and the original point is lost.
Some of that might apply here, a lot of it doesn’t. I think likes would work great in a forum like GQ, CS, or the Game Room. I think they would be a big negative in GD. I can see some MPSIMS threads getting dumbed down as people start making more cutesy posts to get more likes. “Ruin” is a much stronger word than I’d use, but I do think it can negatively impact the quality of some conversations when every post has a running tally next to it.
We can pretend all we want that we are too smart to care if we get likes or not, but it’s BS. We’re human, and there is a little endorphin rush when someone likes our post (and if you disagree with me and think no one cares about likes, then why advocate for them?).
I don’t think it will ruin everything/anything.
But it just feels like the ‘form letter’ of responses, to me.
(But I do find it interesting that’s it’s so attractive to so many others on a board based on conversation.)
Feels slightly soulless, exhibits such minimum effort, why bother, to my senses anyway.
But if it really means ‘all that’, to lots of people, (like avatars!), I guess they should just take to doing it. I’m seeing them already, so I’m thinking it’s already a go!
This.
(Did anyone notice what I did there?)
“+1” isn’t conversation. And forcing a longer response isn’t a natural conversation. Think of a “like” as a replacement for non-verbal agreement like a head nod.
What does forcing a longer response mean in this context? Typing ou thanks?
If you really want to do a +1 or like, why not just use 
, which is actually named “+1”?
What’s the functional difference between the two?
None except we already have this here so no need to add/activate a like button and it also won’t show up as 25 plus ones on the original posters post. As a matter of fact, there would be no running total at all, which should put to rest the worries of a popularity contest. An added plus for me is the plus ones would not be anonymous so if I see 20 different threads where Johnny_Bravos only comments were 20 plus ones, he’s accomplished his mission to like posts without further comment. I, however, may want to put him on ignore, as his posts hold no interest for me. Seems to be a win-win for both sides.
Another way the Like button functions on Twitter is just as acknowledgment that you saw a post in response to yours. So, I appreciate that you responded, even if it may not have been directly helpful. It’s a convenient usage.
Arrrgh the urge to press LIKE on that post 
to indicate “hey, I saw that, and I second that emotion” was so strong. I feel like a person missing a limb, with phantom feelings from the limb that is no longer there…
(That being said, it’s up to the community, and I believe “no likes” is a valid lifestyle choice no matter how I personally might feel about it.)
What do the last two mean?
And what do you expect the distinction to be between heart and clap?
Yup.
I use “likes” on Facebook, and on two other Discourse forums. On Facebook i pretty much use “like” on my wall to say, “i saw that you posted in response to what is said.” On other people’s walls i use it as a quick reaction. “Nice vacation photos”.
On the discourse forums i mostly use “like” in two ways:
- thank you for answering my question.
- i agree with this opinion, and you said it well enough that i don’t have anything interesting to add.
- less common, but when someone tells a sad story about themselves they sometimes pick up a few likes that mean “i support you”.
One of my discourse forums is young, and perhaps likes will develop into a competition or something. It’s similar to this one in that it’s a general purpose discussion board.
The other one is mature, but it’s more focused on a particular topic. It’s true, as codinghorror says, that most posts there get a like or two. But most posts there are also answering someone’s question… So…
At any rate, so far they seem pretty harmless. A smile, a nod. It’s nice to get a “like”. But the posts that get them tend to be good posts, that any forum would want to encourage. Posts that help someone. Posts that express something well.
I would use a like button here if we had one. I’m not dying to make that change, but I’d be in favor of it.
(I cared more about avatars. They really help me keep posters straight, and i like avatars a lot.)
Would you mind sharing which forum this is? I’m interested to see how Discourse works in other communities, but I don’t have enough specific knowledge to participate in some of the specialized ones.
Sorry, but over 30 years on the internet has shown me this is never the case except for moderator (in)action.
Having likes is simple, basic, and rather fundamental to the social media experience. Not having them here is just more of ‘the Straight Dope isn’t Social Media’ fallacy which is strong among certain long-term posters.
30 years? The first like button was introduced on Vimeo in 2005, and first appeared on Facebook in 2009.
My experience is that the effect depends on how it’s implemented on a site.
Discourse has perhaps the best system, because it doesn’t sort by likes, but I’m still not sure that it would be a good idea here.
I’ve been on the net since USENET days and clout chasing like you described is very rare and is dependent on board culture even in this newish world of likes. The idea that adding like buttons is going to change the way we post is silly - at most, it’s going to remove a bunch of extraneous posts which add little but agreement.