This Board needs “likes” about as much as it needs a bad case of herpes.
+∞
IMHO, what makes the Dope intellectual and different is precisely the absence of social-media-ness like thumbing up or downvoting as seen on Facebook or Reddit. It forces things to be more about debate and less about popularity.
I don’t have a strong opinion on this either way, but I have seen people complaining about “+1” posts, which is the closest thing to a Like option we have here. Maybe that’s the compromise: no Like button, but no griping about +1.
No compromise necessary, since they can’t add “like” buttons.
An even were it otherwise, I wouldn’t consider that a necessary compromise.
+1
Like
Oh, shit. Wait a minute…
Could you explain how? I see this happening with a “dislike” button but I see a “like” button as ultimately harmless (if pointless).
like
You’ll get nothing and like it.
Definitely cliqueishness. A board that I used to haunt had a “karma” system (I think that what it is called, but maybe something else.) you can send points to other members, with their total karma listed under your username. With that system, the more points you have, the more you can send (and you start off with 10 points.) People started plaaying around it, sending karma back and forth between “friends”, and it ended up with newer people and lesser-liked people having karma in the tens or hundreds and popular people with karma in the hundreds of millions.
I have a friend that I call “Poster boy for Social Media Victimhood”. As a respected CEO in his 50s, you’d think he’d have outgrown that, but nope.
If we had Likes, he’d spend days concocting a post that he was just sure would get a hundred of them. He’d then spend the next few days monitoring the threads he’d posted in, counting the number of Likes he’d gotten.
And comparing that to other posters. Then he’d start frantic follow up comments in hopes of getting Likes on those, too. I am NOT exaggerating - - you’d notice him looking tired and depressed, and he’d say “That damn Gato-pesky dude has 31 Likes and I only have 27 and it’s MY thread!” Next, he’d start nitpicking Gatopescado’s comments in other threads, while racking his brain to come up with The Perfect LIKEABLE Topic.
And he’d be doing all this instead of sleeping. I wish I were exaggerating, but I’ve watched him get competitive about Pinterest, fergodzake!
I’ve been very careful to never tell him about this place. Even without most Social Media tools here, he’d find a way to feel sorry for himself: “That Slacker guy replied to me, and then someone told him this was a good idea… but it was MY idea! I’m so frustrated that he’s still got more posts than I do, but not for long! And his Join Date is earlier, but I’m catching up…”
I blame myself. 
I would like to have a feature where you could respond to a post by saying something like “Agree” and then go on to make a useful point of your own.
Wait…
Ha, I actually picked your name, knowing you had a good sense of humor.
Oh, no, I just “liked” Gatopescado. Now Slackie or another poster will feel left out… Damn, I don’t have time to upvote you all, but I like you all equally.
(Well, not Brickie - - when he realized that, he sulked off…)
There’s a simple vB add-on that allows people to “thank” others for helpful and/or interesting posts. I’d have no problem with something like that, and would prefer it to a thread that gets multiple two-word replies that don’t add either factual or entertainment value to the discussion. It just adds a line beneath the post that says 3 people thanked choie for this post.
(I think there’s also the option to show names, but I’m not sure if that’s another version of the add-on.)
That hardly seems like the road to perdition–to the contrary, it should be a completely uncontroversial option. But I doubt it’ll happen.
How about a “Hate” button, because I hate this idea every time it comes up.
The only function that likes and upvotes serve is to filter the content of ideas that you might be exposed to, ideas that you might not Like. This board is already becoming a sanctuary for like-minded, correct thought, an echo chamber of support for certain views. We have lost many quality posters who simply gave up on the idea of discussion of a different point of view. You are killing the board faster by driving these posters away. They didn’t get banned, they didn’t all die, they just gave up.
It wasn’t always this way. There used to be free-wheeling discussions, mild arguments, debates, between posters who did not obviously hate their opponent. That has all been lost, like tears in the rain.
This isn’t Facebook, this isn’t Reddit, this used to be a place for intelligent discussion but that has all been lost. A Like button should be the final stake in the heart.
There are good and valid reasons for not having a “Like” button, but I have to disagree with the premise that “many quality posters” are being driven away because of some sort of hive mentality. I can think of a number of posters who appear to have ceased posting during my relatively short time here, and most of them were largely or entirely non-political. I don’t know why they left, but there was certainly nothing in the trend of discussions that was driving them away. Meanwhile we have some posters representing extremist minority views who seem to stick to the board like leeches. So I don’t think your hypothesis is correct.
The problem with “Like” buttons or the general idea of upvoting/downvoting is just that it isn’t particularly reliable in terms of a quality indicator, and it tends to encourage clique-ishness. Slashdot relies on it in lieu of moderators, and while it’s helpful, again, it isn’t reliable. There was some topic or other many years ago that various posters were speculating about that I had authoritative first-hand information on. But since I posted as an unregistered anonymous poster, it was overwhelmed by presumed “high quality” speculation from registered long-time users with low membership numbers – all of which was wrong – and my post was never seen again due to volume of other posts and lack of upvotes. I gave up trying to contribute over there ever since.