We’ve had “Why can’t we have a Like button?” discussions before. Even if it were a good idea, it’s apparently not something that would work well with the board’s software.
From last year:
We have had other threads about this, but one important thing to note is that Discourse does not have a “like” button. Instead, it has a reputation system, which uses “likes” and other things to determine a user’s “reputation”. Discourse expects message boards to be largely self-moderated, with more “trusted” members doing the moderation. That’s not how we do things here. Instead, we have a staff of moderators. As such, we have turned off a lot of the “reputation” functionality.
Enabling the “like” button would turn a lot of the reputation system back on, which would grant mod-level powers to users that Discourse thinks are more “trusted”. That’s not how we prefer to moderate the board, so that’s not going to happen.
Personally, I don’t give two hoots if we have a like button or not. I’m willing to try new things. But as long as the Discourse “like” button is tied into their reputation system, there is nothing to discuss. We will not be turning on “likes” here.