Jennie, you never cease to amaze me! You “Hit the nail on the head” with this reply.
Quick and excellent thinking.
I think it was the same OP, too.
Wouldn’t not responding at all be even easier?
But then you’d have no idea how many people didn’t respond. 
Count me as a +1 for wishing we had a ‘like’ button. Sometimes I just want to be able to show appreciation for an informative/funny/witty/well-thought-out post without actually saying “That was a really informative/funny/witty/well-thought-out post.” Or, heaven forbid, “LOL.”
I would have no problem with such a ‘like’ button being disabled in Great Debates otherwise it just becomes a battle of which side can get the most likes.
Mostly, “dislike” buttons tend to be used to disapprove of ideas and facts which the poster hates but cannot muster a logical argument against. Even worse are the boards which “hide” posts that’ve been spam-unliked by the brainless hordes.
I think we be fine without this innovation.
Concur. Also concur with general arguments about the water-down effects of such features.
If you can’t express it in a full sentence and stand behind it, falling back on 140 characters and one-click responses isn’t going to be an adequate substitute.
Maybe we should add an “I am following this thread although I have nothing to contribute” button.
Much like my post here.
A “like” button would cut downs on “Me too” posts. It would lead to less thread clutter. Is there so much lack of imagination among the Luddites that they can’t ever conceive of wanting to show appreciation for a post without having to clutter a thread with a post that expresses that appreciation?
Knee jerks are always quick.
How about a “Hate with the fire of a million suns” button?
Or my favorite pair of buttons:
- “Poster ought to get laid more often rather than spending so much time posting.”
- “Poster can’t get laid so spends all available time posting jerk-off ideas.”
I used to think this, for the same reasons. And quite often I’d like the opportunity to “like” an SDMB post just to show my appreciation when I have nothing extra to add. But seriously,. who gives a damn if a random anonymous person “likes” what you have to say, anyway? If you are confident with your opinion, whether people “like” you or not is irrelevant. And :rolleyes: who cares. You either believe what you say, or you don’t. Why would you need the validation or appoval of random strangers?
Over time, I’ve decided that this whole social media “like” (or dislike) trend is ridiculous, and either consciously or unconsciously influences some people to tailor their responses in order to get “likes” or positive feedback.
I think in the long run, this is detrimental to honest discourse. People ought to post what they truly think without worrying about how “liked” by strangers they might be. :rolleyes: In short, I think it would have a chilling effect. And I hope that the PTB here continue to resist the pervasive facebookizition and homogenization of online discourse.
No one seemed to appreciate my call for a thanks button, and there’s a biannual 10-page debate about why we don’t have avatars, either. It’s an uphill battle, OP, and I don’t think there’s appetite for change. I understand the argument–that a bunch of gimmicks will cheapen the message board–but I just vehemently disagree with it.
Jinx, you’re best to go somewhere more receptive for changes to its culture, like GiraffeBoards, or Saudi Arabia. 
Usually when I see someone respond to a post by saying they wish there was a “like” button, it usually means they saw a post the reinforces their own biases. I think we can do without that.
it certainly would save us a lot of drenched keyboards.
why? wouldn’t it be informative to learn which side is more generally accepted or popular, as opposed to a vocal minority?
In a manner of speaking.
Fascinating. And do these people to whom you refer — do they admit it outright, or do you have to make use of your special bias-detection goggles?
I agree with all of this, but I have a couple problems.
Nothing annoys me more than when people pile on a poster using the word ‘we’. They do that to paint a picture that it’s the world against the poster. If you do that enough, even a poster strong in their convictions may give up and back down. It goes a little something like this:
“Well, to be honest, I can think of a good reason to drown a bucket of puppies”
“Listen. **We **have already explained to you over and over again why there is never a good reason EVER to commit such a deplorable crime. **We **have said it again and again!” That’s some bullshit. Now if there were a like button, then posters who think their may be a good reason for pup-drownings could throw some support behind the first poster so that they don’t feel like they are just crazy and should shut up.
Also, sometimes, a poster just doesn’t want to dickride in a thread out of nowhere, but they can’t help feeling like they have to express their appreciation for a post. Almost every time VT posts, I type a damn ‘hahahaaa!’ then backspace and delete, because I don’t want to be on his jock all the time. Same thing for Chronos. He drops knowledge on me like, wow. That was awesome. But I don’t want to keep saying it. Wordman, Miller, I could go on and on. And I don’t post to doper appreciation threads anymore.
So the like button would be good for those reasons.
At the same time, I don’t like the…vibe?..I don’t like the vibe of having folks trying to post things that they think will gain likes. That would feel corny. So, I guess I don’t really know if adding a like would be good or bad.
For fuck sake, this is the third time you have asked this.
What makes you think that the answer is going to change?
a yearly request does not sound excessive.