Forum style: why no like button?

dreamfarmer

patrick.dewijs said:

Past as Future said:

. Messenger messages often have no punctuation and weird abbreviations. Sentences often have more emojis then words.

Older people have been complaining about this aspect of online culture since 1994. It is not exactly new to today's youth.

And forums dedicated to having a friendly and informative community benefit from having non-verbal ways to communicate that don't clutter up a thread. Ravelry, which is _the_ community-focused knitting site, has this line below every post in its forum groups:
 

educational interesting funny   agree disagree   love (15)

reply

And yes, some people complain about the existence of that line. It's not universally loved. Sometimes the lack of reaction clicks makes people sad. Sometimes posters get sniffy because somebody clicked 'disagree' but didn't follow up with an explanation. It's still just too useful in a forum focused on crafting and education and knit-alongs and so forth, with lots and lots of people who don't like talking even in real life but do like the 'company' of others (whether virtual or in-person), and who appreciate the outlet of being able to 'like' something.

Elsewhere, like, say, Reddit, having buttons allows for some moderation automation. Reddit is limited to +1/-1, for the most part but it still ends up being useful in what would otherwise be a mass of garbage posts. Likewise, Stack Exchange, one of the biggest and oldest QA communities, also has the +1 functionality.

It's obviously not crucial for a forum to have non-verbal responses. But as a communication method, they add a dimension you can't have in words-only forums and they most definitely predate social networks.

I do quite like Daz's strong newbie support in the forum, with both the general newbie forum and the newbie contest forum. Those are excellent ideas and not something  commonly well implemented (if at all).

Past as Future

Chohole said:

I have been using forums (3d grphic forums) for a good few years and I have never seen a forum that had like buttons or anything similar. None of the forums I used had anything more than a conversational forum, ie read a post and then post an answer.

You never saw forums with reputation system? It was both "positive only" and "positive/negative", both to rate separate posts and/or user profiles.

I use internet since 2005, and saw such systems them since then.

daveso

patrick.dewijs said:

Past as Future said:

Emoji meant to compensate how in online speech our conversation is limited to words only, as we can't see gestures, eye contact, face mimics etc. of opponents.

 

Yes that is how they where initialy intended :) happy/smile :( sad ;) wink etc. However they where always meant to be included with words.

When i say You are crazy i can mean this literarely but adding the wink ;) shows the reader i mean it jokingly.

However emoji have taken a turn where they are used without words and they lost there true purpose. in my opinion.

It sometimes looks like the youth of today (yeah im an oldish guy :) ) can't write properly anymore. Messenger messages often have no punctuation and weird abbreviations. Sentences often have more emojis then words.

And sure i too have send a single emoji post once in a while, there is nothing wrong with that. But this is a site for creative people, we can be more creative then a stupid pooh emoji

 

you want creative writing, you need to maybe go to creativer writing site. This is graphics site.   i want more time for graphics, not writing skills. 

Leana

Chohole said:

Past as Future said:

"Lke" has nothing to do with Facebook or other SN sites,  mechanisms of agreeing/disagreeing with post/user were on forums for ages, since good old phpbb days.

 

Many people don't and won't post reply, but they often can push "like" or "+1" or whatever to things... You know all those threads that have ZERO replies? If it's something like author's work, he would feel better when sees that people liked post, even if no replies..

I have been using forums (3d grphic forums) for a good few years and I have never seen a forum that had like buttons or anything similar. None of the forums I used had anything more than a conversational forum, ie read a post and then post an answer.

HW3D forums have a "like" link on posts. Personnaly I've never seen the point, but some people seem to love that feature...

agent unawares

Past as Future said:

Chohole said:

I have been using forums (3d grphic forums) for a good few years and I have never seen a forum that had like buttons or anything similar. None of the forums I used had anything more than a conversational forum, ie read a post and then post an answer.

You never saw forums with reputation system? It was both "positive only" and "positive/negative", both to rate separate posts and/or user profiles.

I use internet since 2005, and saw such systems them since then.

Yes, it's not uncommon at all. Even Renderotica has a rep system.

dreamfarmer

We get cloooose to that by publishing how many posts somebody has made.

Daywalker Designs

I suspect it's like some features that folks want to see on the store side; it could exist as an option in the forum software configuration, but be specifically disabled.

Ati

Past as Future said:

Chohole said:

I have been using forums (3d grphic forums) for a good few years and I have never seen a forum that had like buttons or anything similar. None of the forums I used had anything more than a conversational forum, ie read a post and then post an answer.

You never saw forums with reputation system? It was both "positive only" and "positive/negative", both to rate separate posts and/or user profiles.

I use internet since 2005, and saw such systems them since then.

A "reputation" system, in my opinion, is even worse than the "like" button. Like buttons are "meh," but I've seen all too many communities go extinct due to a reputation system.

namffuak

Meh - makes no difference to me. I'm on record over at FB that I've never used the 'like' and won't until the 'dislike' that propagates in the same manner is available. Here - I just wouldn't use it. And, being the obstinate type, if there was a count of 'likes' on messages, I'd most likely quit reading those with high counts.

daveso

namffuak said:

Meh - makes no difference to me. I'm on record over at FB that I've never used the 'like' and won't until the 'dislike' that propagates in the same manner is available. Here - I just wouldn't use it. And, being the obstinate type, if there was a count of 'likes' on messages, I'd most likely quit reading those with high counts.

i guess we all have different likes. 
To me, it is really boring and time consuming reading post after post of no real information other than thanks, and i agree posts. I also tend to stay away from posts that get too postie.... like those that have over 100 replies ... the real meat is often buried in numerous requotes and posts agreeing with someone. Or maybe it is necessary to learn speed reading. 

Oso3D

I find 'like' more useful when you are trying to provide moral support to someone recovering from surgery than 'I think these pants are too baggy.'

 

maikdecker

Oso3D said:

I find 'like' more useful when you are trying to provide moral support to someone recovering from surgery than 'I think these pants are too baggy.'

daveso

maikdecker said:

Oso3D said:

I find 'like' more useful when you are trying to provide moral support to someone recovering from surgery than 'I think these pants are too baggy.'