'Like' option?

Back on CotH, we could give a little thumbs-up to posts that we agreed with, or that we enjoyed the points of. I think something like this would help the Freedom forums immensely, for a few reasons.



1) Reduce on forum clutter. Currently, if you agree with someone and want to voice this support, you have to make a post saying so. If you're another person trying to skim through a thread for the important parts, wading through a sea of 'this' and 'I agree completely' can be rather counter-productive.



Really, that's the only reason. I could go through variations of it, such as it's a silent way of showing support, or a cleaner way, but most of it's just to kinda consolidate. Anyways, it's nothing life-threatening or big if this doesn't go through, but I think it'd be a handy little tool that could have a subtle but large effect on the forums here. Thank you for reading!

Really, I have a system in place to do something like this, but I never really talked to the staff about adding it and I have my own personally reason for not having it, is because it leads to sort of "Top comment" posting and generally in my history with a 'like' system it just sort of leads to some one saying something that everyone agrees with but there then becomes no conversion unlike when you get everyone has to say "Oh I support this and my reasons are x."



By no means is what I'm saying the end of the conversation if anyone has thoughts on it please let them be heard I'm pretty on the fence about it, if people want this feature I'm happy to make it come to life.

I prefer the forums as they are, without a like system. It's better not to have a popularity contest, in my opinion.

This isn't Facebook, silly Viking.

I would actually enjoy a "like" system, I think it gives a good perspective on the opinion of the majority without needless clutter of same text repeated over and over again

I am more with what Crow says, I dont inherently hate the "like" system but I dont like it. My issue with the like system is that posts can become a popularity contest, additionally, I feel that "like" systems tend to go against constructive feedback. That it would end up replacing constructive feedback or criticism because someone /liked it. I also feel that a like system is an inaccurate portrayal of the majority perspective. I'd much rather have people write down their thoughts even if it may be redundant, people have good points to make =D I just fear that /like would be replacing the "I support this because X Y Z" and I don't agree with that.

I'd prefer people to post why they support something, I think. Other than maybe tallying interest on major ideas, which can be done better by a poll anyway, it doesn't really provide anything beneficial other than maybe inflating the e-peen of someone who has a post that many people end up 'like'-ing.



Usually they also start leading to "I don't read the post, but I know the person so I'll click like", or people starting to ask "Hey, why haven't you liked my post", or whatever.

True, we do have the poll option, Velkar makes a good point, changing my opinion

No please don't bring one of the worst things about CotH here. That was very plainly a popularity contest and an easy way for circles to go to gang up on a person in a thread by thumbing up their friend's argument.

Mainly I'm the only person that didn't see it as a popularity contest. Alright, then. Fair enough.

It's definitely a good suggestion, Vikings! However, there are a lot of things that could (and probably would) go wrong resulting from the system. Although I think it'd be cool, y'know, I can see and have seen the negative sides to such an implementation. Considering we have enough problems as is from shit-posting and racking up the post count to topple over people, I think this system would cause a similar problem in that it will become a sort of popularity thing and overtake the good that it does.



I like the suggestion but I'm afraid the good is met with twice as much bad. :BT

I will say on CoTH I spoke out firmly against the like system. It got passive aggressive faster than you'd expect and... just.. ugh.



It's less of a popularity contest and more just a needless feature. Plus if you like somethin', it's much more personable to come right out and say "Hey, this is awesome!".