"Like" button.

[northern]

Title:
"Like" button.

Area:
entries

Summary:
You could offer something similar to Facebook's "like" button on entries. It would be useful, and might make people feel better.

Description:
I feel kind of embarrassed, asking for this, but several times a day I find myself wanting this feature. I'm scrolling through my reading page, and I see something funny, or noteworthy, but I don't want to make the effort of writing an actual comment. If I did, it would only contain a "yay!" or a "good for you" or an "ahahahah", so I don't see the point.

Hence, a "like" button. It wouldn't have to be a rating thing, or actually labeled "like", but it would be really useful to me, and hopefully to others. People who don't get many comments might also feel like they have more support and attention from their subscribers with something like that. For a lot of people, a comment to their journal is a bright spot of their day.

A con for this function that I can see is that actual comments might drop in frequency. I don't think they would drop much, though. Hmm. I don't see any others, except that I imagine it would take a lot of work to make such a feature. Some people might also think that this makes Dreamwidth look too much like Facebook, or that a "like" implies a rating of the person who wrote the entry.

Poll #4087 "Like" button.

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 99

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
44 (44.4%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
13 (13.1%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
36 (36.4%)

(I have no opinion)
6 (6.1%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[msilverstar]

I'm surprised at how nice a Like button is.

[jumpuphigh]

I'd like this for comments, too.

[charmian]

Agreed.

[azurelunatic]

I do find that the "like" as seen on Facebook lowers the barrier to interaction, and I interact with items I might have passed by otherwise.

It can also streamline the comments that do exist -- reading seven comments, which contain two well-thought-out, detailed responses, and five brief, almost null-content other than being supportive, comments, takes longer than reading the two detailed comments and seeing "these five users liked this entry".

[feathertail]

It's interesting you should say that, since for these dw_suggestions posts we can take a look at the poll numbers in addition to the comments.

[triadruid]

I have a very similar reaction to Likes on FB. If I REALLY enjoy it, I'll do both (comment and Like), but usually it's one, the other, or neither.

[tree]

i'd hope that if this were implemented, it would be opt-in, or at least opt-out. IMO discovering that someone can't be bothered to write a comment would be a lot more insulting than assuming they just don't have anything to say.

[dingsi]

Not arguing against your point of having it opt-in (and I also agree with ratcreature below that it would be inappropriate for certain types of entries, or that the word "like" has different meanings for people, which makes it a bit tricky). I'd just like to point out that the reasson people don't reply isn't always as simple as "can't be bothered". My main reasons for not commenting are that I'm too stressed / busy / tired / shy and more often than not it just leads to a depressingly long list of "you wanted / need to reply to this" bookmarks without getting anything done. With a "like" button, I could at least show that I have read a post and approved of it, instead of having it look like I didn't read it at all / didn't care.

[ratcreature]

I would only want this if I could in-/exclude it on a post by post basis. For some posts it's plain inappropriate at least depending on how you take such a button. Like say I post a family member is in the hospital or a pet died or such. That kind of thing often gets a lot of short, often generic expressions of sympathy of the "hugs", "hope they get better", "sorry for your loss" responses, since people don't know what to say, but want to show that they took notice and care, similar to how a funny story gets "lol"s. A button of positive feedback if automatically included might well be interpreted by one set of people to be just that with a variety of meanings, and also be clicked on "my pet died" posts, while others may take it more narrowly and go "wtf, they like that my pet died??"

[jazzfish]

+1

New variant

[northern]

I see my words 'can't be bothered to' in my original post put a lot of negative meaning in there that I didn't really mean. What I should have put there is how I really feel, which is stupid, when I post a one word reply to an entry. It would make *me* feel less stupid to have the option to tick a box. As others have said, in a lot of instances, 'like' is not appropriate. Other things that come to mind, like '+1' 'me too!' 'I approve' are even less so. To be at least a little correct, I suspect there would have to be at least 3 buttons, like 'read it' 'like it' and 'don't like it'.

Re: New variant

[kyrielle]

Oh, no way. If it came with a "don't like it" I couldn't get rid of, I would turn it off so fast. With prejudice. Sorry, the ability to snark my positive posts is even less welcome than the ability to like my negative posts would be.

I like the customizable poll version, or any form of customizable. If I can pick which buttons, maybe up to 5, exist, and label them (default for my journal, changeable by post), that would be ideal. And turn it off journal-wide or per-post.

For a post about my pet dying, I might have a single button: "Sympathy". For most I might want "Like". Maybe "Dislike" would seem appropriate to me when I am linking to / ranting about something stupid.

But having "Like" by default will be problematic to me, "don't like" would be a deal-breaker.

I read a site ("My OB Said What?") that has a "dislike" button only because most of their posts are, well, stupid things an OB or other medical person said. And they run Thoughtful Thursday where nice things are posted, and invariably some people click "dislike" just to show they were there (or perhaps they think of it as like? or something?) and the original submitter and/or other people freak out about "Why are you disliking this?? It was nice and supportive!"

[matgb]

LJ, on some of their comms, seems to be trialling (or pushing down user throats depending on mindset) the +1 feature. I've not looked at how it's coded, but it seems to be similar to what you're suggesting here, just knowing that X users rated your post can be reassuring.

Sometimes I write something or post a howto that lots of people use, or at least learn from, but it gets little to no comments, given some of those posts, a year later, still get incoming links and google traffic, it'd be nice to have an easy to use feature that lets people say "this was good".

Not sure about calling it 'like' though, that does have some negative connotations.

[holyschist]

I like this idea (haha), and especially for comments to cut down the +1s. However, only if it's possible to either turn it off entirely or turn it off for a specific post. And no inescapable subscription to all comments henceforth a la Facebook.

[faevii]

I'm surprised by how much I like the idea, but I agree that a different label than "like" might be needed. For comments, maybe "thumbs up" or "agree"? I have no idea what would be appropriate for posts, though.

Some have suggested that it could be a mini-poll from "like" to "dislike", but I'd hate that. It's bad enough on pages like YouTube, where you can see that perfectly reasonable comments have been "thumbed down" by trolls.

Regarding memories, I think it would be neat if there was a "notify OP that I added this" function that you could activate on a case-by-case basis, not unlike the favourites system on deviantART - only voluntary. Although, if we already had a "like" button, I guess it would be redundant.

[liv]

I don't really like this idea, not any of the suggested implementations, because one of the things I love about DW is that it encourages rich, thoughtful interaction, rather than just random clicking. I would rather have no comments at all than a bunch of "like" or "+1" or even the perennial *hug*. I have restrained myself from voting against it, because I think it's the sort of thing that I could just ignore and not use if it were implemented. But my reaction is largely negative; if it were implemented with a ton of options and opt-outs and variations, it would make settings even more unwieldy, and if not, it's likely to annoy lots of people, including me.

Does anyone remember that LJ used to have a thing where you could make a green "thumbs up" in the header of your comment? I believe DW ripped that out, along with a bunch of completely random smileys, but it was somewhat useful for this kind of situation. And for expressing an opinion in suggestions posts. I think I don't really want it to come back, though.

still possible!

[cheyinka]

It's definitely still possible on Dreamwidth; one needs to click the More Options button when commenting, and then it's the grayed-out smiley face next to the subject line. (There are other things besides the thumbs up / thumbs down, like a check mark or gold star.)

[white_aster]

I voted against this, based solely on my own personal preferences. I find the "like" thing on Facebook to be shallow, personally. Mostly it's a feature that seems to be around to encourage Facebooks "omg must make all your friends aware of everything that you're doing!" culture. Since DW doesn't have that similar way to broadcast what you "like" far and wide (and that feature can be useful, I admit), this just boils down to the "I have read this but can't think of anything to say" side of it.

If I want to say something about a post but can't think of anything...then I figure that the comment isn't really needed. If not commenting would make me feel shallow or unsupportive...then shouldn't I be able to come up with a sentence or two? Something that's a bit more personalized than ticking a ticky box?

Honestly, I'd rather get a hundred variations on "Sorry to hear about your dog." or "I really like your pictures! :)" than people just silently "noting" or "rating" or "+1"ing me. To me, this platform is about interacting with the audience. Watching a number of likes tick up doesn't really rate as interacting to me. And as a reader, I wouldn't feel my "I should comment!" guilt assuaged much by said ticky box...like I said, it doesn't really count as contributing anything, to me.

That's just my opinion. It's not to bash anyone who feels differently and wants this feature! I just personally wouldn't use it, and I'd like to be able to turn it off completely, because it'd probably annoy me.

[aedifica]

Agreed with all of this comment. I really do not want this feature.

[sorchasilver]

I really dislike this whole idea, and if implemented in any form would want to have the option to turn it off entirely so I never see it on anyone else's entries and no one ever sees it on my journal.

I don't use Facebook precisely because of this sort of feature.

[darthneko]

I have to admit, I dislike this feature immensely on facebook and if it was implemented here I think it would really *really* need an opt out feature, either by post or preferably by journal. It just seems shallow and inherently lazy and lacking any level of the people to people connection that I think of with a journaling service - I come to dreamwidth to interact with people. If I wanted short blurbs and +1s I'd spend more time on facebook.

[eosrose]

I would be interested in enabling a feature like this for some posts. There are a lot of people out there who visit journals but don't comment for whatever reason. It would be nice to get even minimal feedback from the general audience. Though, please, I agree that it should be opt-in and that the "like" text should be customizable.

[sky]

I've wanted this since forever. It's one of the few things about Facebook I actually enjoy. As a commenter it's nice to be able to express that I enjoyed something somebody wrote, whether or not I have anything substantial to say; and as a blogger it's nice to know that I'm not just writing into a void even if I don't receive comments very often.

[kerravonsen]

I voted against this because
* there seems to be much confusion as to what it is and and what it's for
* the negatives seem to outweigh the positives

The positive aspect of this is to make it easier for people to give feedback when they otherwise would not have (whether due to shyness, not enough time, blank mind etc).
A secondary positive could be to "rate" posts or comments for those coming across the post later.

The negative aspects are
* difficulty in interpreting what clicking on the button actually *means*
* possibly discouraging people from making comments when they otherwise might have - even a one-word comment is more personal than a number in a counter
* "rating" posts could result in hurt feelings

I think the best suggestion so far has been the idea of a "mini poll" in which the content is completely defined by the poster - but I think that it's so far removed from the original suggestion that it deserves a separate suggestion post of its own.

[cheyinka]

Yeah, I think I might use a "mini poll", but I would definitely not use a "like" button on anyone else's post, and I'd disable them on mine.

[archangelbeth]

If not calling it "like," then what about "Hey, cool!" or "This is nifty"?

Edit: Ha, posted before I read other comments.

Yeah, making it something that could be turned on-and-off would be best. (At least for the journal, and preferably by-post.) Definitely should NOT have a "meh/didn't like" option. I would personally prefer it to be phrased as "I have no words, but [this is interesting] / [this is thought-provoking]," or customizable. If customizable, I'd suspect it'd be easier to customize by-journal? (So people who want a [hugs] button could have one, though I'm of the opinion that a " =( " sadface post would be more appropriate than a button, in cases of sad posts. --so just don't make it a default.)

[green_knight]

I have two further suggestions: If there's a 'like' button I also want a 'sympathies' button because very often you need one:

"I just broke my toe."
'Like'

Err, no.

And the other thing is that I'd really prefer both of them to go directly to the writer of the post. (A +1/-1 function for comments, on the other hand, would be a visible counter.)

[quillori]

It would need to be optional, and perhaps have a further option whether the number of people who'd used it was visible to all or just to the original poster, but with those caveats I'd really love it. Sometimes I'd like to comment, but feel just saying 'I liked this' is inadequate, so end up saying nothing (and feeling bad about it); in other cases, I'm just shy about commenting at length out of the blue in the journal of someone I've never interacted with before: being able to creep up on interacting with them, as it were, by just clicking a button to start with would be wonderful.

[azurelunatic]

The best broad-spectrum phrasing I can think of so far is "support".

Or ... ticky.

[triadruid]

Ticky is jargon, unfortunately.

[jiawen]

Didn't even know this had been considered... "Support" seems like a good one-word solution, but my ideal solution would be multiple modes of +1/favorite/thumbs up/whatever. My thought for a while now has been that I'd like a range of emoticon/smileys at the bottom of a post, or perhaps different words. Each of these could be clicked, allowing a range of quick expression: from sympathy, to astonishment, to sadness, to congratulations, to agreement, to just plain "read this and couldn't think of anything else to add".

I find that people (including me) who read posts on DW (and LJ) often have nothing substantive to add, so they don't. This has the effect of making it seem like no one is reading the posts, and increases the feeling that one is shouting in an empty void. Adding some quick way to express support (/sympathy/astonishment/inability to think of anything useful to add/etc.) would hopefully lessen that feeling, increase people's willingness to post (because it would feel less like words thrown into the void), and increase interaction.

[bastun]

This is the *one* thing I miss from the book of faces.

I should be able to quickly and simply hit a "like"/"support"/"this was seen"/"*you* are seen" button to indicate - well, just that, a post has been seen and liked or supported - without having to necessarily leave a comment.

It would let people know more often that they're not just shouting into the void.

Should not be tied in with Memories - personally, I save that for a handful of posts.

Disappointed to see the last comment on here seems to have been in 2014...