"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

[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.

Re: still possible!

[liv]

Oh gosh, how did I not notice that? I think it's that I never really use the More Options version of the comment form now that DW has the useful preview button on the simple version. Well, it might be a start for people who want to "like" things until the multifunctional bells-and-whistles linked to Memories and keeping count and complicated per post opt-in version gets coded.

[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.)

Re: Button poll with customizable text

[archangelbeth]

I wouldn't want "meh/dislike" for something like this. Silence is fine for "meh," and saying "dislike" only causes drama and/or pain to the person who posted; I think the barriers to drama/pain-to-poster should be higher than a mere button-click, and it's better for people to be able to pretend that they are "meh" about something a journal-friend posted rather than disagreeing.

A list that would be useful would be "I have no words, but [this was cool] / [my sympathies] / [this was thought-provoking]."

Although, really, "my sympathies" is kind of... impersonal. If one is going to sympathize with someone whose dog died, then, dadgum it, one should write "Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that!" or "I wish I could say something to make it better" or something.

[matgb]

I would rather have no comments at all than a bunch of "like" or "+1"

Which is why I like the idea, essentially. The number of comment notifications I get from suggestions posts that don't display at all in my Gmail inbox because they're duplicate content, because yet another person has said +1 is annoying. A simple button allows people that want to just do that to do so, and reserves commenting for actual substantive comments.

I only ever saw that LJ feature used in suggestions, and it was so poorly implemented I suspect most people never knew it existed, I had to ask someone how to do it, which means the UI was useless, which it was. I think I used it once and then decided it wasn't worth it, ever.

[liv]

I guess I'm not quite seeing why DW should implement what sounds like quite a complicated feature if the main use-case is Suggestions discussions. (I'm not seriously suggesting we should use the old smileys, even now that I know they are still around on DW; I agree with you they were never well implemented.)

Re: Button poll with customizable text

[noracharles]

I'm sorry if my examples were confusing. I meant to say, I want a button with a text field that one can fill out how ever one wants to, and if users want to give readers more than one option with the new mini button poll, they could add as many polls after each other, each with a customizable text, as they want to.

[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.)

[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.

[matgb]

Oh, I'd agree, but I'm not sure if it is complicated; LJ appears to be trialling it on some Comms:
http://community.livejournal.com/frankandmeme/
http://community.livejournal.com/lj_photophile/

And seems to have a nice simple implementation, it's definitely keeping track of who clicks and showing a display, but I can't see how it's actually working, nor can I find the Releases or Chagelog when they introduced it :-(

[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]

(And agree/disagree seems best for journals where there are debate-type conversations, and just plain agree is better for journals where there are not.)

[azurelunatic]

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

Or ... ticky.

[dingsi]

The memories thing is actually something altogether different to me, it's about bookmarking useful entries and perhaps having a shorthand folder that I can direct people to. But that's the "reader" side of things, whereas "author" me always wants to know if people found any of my posts useful or interesting enough to add them to their memories (I think a feature taking care of that has been suggested or is in the works?)... A "remember" button would also fall into the latter category so now I'm wondering about even more possible angles to it. It might be redundant if the feature to show how many people memorised your entry gets implemented.

(Sidenote: Or had certain of your "Memories" be Friends-locked? -- you can already do this by choosing a privacy setting for your memories.)

Dividing the Likes into public and private would create superfluous settings imho, but making it opt-in is necessary. As useful as it would be for some people, it would be a dealbreakers for others when they cannot switch it off if they so desire.

I agree that there should be a different wording, or perhaps two possible options being offered, to avoid the implications of "liked" on entries where they are inappropriate. "Support" could work -- you can both give (emotional) support, and/or support a statement.

(Apologies for being late with my reply.)

[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.

[triadruid]

Good idea.

[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...