"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

[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.