"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

[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.