Instant Feedback Button

[vickyblueeyez]

Title:
Instant Feedback Button

Area:
Posts

Summary:
Similar to the Facebook 'like' button, have a 'favorite' button, kudos, etc. Some sort of button, where if a person likes an entry but doesn't want to comment, they can leave some sort of feedback.

Description:
As somewhat of an author, it's frustrating when one doesn't get reviews. I may not get reviews but I do see when people favorite one of my stories on another site. That site keeps track of how many have favorite your work. Since many authors might be coming here, I think having some kind of like/favorite/kudos button would be great. Fanfiction.net and DeviantArt.com have similar options.

Poll #6525 Instant Feedback Button

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 278

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
165 (59.4%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
46 (16.5%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
44 (15.8%)

(I have no opinion)
17 (6.1%)

(Other: please comment)
6 (2.2%)

Comments

[matgb]

I've ticked with changes as, while I actually like the idea (as discussed above0 and think a "+1" feature for comments and posts would be both used and useful, i have another parallel proposal that links to what you've said or one of your solutions.

memories are, medium term, due for a complete overhaul, it's been discussed they should be some sort of social bookmarking feature, or a type of 'favourites' feature. Either way, they should have the option to be public or be locked down in some way.

However, if they are public, it might be nice to have some way of posts displaying who has saved them as favourites or memories or whatever, and possibly even listing the tags used or linking to that memory so people can follow links to other useful posts, etc.

This would, I think, be a valid solution to your suggestion, but also be a good feature for the memories, if that's how they end up going. Thoughts?

[existence]

Oh, hey, I personally like the outlines of this modification. Changing my vote in support of this.

[marahmarie]

memories are, medium term, due for a complete overhaul, it's been discussed they should be some sort of social bookmarking feature, or a type of 'favourites' feature.

Valiantly resisting the urge to "+1" this (hope you haven't set up that Gmail filter yet!) and to add that I would love to see Mems become a social bookmarking page and/or favorites, with the ability to add links from other (non-DW) sites - the ability to lock them is a good idea, too.

[delladea]

Resisting the urge to "+1" you, but this describes my "with changes" vote. I think on an individual entry, having a count of the number of people who marked the post as memorable would be a good equivalent to "like". It also makes me think of Etsy where you can see how many people "♥" an item or shop.

I also like the idea of having a "+1" button for individual comments.

[eleanorjane]

I'm all in favour of a memories overhaul, but this doesn't actually replace the scenario where you want to add your support or agreement to a post but don't have time/energy/spoons/familiarity to do more than hit a button. And, in reverse, I wouldn't want my memories/bookmarks cluttered up with a bajillion posts where all I really wanted to do was convey the "Like"/+1/IAWTC sentiment.

[kyrielle]

Which is nice but doesn't really address the original suggestion. I don't love the original suggestion - but if I were reading a photography community (for example) and had little time but wanted to show a positive reaction to a photograph, I might well "like" it. I wouldn't want to put it in my memories. Memories are for things I want to look at again, which is a very very small subset of things I like.

Of course, I suppose I could just use memories for that since I prefer to store things I want to look at again in a link tool, not some weird module specific to one web site. But I assume there may be people who use them who might want to positive-feedback something without wanting to reread it.

[matgb]

The reference to memories was specifically responding to this:

That site keeps track of how many have favorite your work. Since many authors might be coming here, I think having some kind of like/favorite/kudos button would be great

To me, the memories feature is a poor implementation of social bookmarking that, if it had been done well, could've beaten Delicious before Delicious even started. It's a memories/favourites/bookmark feature, that is due for an overhaul.

Admittedly, I did misread it--for some reason I read hte first sentence that I quoted as being "site keeps track of work you've favourited" or similar.

On Twitter, for example, what you 'like' by starring it is stored so you can go back to them--I think I've used the feature once, but it's there.

[briar_pipe]

I like the idea of overhauling memories in this way, but I think this is fundamentally different from clicking a button to let someone know you read and liked their post. I don't plan to put every post about my friends' cats in a favorites folder, but I would very much like the option to click a button to let them know I saw and d'awwwed.

Do you think these could be parallel but separate functions, as they are on AO3, for example? Maybe the same button could include the option to just leave a ticky/sheep/whatever or to also add the post to your favorites? I don't know if this makes sense; just thinking out loud here.

[azurelunatic]

I think there should be a place to find all the times you've clicked the [Kilroy was here <3] ticky, but in much the same way as one also has a list of places one's subscribed to, and a list of recent comments one has left: because it's a thing that one has done on the site and you may want to interact with it in the future.

Some places bundle things together -- Facebook and Google Reader both bundle "and show me more things like this" with their 'like'. (Facebook bundles three: show support to everyone who can see this, show me more like this, and subscribe me to the discussion.)

So I think DW is already going in the direction of 'different'.

Though if this were a function of memories, it would still be possible to use it effectively separately: set up a memory keyword for 'Kilroy was here <3' and use that one for all such moments, and use memories the regular way otherwise.

[briar_pipe]

I see your point: bundling can be a useful way to minimize options and decrease coding headaches while providing the most commonly used functions to the majority who uses them. The rest of my reply contains concerns about that, possibly based on erroneous information, as I do not use FB or Greader and therefore may be misinterpreting what you mean by "bundle".

First, a question: if one did create such a system of a separate memories tag for anything with a ticky, would locked entry titles be visible to unauthorized people? Or were you thinking of memories as a private-only function like seeing one's own latest comments is? I think the person who first raised the memories overhaul as a solution specifically stated there could be both public and private memories?

Well, either way, if DW bundled too much automatically without user control, I wouldn't use the button, because for me its entire purpose 90% or more of the time would be like a wave from a distance. I wouldn't be interested in tracking comments, saving the page for later, or making the page title visible on a list for others. Having those features bundled in automatically would make me not want to click on the ticky, simply because then I would have to go about untracking, removing from lists, etc. It would defeat my purpose of speedy communication and would therefore become useless for what I need from such a button. Not to mention using up DW resources I would have no need for.

That's not to say that adding in some optional features via a drop-down menu wouldn't be a good idea. The optional features available when one clicks on "delete this comment" are very useful to a subset of users, and that structure might be helpful here, too. I would happily use a button that gave me the option of saving to favorites the 5-10% of things I clicked on that I actually wanted to go back to later.

P.S. Your icon is beautiful and is making me very hungry. ^_^

[azurelunatic]

The existing memories function (which is old and ugly and has been planned to be overhauled) has the ability to choose the security for who would see the memory (title and tags and all). As the current system stands, one can post things privately. I am certain that the ability to lock memories at least public/access/private will be retained in whatever system comes after.

Dreamwidth's memories feature and the comment tracking feature are already separate.

[briar_pipe]

Thank you. I haven't been using the memory function here, so I wasn't sure to what degree it was better than LJ's version back when I bothered using that.

Yes, I know tracking and memories are separate now. ^_^ I'm putting in my two cents for keeping them that way and for making this potential new button have either a single function or provide a list of options, rather than making it a subset of the memories function, as the OP of this thread suggested.