Why don't more people use the like button on posts

I’m kinda curious about this, so I am asking.

There is a like button on the bottom of every post :heart: … but I noticed, even as the forum grows, not many posts are getting likes. Some are, in busier popular topics, but there’s … a kind of surprising overall general lack of likes on posts.

Now in and of itself, this is fine. Nobody is required to like posts! It is totally optional! I’m not asking because I want people to change their behavior – I don’t. You should do whatever you’re comfortable with, and that’s totally fine.

What I am curious about, is the thought process – if you don’t like posts as a general philosophy, why? Or if you rarely like posts? Is there something specific about liking posts that puts you off, or prevents you from doing it?

If you are comfortable sharing, please share! Opinions welcome. Also please vote in the poll, click here to jump to that post or just scroll down a bit. :hugs:

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I think the icon isn’t as obvious. Because it’s a heart, maybe first though is “I love this”. It also means “Favorite” in many different apps also.

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Hmm. We could change the icon to something a bit less heart-like if @dchuk is keen. It’s quite easy to do. I wonder if there’s a good chia-themed “upvote” type thing, or we could do a simple upvote arrow, or the classic “thumbs up”. Any Font Awesome glyph can be used.

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If it’s supposed to be chia-themed, there is leaf glyph that looks remarkably similar to the chia logo. There’s even one with a heart inside the leaf! That would not solve the favorite-lookalike problem, but I would definitely choose that over just a heart.

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Yeah if people are more comfortable with an :arrow_up: or :+1: than a :heart: that’s OK by me… in fact why don’t we do a poll? That’d be fun!

What shape do you prefer for upvote / like / +1?

  • :heart: heart
  • :+1: thumbs up
  • :arrow_up_small: up arrow
  • some other shape (reply with your choice)
  • I prefer no likes / upvotes of any kind

0 voters

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“I like it, but I don’t love it.”

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This would be my choice:

chia-heart-1chia-heart-2

chia-heart-4chia-heart-3

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I would argue a thumbs up. I don’t like the heart. It has the ‘love’ connotation that I feel is overused? But a thumbs up in a leaf is… too much, lol.

Personally, it generally comes as “did I strongly agree with this for whatever reason” or “extremely helpful to me” and depending “extremely helpful to others”.

1 Like

I think the reasons I do not do it very often comes down to 2 things:

  1. It’s not clear to me if this accomplishes anything other than a ++ on the counter. On reddit, for example, I know it means it’s more likely others will see the post because of the upvote. If the UI surfaced who liked a post more prominently, it might be more interesting?

  2. The instagram heart, which it feels like it’s most similar to, has devolved into some sort of weird “why didn’t you like my post?” quite often so it makes me reluctant to participate in that sort of feedback loop. So, if it wan’t a heart, I would be more likely to push it?

I would prefer it if it was like a reddit upvote and it caused posts with lots of likes to somehow float to the top of the NEW list - particularly now that activity is starting to spike here.

HTH,

Dan

That is exactly how it works if you click here on the /top:

That is also exactly how it works if you enter a long topic and press the “Summarize” button – only available after 50 replies, though.

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OK - just providing feedback you asked for. I did not discover this in my use of the system. Admittedly, I’m a bit slow and old.

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I, similarly, am merely conveying information! I don’t think /top is that hard to find, personally :man_shrugging:

(but being the creator of the software, I’m … hardly objective.)

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Oh, were you the one that helped out the 2KetoDudes setup their forum structure? Was that the first time it was used?

No, the first time it was used was in 2013 at Boing Boing. But there is a keto forum I know of (and I think it’s the one you are referring to) that does use Discourse; they moved to a kind of idiosyncratic host so I hope their performance is OK.

Need a rank-by-objectivity sorting as well! /by-objectivity ! :-p :wink:

Alright, just swapped it out for the thumbs up using the theme component by the Discourse team!

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Aw nice I had to f5 refresh but I definitely see it! Thanks for that @dchuk !

You might also change the “love” color in Admin → Customize → Colors as well. I’m using the default theme.

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Good call. Thumbs up is manlier than heart, isn’t it? :grinning:

I respectfully disagree. :heart: has nothing to do with being a man or a woman.

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