Topic: Thumbs Up (Like / Dislike) for Posts?

[Jim Stone]

I think a  "thumbs up" or "like or Dislike" feature for individual posts is long overdue for SMF. I'm literally getting requests every week for it, nearly everybody loves it, wants it, and I can't find a mod that installs correctly, the writer is active, or that works seamlessly without hitches. I had the feature when I ran Proboards but it's not on SMF and it's sorely missed. Please add this feature in this excellent package.

Fingers crossed!

[Nibogo]

In fact there's one:

http://www.smfpacks.com/page/sa=likes

[Jim Stone]

In fact there's one:

http://www.smfpacks.com/page/sa=likes [nofollow]

It's not free, it's $15.00 equipped. It should be a built in feature, as "likes" for posts are becoming a standard everywhere. Also, it says compatible with versions up to 2.01, I'm running 2.02, which is another reason. I don't want to keep upgrading with every new release of SMF. On a great (and I mean Great) platform like SMF, it should be standard as most people expect it on professional forums.

[emanuele]

For a mod 2.0.1 or 2.0.2 doesn't make any difference (in 99.99% of the cases, a 0.01 for safety ).

What it's really difficult for me is to understand what is the difference between a "like" and a reply.
If I like a post I quote it and I state I like it, if I like or I'm interested in a topic I answer there. What does the "like" add to a conversation (that is the main point of a forum)? In my opinion...nothing...

And it's a genuine question, not a criticism or anything similar.

[Nibogo]

In fact there's one:

http://www.smfpacks.com/page/sa=likes

It's not free, it's $15.00 equipped. It should be a built in feature, as "likes" for posts are becoming a standard everywhere. Also, it says compatible with versions up to 2.01, I'm running 2.02, which is another reason. I don't want to keep upgrading with every new release of SMF. On a great (and I mean Great) platform like SMF, it should be standard as most people expect it on professional forums.

It works perfectly in 2.0.2

For a mod 2.0.1 or 2.0.2 doesn't make any difference (in 99.99% of the cases, a 0.01 for safety ).

What it's really difficult for me is to understand what is the difference between a "like" and a reply.
If I like a post I quote it and I state I like it, if I like or I'm interested in a topic I answer there. What does the "like" add to a conversation (that is the main point of a forum)? In my opinion...nothing...

And it's a genuine question, not a criticism or anything similar.

That's why there are mods! If something doesn't fit as a feature it can be a mod, and everyone is happy

[emanuele]

That's why there are mods! If something doesn't fit as a feature it can be a mod, and everyone is happy

I know!
I just want to be sure I didn't miss anything.

[Norv]

What it's really difficult for me is to understand what is the difference between a "like" and a reply.
If I like a post I quote it and I state I like it, if I like or I'm interested in a topic I answer there. What does the "like" add to a conversation (that is the main point of a forum)? In my opinion...nothing...

And it's a genuine question, not a criticism or anything similar.

For example, it's one click vs click+write+click.

It's much easier to click a "like"-type button, and by that, add your rating to the post. And, for the reader, it's straightforward to see the respective post has been rated by 53 people, than to read 53 replies saying only that they like/agree/think it's nice. Of course, if you have more to say than "like"/"agree"/"me too"/"funny one", than you wouldn't use the button (only), you'd also reply. But for a quick statement of "nice one", it's easy to just click once.

Y'know, quickness, make it easy, then move on to the next.

[Arantor]

It does actually cut down on the '+1 / me too / agree' type posts, I find.

[emanuele]

So the only advantage is that lazy people can be even more lazy...

[Norv]

I thought you'd like that!

[Suki]

I've been thinking on a third button, along side "reply" and "like",  "reply and like" which of course will perform both actions.

[Norv]

I've been thinking on a third button, along side "reply" and "like",  "reply and like" which of course will perform both actions.

Too many buttons in the interface, performing similar operations too, are not necessarily a good thing, though. (they're terrible actually, for readability, design, understandability, etc)

[Suki]

We already have too many buttons anyway and they all are listed individually instead of grouping them.

I can always use some dropdown menu to hide the like and like n reply under some other button/area, would be a pain to maintain since it involves theme edits, good place for a hook though.

I find it useful, you don't need to click like then reply or vice versa.

[Jim Stone]

I was under the impression this was a Request for features area.

"Thumbs up / likes" are not for lazy people as implied, making things easier is usually a good thing and a welcomed addition by most people. "Thumbs up" serve a very useful purpose and they are used all over the Internet in every venue from Facebook to professional Forums to blogs and business sites, and on and on. To imply they serve no purpose is narrow minded.

For one (among many reasons) my users (when I had the option on my previous forum), it allows new users who browse and quickly determine which posts / threads/ people are deemed interesting, not by hits, but by a large group of people deliberately declaring them so (usually they were on the money), as opposed to wading through 500 posts to find it's all about the life habits of snails.

[Arantor]

I don't think there is a suggestion of laziness, particularly, more an observation. It does tend to discourage the one liner posts in favour of just using 'likes' while people who want to say more can do so with impunity. Whether that's laziness is an inference, nothing more, but certainly having likes does trend towards discouraging short posts.

As far as being on FB, I'm not sure that it's a truly meaningful metric of popularity for any given item versus any other, but it certainly is a useful barometer for small quantities of likes for comparison of relative importance and important vs unimportant (rather than identifying which items are very vs mostly relevant)

The thing about this area is that being a request for features is that anyone has the right to voice their thoughts about its inclusion, and there are concerns about its inclusion from the people who have the power to implement it. Some concerns may be more important than others.

[Nightwish]

I was under the impression this was a Request for features area.

"Thumbs up / likes" are not for lazy people as implied, making things easier is usually a good thing and a welcomed addition by most people. "Thumbs up" serve a very useful purpose and they are used all over the Internet in every venue from Facebook to professional Forums to blogs and business sites, and on and on. To imply they serve no purpose is narrow minded.

Just because something is "all over the place" doesn't make it useful and doesn't mean it serves a purpose.

For the record: I've implemented a "like system" in my SMF fork, just because I thought it was fun to do and to give people something to like. It's a bit like "panem et circenses" in ancient Roman culture - not necessarily a brilliant idea, but it serves at least one purpose: It makes people happy

[Jim Stone]

For the record: I've implemented a "like system" in my SMF fork, just because I thought it was fun to do and to give people something to like. It's a bit like "panem et circenses" in ancient Roman culture - not necessarily a brilliant idea, but it serves at least one purpose: It makes people happy

Makes sense. Obviously it is a feature you liked, or at least wanted to implement on your forum. Which "basically" is my point, that it is a feature that is useful and (generally speaking) desirable by most forum owners. The mods (such as they are) speak to that, but poorly.

Of course (as with everything) there are a minority of people who deem it redundant and denigrate its usefulness. I understand that. The problem is, they usually have the loudest voice and discourage meaningful points / counterpoints. Just saying it is for lazy people serves no purpose other than that intended. It's not rocket science.

[emanuele]

I was under the impression this was a Request for features area.

And (I hope) I'm free to comment these requests. Am I?

I wanted to understand what was useful for and I got an answer (more from numbers, I did my homework and I'm pretty confident they are a good representation of a real-world case) that's quite different from yours.

I'm not saying I'm against (I'm for sure not a person that would "veto" a decision), there are people that want it? There are people that want to code it? Feel free to submit the code. I'm not the one in charge of accepting it.

For the record: I've implemented a "like system" in my SMF fork, just because I thought it was fun to do and to give people something to like. It's a bit like "panem et circenses" in ancient Roman culture - not necessarily a brilliant idea, but it serves at least one purpose: It makes people happy

That's basically the answer I obtained.
But I don't find it fun to code, so I'll leave it to someone else to code.

[Kindred]

Makes sense. Obviously it is a feature you liked, or at least wanted to implement on your forum. Which "basically" is my point, that it is a feature that is useful and (generally speaking) desirable by most forum owners. The mods (such as they are) speak to that, but poorly.

Of course (as with everything) there are a minority of people who deem it redundant and denigrate its usefulness. I understand that. The problem is, they usually have the loudest voice and discourage meaningful points / counterpoints. Just saying it is for lazy people serves no purpose other than that intended. It's not rocket science.

Well, I see it as part of my job to bring a touch of reality into the lives of self-interested folks.

but seriously, you claim that " it is a feature that is useful and (generally speaking) desirable by most forum owners"
proof?
The way the folks here usually judge that sort of thing is either by a ton of people chiming in on a request like this, or a mod of that feature being downloaded/installed over a large section of forums.  I actually don't see either one...

and yup... personally, I think that the "like" phenomenon encourages laziness. People are not commenting or contributing, but just clicking a button... it's not encouraging user ENGAGEMENT (actually, I would argue that it actually may DISCOURAGE it, since users will 90% of the time take the easiest (laziest) route)

On the other hand... no one has said that it WON'T be added....   the developers who commented actually asked WHY it should be added (reasons other than "I want it" or "such-and-such has it")

[Norv]

Please lets keep the discussion nice.

I know there are mixed feelings about a few of these functionalities, "born" from social networks, which may or may not make sense for forums. There are clearly common grounds between social networking and community building software, and there are definitely specific targets and goals too.

This particular one has been requested for ages by our users. I tend to think it has come to the point where expectations of users, shapen up by their experience with many sites over the web (not only social networks, but also blogs and such), are reaching a critical mass or close to reaching it, for forums.

Just to be clear, however: we are extremely unlikely to consider it for SMF 2.1, which has a few new functionalities but it's mainly targeted at strictly necessary enhancements for 2.0 forums. While we may consider it for SMF 3.0, and please, feel free to add more thoughts and experiences on the matter.


What we should do - and I'll look into doing this - is to make an official mod available to the community on this, kept up to date for SMF 2.0/2.1. It would help knowing better how much interest there really is or continues to be. If you - those doing it already - wish to share yours, please feel free to do so, or point me to it if I missed it. The main requirement is only to be Open Licensed, while we may discuss others.

For the record: I've implemented a "like system" in my SMF fork, just because I thought it was fun to do and to give people something to like. It's a bit like "panem et circenses" in ancient Roman culture - not necessarily a brilliant idea, but it serves at least one purpose: It makes people happy

That's basically the answer I obtained.

I think this is true. It's not about I don't know what statistics or processing of 'liked' posts, it's mainly about a loose and relaxed wish to click once to express their agreement/interest and be happy they're able to.