If this gets implemented, I'd like the ability to hide the like count on my own comments, but still see notifications if someone likes one of my comments.
I definitely don't want to see like counts for comments made by other people.
One of the things that makes Cohost healthier for me is knowing as few numbers as possible.
Being able to see who liked my comment or my post, but not who else liked whoever else's post would be nice, whereas I definitely wouldn't want a public facing upvote/downvote system. I actually rather **LIKE** the comments that are just "+1".
There's an effect I observe on places like Facebook and Twitter which is that when poeple like something they just click the little heart, and when people dislike something, they post a comment. You almost NEVER see posts like "I agree with this" or "Seconding that middle paragraph" or whatever on other sites and I see it all the time on Cohost. I don't view it as a negative, I view it as a feature.
I kinda like how freeing it feels to not have any sort of read-receipt system for comments. I get a lot of inane comments on my stuff and I like that there's nothing indicating if I saw a comment, if I like it, dislike, etc. whereas on Twitter I always felt a pressure to Like the comments from my active followers to show that I appreciate that they appreciate my stuff but don't have anything to say. If I ignored a reply, it felt like a snub to them, or that it meant I just didn't see it.
I also like that when people do get into conflicts in the comments there's not this like, spectator sport element of people egging others on by liking the comments of the people they agree with. It just remains an interaction between only those two people and it doesn't emphasize to you that other people might be watching. I feel like I've seen a lot of these conflicts resolve more normally with people coming to shared ground etc. rather than posturing for an audience who is watching them fight.
The more I think about this, the more convinced I am that I don't actually want notifications for likes:
I think having likes work on comments exactly the way they work on posts (they already aren't publicly visible, which it sounds like some folks don't realize) would be simple & effective.
I'm a no on this, I think it gets into insecurity-inducing "politeness like" territory too quickly
The concept of courtesy likes is exhausting and I don't like the way it will end up shaping social interactions on this site. I also think the current notifications page would be a poor fit for it. This reads to me like adding twitter features for the sake of pining for twitter features.
I am especially strongly against any public-facing element of this as I've seen it used for hostile arguments or passive-aggressivity way too many times in the past. If I have to log in and see Like wars the next time there's an argument over the ToS I am going to want to immediately log back out. I would much, MUCH rather incentivize "low quality" +1 comments that can at least facilitate discussion than low-friction metrics-y things like this.
i do miss going "heh" via a like on a tweet, but i used to go without it on forums, and sometimes it does feel like twitter encourages people to fish for likes.
even if the likes were hidden on a comment, and only the commenter saw the like, well, i'm not really sure it captures the vibe i'm looking for. i don't really care too much that a random person reading the thread had a chuckle, i want to know if the person who i'm replying to is going "yep, sure" and nodding along
similarly, i'm not sure how i'd feel about emoji reactions—it feels like transplanting a chat feature—and i've seen how they look on github, it just encourages low effort spectator sport stuff
one possible alternative that i haven't seen here: what if short replies took up much less screen space
e.g i reply with an emoji, or "heh" or "sure" and instead of having a big old forum post, there's a one line reply, with a scaled down avatar, my name, the comment, and the time
Coming into this thread with a desire for comment likes and reading through the concerns, something I realized is that comment likes being invisible to everybody but the comment poster might prevent the courtesy like compulsion - from the outside, you as a commenter have no idea whether the OP is the type of person who likes comments liberally, sparingly, or not at all. You can't be in the situation where you see OP liked two other people's comments but not yours.
I generally don't mind courtesy likes as a practice, but I have been in stressful situations before where I've liked several friends' comments on some social media post, and then a stranger comes in and I feel obligated to extend the same courtesy, which feels over-familiar. If comment like visibility is the same as post like visibility, that stranger has no way to know that I've been liking my friends' comments, and I don't have to worry about making them feel left out by failing to like their comment.
maybe an opt-in system
i would like to forward my old idea of a circle you can fill in for comments, as distinct from a like. it has no defined meaning but the commenter knows you did it
@jgs
I'd like the ability to "like" comments, in order to let someone know that I appreciate their comment without having to make a comment of my own. I envision this as behaving similarly to likes on posts, in that it would be invisible to everyone but the liker and the commenter.
I could also see some sort of public-facing +1 or upvote system, which would have the added benefit of reducing the number of replies that are just "+1" or otherwise just expressions of agreement. However, I would not want this to become a full Reddit-style voting/ranking system.
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