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Show likes under a post (perhaps only for the author)

When someone likes my post, I only find out about this via notifications, and I can't see it on the post itself. I assume it's hidden from posts in general to avoid popularity contests, and that seems perfectly reasonable to me, but for when I'm viewing my own posts, it'd be nice to have cohost help me in remembering which or how many of my friends liked a post.


41 people like this idea

I'm sure someone has said this in here but if this is something that's very requested and popular and all that all I ask is that you PLEASE make sure that if you do implement it, please also implement a toggle setting for it. If you could also make said toggle Off by default, that would be amazing. I'm sure I'm not the only person that loves the lack of numbers on this website.


4 people like this

if this feature existed, i would turn it on instantly, and then proceed to have endless ammo to beat myself up with for each post not reaching the same level as my most popular ones. "It's an option" doesn't mean you get the best of both worlds for two different groups – there's a significant portion of people here who would enable it, because their brain forces them to, and then have their life worsened because of it.


3 people like this

If like addiction is that much of a problem for you, and you would not be able to practice self-control to prevent yourself from falling victim to it, then you would sign up for a social media account on a site that tries to get its users addicted to engagement. The fact that you chose to avoid that already means that you would be able to continue to do the same.


Meanwhile, artists and other creators who are trying to make sure their posts get in front of as many eyes that want to see them as possible will find this site hostile by design to them. Heck, even people who are just trying to make others laugh or enjoy a goody story or learn something are being disserved by the opacity in terms of overall response to one's own posts. The current feeling of the site is _very_ isolating, because once your memory fades about which posts got a lot of notifications in the moment, all you have to look back on is... nothing. Most content is not worth commenting on even if you enjoy it, so people tend to just leave likes that do nothing of value.


In fact, the current system is probably worse than having no like button at all, because it still will feed into notification addiction, but it doesn't let you use those numbers to learn anything about the other people on the site and what they like, they're just transient little dopamine hits which aren't healthy for you. That this does not seem to be a problem for you tells me that you would be fine if there was an option to be able to see total likes on your own posts–you would be able to leave it alone, since you're already doing fine with the current useless like system that has mostly demerits and few merits.


4 people like this

If like addiction is that much of a problem for you, and you would not be able to practice self-control to prevent yourself from falling victim to it, then you would sign up for a social media account on a site that tries to get its users addicted to engagement. The fact that you chose to avoid that already means that you would be able to continue to do the same.


It's really not that simple. I don't need to forbid myself from going to stores or restaurants where alcohol is served, but I *do* need to not have alcohol in the house. There's different thresholds at which the floor becomes too slippery, so to speak. And I think that even if users with this problem still sign up for sites that prey on their need for engagement, that doesn't mean that having a site where they can't fall back on those bad habits is pointless - it can still be a reprieve. If anything, that's part of Cohost's whole mission, with being a fourth website instead of The Next Big Site To Replace All Sites.


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I would really appreciate like counts or a feed under posts showing interactions like Tumblr has. Make it opt-in if you want. I'm by no means a numbers addict and have never had a Twitter account for this very reason. But it's really offputting to me that I can share things and get very very little feedback from "the void". As someone else mentioned, a very small percentage of people on the internet ever comment versus liking a post; I would argue that liking is just as valid a method of virtual communication as commenting is, and like counts can coexist with Cohost's healthy social media philosophy.

Echoing the sentiment that while I appreciate Cohost's number-free approach, as an artist it would be nice to have a way to view likes on your posts without any number attached to it.


A simple "View interactions" option for post creators which opens up a little window showing things without any numbers involved would go a long way for making things feel less like posting into a void, without creating a numbers game:


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11 people like this

 This last commenter above me has the right idea.

If the idea of Cohost if to get big, they need visible likes, the biggest problem with don't having any visible number is a couple of things

1. herd behavior, this can be bad, but can be good too, if you are a small artist and some of your post is getting lots of likes, ppl are seeing that there is lot of likes, they will be more willing to go see that, numbers atract number, lots of ppl are trying to use the plataform to work too, so a "measurement system" is great for this, this is aplyable to likes and followers too, i think there is no harm in seeing this, and even can be a toggleble feature!

2. Not seeing any likes in your post, even if you have received lots of notifications about it is kinda demotivating to be honest, feels like youtube dislike, is there, but does nothing.

These feature don't need to be based on algorithms, just simply click = +1 the platform will not have a long life time or growth without numbers.
I really like Cohost, to me this is the only negative thing about it.

I am very much against publicly visible likes and would probably not post very much at all if Cohost had them (I really am posting into the void for the most part; there is no universe where I will hit the good side of herd behavior engagement regularly, because that requires at least moderate engagement). But I actually do not see a problem with optional visible likes on the user side, and I feel kind of weird about comments that are like, "No, it's bad for you" because it's actually none of my business if people like to see their numbers, and it's also none of my business why they want to see them.

I really like captainharrie's take on this; it's IMO very similar to Tumblr, and one of the fun parts about how it works over there is that opening the little interaction window and scrolling through the likes, tags, and comments actually makes the number less significant because you're seeing the engagement itself.


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