this would quickly become a societal obligation to do it to every comment, and then it's the same as if it didn't exist at all. I find it really refreshing that i can just leave a comment somewhere without ever knowing if they saw it or not, and it's *also* great that i can simply read comments on my own posts without needing to stress out about whether or not i should acknowledge the weird ones.
Yeah, pretty much what Azure said - my issue with comment likes wasn't just that they'd become a popularity contest (that would be solved just by hiding the numbers) but also that it would create an obligation to put a like on every comment, lest the commenter feel ignored or like they did something wrong. I'd much rather it become a social norm on Cohost to not assume the worst if the OP doesn't reply + break ourselves of the notion that comments *need* responses to begin with.
Flintlock
When I make a post and get several nice comments, I often want to thank the people who took the time to write a comment. However if there are too many or I'm having a low-energy day, replying with actual words feels quite overwhelming.
On a social media platform where "likes" are a thing, I could simply "like" the comments and move on. To be clear, I think it's good that cohost doesn't have "likes" and this request is not about adding that mechanic.
Instead of "liking" a comment, it would be cool if as the author of a post I could react in some way to the comments to acknowledge that I've seen them. This could be as simple as a binary checkbox "acknowledge this comment - yes/no" or it could be more open, like reacting to a comment with an emoji (similar to slack/discord).
To avoid it becoming an addictive mechanic, only the author can react to comments on their own post, as a one-time action. Notifications could be something like "[Author] has acknowledged your comment on [Post Title]".
TLDR It's a way of saying "Thank you, I have seen your comment, I appreciate that you took the time to write it" without having to actually physically write a reply.
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