Bitcoin Forum

How about the ability to "like" or "+1" a post?  To prevent obvious abuse, you must have positive trust and seniority to vote.   A +1 should not give any advantage to a a post.

What would be the purpose of the +1/liking a post? Just to show your agree? Would they be tallied up or a score kept to show how many +1s/likes you have? (like being another feedback system). I thought about being able to favourite/bookmark posts or threads, not to score them or whatever, but just to keep tabs on them for future reference.

Seems like a pretty good idea. Would cut down on the "+1, I agree, yes" spam posts that are still being tossed around, especially in the alt section.

Actually, from my experience with forums, it really doesn't.

Personally, I'm kinda 'against' liking a post. I've seen it on other forums, and it just creates an eyesore. If there IS an option to like a post, please allow it to be hidden away.

I'm actually working on the design for this exact feature. As of right now, it'll be tied into the reputation system so that +1 on a forum post actually means something. There's also some algorithmic juice that'll use the downvote (or -1 depending on which is a better metric) to kill troll posts and accounts. It's not finalized yet so comments and opinions are welcome.

Hmm... Not so sure about that. What do you mean by 'kill posts/accounts'? What's to stop people just trying to 'kill' accounts/posts of people they just don't like?

This is my issue. People are buying and selling accounts and that's allowed. This means someone can easily get 50+ accounts with +rep and that are older accounts, then go around harassing people by using all of them to downvote people they dislike. This is a horrible idea and it absolutely will be exploited.

You don't even have to buy them, just create your own. Not hard to build up an army of Jnr accounts or whatever. This system is definitely a concern. It'll work well in some cases for serial trollers or fud-spreaders, but like you said, horribly exploited in other situations and being able to 'kill' accounts has me worried.

I thought about that as well. First off, I apologize for not laying things out in detail. I'll try to go more in depth but the design is still in flux so there's a limit to how far I can go.

The reason why the upvote system will be tied into reputation system is because the upvote/downvote will be weighted per user by their reputation. So a user with a higher reputation will have their upvote "count" more than another user that has low reputation. Also new user cannot vote until they've reached some level of reputation.

As for accounts that are sold and abused, I could write something in where a quick succession of downvote could carry some momentum and bring down that user's reputation far quicker. But even this can be abused. I'll have to think about account be sold...

Above all else, the moderator has the final say and their vote counts the most.

My theory is that users with good content will get more upvotes which positively affects their reputation. They will eventually get enough reputation to start voting on other content. Those with higher reputation can quickly upvote other good user post which leads to good content promoting more good content. (As long as they don't sell their account) Users with low reputation could upvote or downvote other posts but may have little to no effect until the new user starts putting out good content that other users promote up. This effectively kills troll rings that want to generate a large number of accounts to just harass the forum.

Again this is still in flux so comments are welcome. Also, I'm writing this from home at two in the morning so I could have missed a few points from the whiteboard session we had up earlier.

Would this apply literally to all posts, or to just topics?

I can imagine that this will be used heavily by signature deal campaigns to float their deal at the top of the relevant board, not that there's anything wrong with that :)


I like this idea as it would be useful for me personally to keep tabs on my post for signing up to a sig campaign, but more generally for all users to keep tabs on reference posts i.e. one explaining what the activity ranks are etc.

It would apply to all post within a topic. Topic will still be order by time so newest posted topics at the top.

As for the ability to like a post to save it for later. Reddit has a system like this where you can see all the posts you've liked or all the posts you've saved. I like this system better because all the things I like, I may not want to keep track of. So you may see a save button next to the upvote/downvote.

What do you guys think though?

I'm all for features that help users track posts of interest. I also think that the upvoting (possibly downvote) is neat too.

My only concern is that we may find that a lot of posts will sink to other pages as a result, also it becomes harder to track posts in a thread of conversation if one of the replies gets bumped. Or are we saying that they stay where they are, and merely reflect the feedback on the post itself?

Putting some replies above others again opens the door to exploits. I want to ensure my ad is being seen or my post is being seen by everyone? Easy. I'll just go load up my 2500 shill accounts and mass upvote everything I have.

This is still a horrible implementation.

That's precisely why you just do it for topics, if at all. Replies just confuses the hell out of everything, as there can be conversations forming within a topic, but topics should not depend on any other topic.

Topics leads to the same problem (only on a worse scale, considering you can ensure your topic is basically like a sticky). The only way I can see this working is if you have a special option that you have to choose that organizes the threads based on popularity. This should not be default though.

Seems like a bad idea because so many shill accounts that it would defeat the purpose of it.

@taesup,

A lot of time ago (I can't be bothered to search right now) I suggested implementing the PerlMonks voting/experience system (http://perlmonks.org/?node_id=5938). It's similar to what you're describing (reputation of posts affects the experience points of its author) with a limited number of votes awarded to every user on a daily basis, which they can spend on the posts they see fit. Users with more experience points (XP for short) get more votes. The act of voting affects the experience points of both the author of the post voted and the user casting the vote. Casting a lot of negative votes in a row can result in your XP getting lower.

All the details are here (http://perlmonks.org/?node_id=483085). The other link I gave is linked from here too.

If someone were to make this feature and release it, please make it visible in a topic's link.. before we actually click it.  This allows us to filter what we want to see without actually clicking the thread itself.

Members would "like" a post for various reasons other than it being useful to the community. Someone could post something outragous and be liked, other could just post a funny joke and got liked. The amount of likes one gets could not gauge reputation. By the time the new forum software is up, a lot of junior members now would have gained senior status, I cannot imagine their "likes" will carry more weight in the new scoring system.

I like the idea of a post scoring system, but how that score translates into a measure of members' "judgement" requires careful implementation.

Cryptopher and ranlo
Voting on a topic does not effect it's position on the board the same goes for posts. They are still laid out in the same time related fashion as they are now. The only effect a large amount of negative downvotes is to have that topic or post "closed" by default. The topic or post will never disappear but it may be grayed out or have some other visual indicator that yells out that this topic or post has been voted as either unpopular or does not contribute to the parent object.

Otsu
Care to elaborate?
If the shill accounts you mean newly generated accounts, those cannot vote by default. Another user would have to upvote enough of their content to the point where they can vote. And at only one vote per piece of content. That's a lot of surface area to cover without getting any downvotes to really pull it off. Again, the only real downside that someone else has mentioned is if someone were to buy already upvoted accounts. They would still need to generate more good content (thus increasing their surface area for downvotes) before those account can get more upvote and more "weight." I have not figured out the issue with bought account but unless they contribute content, they, at the very least, cannot raise the "weight" they carry without risking spam content and downvote momentum.

dserrano5
Thanks for the link. I'll look into it.

monbux
That's the plan!

jbrnt
That's another aspect I'm trying to tackle right now, transferring over the status of the old forum to the new one. There obviously needs to be some kind of a reputation translation but on the other hand... it may be easier to start from scratch? *flame suit on*
I also agree about the measure of a member's "judgement" needing careful implementation. Which is why I'm trying to keep the design process for this pretty public. I haven't written any code for it yet though. Just throwing my ideas out there and having you all poke holes in it that I probably would not have seen otherwise.

More than upvoting , I think downvoting would be the better part.

Downvoting would make an awesome addition into the report system.
If a post receives x downvotes , while the user has already been flagged or has under y activity , they would be automatically reported , for admins/mods/staff to check.

Assume I was to buy 10 accounts with low upvoting power , maybe just a couple.
I could then make a single post that seems kinda constructive on one of the accounts and upvote it on all of the other accounts. While this would be a little suspicious , it would not be enough to be flagged in any way.
That account would gain a lot of upvoting power.


The only way that will not happen is if people give upvotes only for good reasons, just like trust.

It seems like a lose-lose scenario from there , because if it is used as rarely as trust , it will not help much on the forums and if it is used any more commonly , it may create dangers.

You can buy accounts. You can create 500 accounts right now and make a few posts a day and get them all to Hero Member status over time. On the road up, you're getting more and more powerful, to the point where you can dominate everyone else's posts simply by creating a bot that logs in to each account one by one and targets a specified post and/or thread. You can automate the entire process. You have an enemy? Enter the URL of that post/thread and set your bot army up to downvote them 500 times. Boom, now they are effectively neutralized.

Again, this is a horrible implementation and it is ridiculously EASY to exploit. It's not even something that requires a small amount of thought.

While your example is valid it isn't very feasible. The time that it would take to get even just 10 accounts to Hero status is ridiculous. It takes about 18 months to reach Hero Member status, then there's all the posting, and then comes the bot abuse that would certainly be traced and have those accounts nuked making it all a massive waste of time.

Going back to the original suggestion outlined within the OP, I think that having an +1/upvote/like option would be fine. There needn't be any requirement for a -1/downvote/dislike complement, and there needn't be a requirement to shift the topic/post either.

I seriously hope you're joking. There are already many bots on the forums that are Member and up rankings. The absurdity of thinking people wouldn't bot when they actually get a benefit from it is astounding. If people bot when they gain nothing, why would they NOT when they are rewarded?

On top of this, it's not just Hero you care about. Like I said, on the way up you become more powerful. The bots slowly gain in Activity and their weight keeps increasing.

Let's start by listing what parameters we have on a member. We have posts, registered days, logged in time, but have nothing on quality. We also have the reported accuracy and trust, but they don't quite work. The proposed "like" system will give us a "popularity" rating but may not be a "quality" rating.

We do have to start from scratch ;D

Rating quality cannot be performed by every registered member, because it will be exploited. How about current senior member or hero members? The current member system is based on activity which is simply built upon days and posts, not reliable. So, giving a "quality" tag to a post should be done by qualified members in a controlled manner, otherwise rating will have no meaning or value.

Qualified Members (QM) can be nominated, elected, or auto-qualify by fulfilling a set of conditions. I am in favour of mods nominating seed QMs, about 20 in beginning and slowly working up to 50 or 100 later. These QMs will have a replenishable fixed number of Quality Points (QP) within a period to tag quality posts. When normal members have enough QPs and satisfies other conditions like post count or days registered, they can be QMs themselves and start to give QPs. You can have this system in reverse with Spam Points if you like.

Having set people to determine what is "quality" (which is subjective by nature) leads to its own problems. People will accept payments in return for boosting the quality of people. "0.001 BTC per vote!" Not to mention this creates a centralized system for determining quality, which further creates its own set of problems.

This seems like a lot of effort, and this Qualified Member role you propose sounds like such a responsibility. It is far too specialised for what the original proposal was.

The whole idea of this is to get some collaborative feedback, and by limiting it to a set of users makes it nothing more than a seal of approval from one of those users. It's too sparse.

By making use of a simple like system, one that gives no advantage to the topic/post other than a visual indicator to readers means that shilling attacks are virtually useless.

I think that Vod's suggestion needs no elaboration, it is what it is.

If there's no benefit other than basically highlighting posts by reputable people, why not just base it solely on the reputation system? Would that not accomplish the same thing? I disagree with that system as well, but I figure there's no reason for voting when reputation can handle it already.

Vod's suggestion only mentions seniority to prevent Brand New, Newbie, and Junior Members (for example) from skewing the like feedback, as they could be created as shill accounts. But the point of doing so would be very little.

If there is only the ability to like then you can't tarnish the quality of a topic or reply, only agree with it if that's what you want.

Implementing such a change in its simplest form is wise, plus restricting it to more senior members to trial it is useful. Wouldn't bother wasting time on making some complex system that has the potential for abuse.

maybe this can be solved by using like and dislike buttons?
quality could be measured by how many clicked one of them. if a post get my attention and got me thinking if i am the same opinion or not i'd consider it a good post

Hmm... Maybe it could have NO effect at all, but have, say under a post, "xx, xx, xx liked this!" The first thing that comes to mind here is the official Rift forums (check out this post (http://forums.riftgame.com/general-discussions/general-discussion/423101-then-there-fire.html#post4758013)). It shows who likes the posts, but past that has no functionality. Those who want to ignore it can, and those who want to see who agrees can.

I think it is impossible to measure usefulness or quality of posts without humans. Stats of a member or parameters of a post tell us nothing about the quality and relevance. There is no better way to capture this aspect without involving other members. When humans are involved, these bribes will happen.

Actually, it is not so centralised when the system matures. I think we can have more than a hundred of these QM in less than a year (depends on how high the bars are set). These QMs are allowed to be subjective. We need different voices in the community.

You also have to take in to consideration selective responses. Generally speaking, people are more open to voicing their opinions when they disagree with something or are upset. This is why a lot of reviews for companies and products are negative, rather than positive. We don't feel that same "need" to voice our opinions when we're happy. This is going to make its move into the system, such that if 10 are unhappy and 90 are happy, the 10 unhappy can still take the majority vote, despite being in the minority.

Vod's suggestion was simple and clear, a thumbsup button like we have on facebook.

I was reponding to taesup's call for suggestions on the new forum software. I was throwing out ideas on the reputation translation/implementation which includes but not restricted to the "like" system.

There is no voting involved. The system is not there to ban members or analyse spam. It is there to tag quality posts. If a post is good but controversial, there is going to be less QM tagging it. That doesn't mean it is a bad quality post. The member who wrote it still gets QP which brings him closer to a QM if he is not already a QM.

ranlo

So if activity were to be removed from the equation all together so that the only way a user can improved their ranking (aside from buying an account) is to generate content that others would like/upvote. Would that alleviate some of your concerns?

I think that would help some. Things that put everyone on an equal level (all things considered) are good. When people can sell accounts all they want, basing things on activity is meaningless; it just caters to those with the most money to spend.

The system would definitely need to be fleshed out more, though, in order to give a better evaluation.

FWIW I don't want my (dis)likes to be public.

Then to fix that, just have "x likes" where the x represents the number of them. I don't think dislikes should even be an option.

Yeah, I'm still not convinced with this idea. Getting posts disliked would be pretty disheartening for some. It could work for serial trolls or fud-spreaders, but when people just down vote your posts because they don't like you or just don't agree with your views it'll be pretty annoying. Just having likes be public may be better but it depends on how the final system works, but it also might just turn the forums into a popularity contest.

Allow people to choose whether they want to view the # of likes in the settings. This would help get rid of the popularity contest. It could even default to off, and allow those who want to use the feature to do so.

Meh, we shouldn't get into a habit of using 'have a setting to switch something off' as a way to cover something up. I don't think that it would be a popularity contest. I think that if people appreciate a post then they will like it. Of course, you might get people going around liking everything, but just let it be.

You don't have to show names of the people who liked it, though perhaps you could click into the '5 users like this' and see a list of the users who liked it. One of the things that's good about this idea is that it demonstrates who has appreciated your post without them necessarily replying to show that.

I don't think it would get rid of it. Choosing to ignore it wont make it go away and others will still use it. If the option was there I'd like to see it just for reference or to see who was up/down voting me or others.

I personally don't let likes bother me anyways unless they have a functional purpose. I just figured people who are bothered can simply ignore it through settings, and people like me who don't care one way or the other can leave it be.

And we'll definitely see people go around liking tons of stuff, but as long as there's no real benefit it doesn't hurt anything.

If it doesn't have a function or purpose then what would be the point of having it at all? Whilst you're right that people could or can just choose to ignore the function, it's like if we had the option to turn off the feedback system here. You could turn it off but to everybody else you would still appear to be a scammer/untrustworthy if you were marked as so, and in this case tarnished as a rubbish contributor and that will affect the way people see or view your posts/account.

If there is a functional purpose (and allows downvotes) it WILL be exploited. That's not a theory; that is a promise.

If there is upvoting only, with a functional purpose, it WILL be exploited. Again, that's a promise.

The only way for this to work is for it to have no functional purpose.

When something could be exploited, you think about ways it could be exploited and introduce measures to make it difficult, or impractical, to exploit. You don't go and render the function useless and consider problem solved. That's not the direction we should take when designing a new system.

I implore you to come up with a way to run this "efficiently" and I'll give you a run-down on how to exploit it. I'd definitely accept a system if someone could bring up something I can't exploit, but I don't see that being feasible (after running through one scenario after another on my own).

A simple 'like' system would probably be fine, but I'm not liking the whole downvoting thing mentioned where people can 'kill' accounts or negatively effect users for whatver reasons. That will obviously be exploited but I hope they can come up with a largely foolproof system if it is going to be definitely implemented. Hopefully we'll get some more info on this soonish.

As I have mentioned already, Vod's suggestion as it is will be plenty good. No downvoting, no bumping through likes, just plain old this post has x likes. Clicking into it to display the list of those who liked it would be a nice to have feature, other than that it is good as the suggestion outlines.

I wanted to reiterate that my suggestion was for a simple "Like" or "+1" to a forum post to indicate you like the post.  Nothing special is triggered or calculated on it. 

I don't think you should have "Dislike" or "-1" as that can be used to troll.

Just display some text like "xx people liked this post". 

If we get a new forum software which we should have had ages ago, there would probably be something like this implemented..

Liking a post would be a great idea, I think its great to get a compliment from people you made a good post.
I see some people +1 people but that only takes room in the topic, so that would be really nice.

But disliking a post I think is a bad idea, there are way to many trolls.
And good post would get disliked, ive seen it on the arenajunkies forum to.

Okay, I'm all for this then. My understanding (based on other posts) was that it was going to have functional purposes. I don't think being able to "like" things harms anything, so you have my vote.

Ranlo likes this post!

I actually added on to Vod's post because I wanted to let the community know that I was tapping into the likes functionality as a metric for reputation.

Although the reputation system I have in mind is not like the current system in any way. I actually want to continue this discussion. Maybe new thread?

You can probably just continue it here since they're related. We'll definitely need more details, though, since reputation *is* a functional part of the site.

I'd rather we don't add a 'like' or '+1' button, it contributes to the 'herd' mentality that plagues so many sites already. Plus at the end of the day it doesn't really add anything constructive to the site.

Honestly, everyone's agreeing with this... I'm not sure why? Maybe they've never seen another forum with the like button... this is quite literally every sticky post on the forum:

https://i.imgur.com/cgQvV6S.png


Do you really want this on half the threads on bitcointalk?


Exactly this -- THANK YOU!

Dear god...

https://i.imgur.com/Gw6zf.gif

Well that would be a bit of an unusual function (If it was optional) and you had to manually click it as an option pane I would support this idea
Else I like the squid picture

https://i.imgur.com/Gw6zf.gif

I think someone's misunderstanding what they are going for. Not a listing of people that have liked it, but simply something like:

193 People have Liked this post!

I still think it will break down to people trying for fake internet points and huge circle jerk's, just look at reddit.

Even with just a little blurb under every single post, it gets to be a bit excessive. "1 person has liked this". Because people are gonna just like their own posts =/

Also, love this picture:

https://i.imgur.com/Gw6zf.gif

This response is to you and blue.

There's no functional benefit, so if they want to upvote themselves a billion times, it means nothing. It's easy to ignore too. I see nothing wrong with it as it won't hurt anyone.

It could mean added load to the server, it's another thing to keep track of, which may not be that big of a deal, I'll admit but is something to keep in mind.

I'm more worried that adding it will be a slippery slope, ending in posts being sorted by popularity by default, which is something that I loathe. I may be a minority on this but that's my $0.02

The non-functional part says that this wouldn't be a fear (the organization based on popularity). You wouldn't even know how many likes there are without going into each thread one by one. The important thing would be to KEEP it this way though.

I did say slippery slope...

Still, why add bloat? If it serves no function and it's not broken why 'fix' it?

For the same reason we can have avatars (or at least those who already have them) and have activity counters. None of this really "does" anything, they are just kind of there. We could argue that activity is functional, but really it's not (you can check the age of accounts without this).

Yeah, it's obviously not gonna look like that (at least I hope it isn't  :D) and probably more like the Facebook or YouTube style they have.


Activity/membergroups are very useful, because it shows you how active that person has actually been. A newb could sign up a couple of years ago, never post, return, make x amount of posts and then have essentially the same standing as a veteran member. The activity is a good gauge IMO and is useful, plus obviously Membergroups are tied to it. Avatars also have their function in being to identify people easier.

Please do not turn the forum into Facebook.

Reasonable opinion gotta agree with this. Just keep likes for facebook and don;t bring them here.

It's a fair opinion but it doesn't diminish the credibility of a 'like' feature. It provides a useful at-a-glance reference for how well-received a particular post is.

I imagine that there are many people who agree with or like many posts around the forum but choose not to acknowledge this with a post because it wouldn't have anything extra to contribute, or simply because they can't be arsed. A simple click could be a nice solution.

Yeah, I agree that a like or + feature would save a lot of 'I agrees' or '+1's etc and you can show your support or agreeance with this. It's not an essential feature but it has its uses, but I'm still not sold on the idea of what was proposed by the devs earlier.

I've said for a while now that I believe that Vod's original suggestion is good enough - although now I'm starting to think that the whole positive trust thing is a bit silly.

It's only a like - I think that it is a feature that you want as many people to use as possible. Shilling likes doesn't count for anything, so just let people have at it - at least for a trial.

Making a down vote would be great too if this option is adding. The down votes should be decreased from the total number of up votes but still the number of down votes should be seen separately.

Kindly,
      MZ

lol, you would get "like" and even "dislike" services on the forum :P Not a good idea I think..

Agreed. I don't want it.

The list can be made hidden till they press a button like XDA forum. Anyway, if there is a meter with thanks button, it would be nice as higher Member Rank doesn't mean he is contributing but from this we can understand at least a little about his/her posts easily.
Kindly,
       MZ

I just want a simple way to indicate I like a post, without dragging forum politics into it.   :-\

This could be a way to earn reputation without having to conduct trading, if you are an outstanding member making an outstandimg contribution to the community I believe you deserve to be recognised :)

It could contribute to your rep, but being helpful doesn't necessarily equate to they can be trusted to handle money risk free. If this was the case then people would start abusing it by creating alt accounts and liking their own posts and then using the 'look how many likes I've got - I'm very trusted' line in an attempt to scam.

I wuv this idea.


Kinda like "+1" or "thank you". Most forums I see have this feature.

Bump, for feedback from the next generation.

Don't know if it's too late in the design process though...

I think it is in the new forum but I am not sure about it!



   ~~MZ~~

+1

I see what you did there. I'd still like to see this so hopefully it is included. Been quite a few instances recently where I would've liked to give something a +1 but not actually comment on it.

I don't use the Reddit myself, but I understand they have a system of upvoting? Such that the most engaging posts tend to stand out I guess

I don't really like that about reddit, especially not the downvoting aspect of it.

Yes, my proposal was to "like" a post.  I do not want people to be able to "dislike" a post.  To do that would introduce too many politics.

Hmm. There could be a tyranny of the majority problem such that only the popular opinions are seen. You're right, I don't like that either

I don't ask that the posts be sorted or ranked in any way based on the votes.  Just a simple "39 people liked this post" would be fine.

+1

Generally good, but imo it will cause to much abuse, so please no!  :)

Ya. No I was just spit-balling with the Reddit thing. I think "like" should be ok tho

Sir, I'm not asking for threads to be ranked or shown based on the number of likes.  I'm just asking to be able to like a post.

Something like this: https://i.imgur.com/rcze8dQ.png

   ~~MZ~~

It's just that this system could be abused to often, just think about this cryptodouble ponzis. Also a nice reply/quote is way better imho and brings more traffic to relevant thread.
Generally i love this "like a post" system, but not here for me. :)
Too many people don't even read carefully, don't want to think about if those just care about "thumbs up". ;)

this isn't facebook or a popularity contest.

How does liking a post turn it into a popularity contest? It's better than cluttering up the forum with pointless +1s and 'thanks' everywhere.

+1000, other than listing the people's names.  It should'nt matter who +1 the post, since the +1 shouldn't add to the post.

Why not put a simple button "thanks" ? I don't like the down vote system .

+1 / Thanks

I may agree in principle with such a vote, but i'm really concerned by the possible/prevedible abuse of it. What if we can filter the number of likes with for example only trusted users one displayed?

Just food for tought


+1. Even if like the scope of the voting system i'm concerned by the possible abuse so, I suggest only making results visible to the user who posted the "liked" content.

As vod told , the 1+ / thanks doesn't give any advantage to the "OP" of each thread.

What's to abuse exactly? Doesn't really matter if a post has 1k likes as it doesn't really give you any power or anything. People would be able to see through it if it was a post that was undeserving of so much thanks, but I think the names should be able to be viewed for various reasons and this being one of them.

Something like this?
http://i.gyazo.com/ee441a77bf9b98c1153305fa5e51de35.png
I don't see any harm, as long as it provides no major benefit to the post. Something like this is ok:
http://i.gyazo.com/777f167e8d062583765338d314f2a8ca.png
And prevent spam thanks, like a user trying to +1 all of someone elses posts.

I've seen both of these, but I think “Thanks” is different than “Like”. I may like a post without thinking it was actually helpful to me.

I think any option would work, but the problem here is I see this forum flooded with spam, and many alt users, so it can very easily misused no matter what the method is

But what would be the point of abusing it? Oh, this guy has 100 likes for his crappy post? Wont mean anything and would be pointless to do. You could argue that the feedback system can be abused in the same way as well but it's just there as a guide and for people to make their own mind up much like this would be. A like doesn't translate to trustability or everyone else likes or agrees with his post.

Yes, you're right, I was pointing that, the excess of spam makes that worthless, maybe only the thank button for helpful posts.

'Thanks' will be misused much more than 'like' or '+1' and besides, situations to 'like' a post is more than to 'thank' a post. You may like a post but you don't want to thank the poster, such things are more in this forum. I still stand with '+1' or 'like' and not with 'thanks'. :)

   -MZ

And A/B testing would be great here, use 2 forums as example and see how it behaves, what do you think?  :)

Im my experience they end up redundant
I'm sure someone is going to appreciate more an actual response than a counter.

They will, but sometimes those responses are simply 'thanks' or '+1' which are also redundant and add nothing. This feature would avoid that whilst still being able to show your appreciation.

Yes, nice idea.
+Like OR/AND +Thanks would give less spam as a result.
Also smart feature would be topic rating with example 5 stars max and 0 min.

I think a 5-star system is overkill. For example, YouTube changed their 5-star system with a like-dislike system some years ago.

Should we add something like -1 as well?

So if the post has too much -1s, then a moderator will get automatically notified.

Why a mod should get notified when a post is -1? We need a "thanks" button not a "like" button. This is not a social network (like facebook, and others) it is a forum.

If you want report a post to a staff member, you should use the "report to moderator" function (at the right of each post here in the forum).

True, but IMO if a post can be -1 and +1, that would be even better. But for -1, you need to provide sufficient info why you -1ed that post/reply.

If you don't like a post simple , close it and read another one. If you instead see that post helpful for the community ,press "thanks" (this is only an example and I don't know if this feature will be implemented or not).

Is this feature confirmed in the new forum?

Or is theymos still thinking it over? ???

This may not be a “social network”, but I bet people socialize anyway. Also, the reason I still think a Like button is better than a Thanks button is because most of the time you like a post (maybe it's an opinion you agree with, or a joke, or an interesting article, or something else), but don't necessarily feel thankful for that.

Please don't add a '-1'.


Most of the features hasn't been confirmed by theymos but teasup sometimes gives a hint.

I saw a pic of some icons when the image was posted here and it included a '+1' icon. So I think it will be added to the new forum software.


+1.

   -MZ

This would be great idea to add like/dislike or something similar also think that adding a button for share is good for other networks like FB, TW, G+ and all other

Only "like" or "+1" is needed. Dislike will cause big mess.


Disagree. It will clutter the page.

   -MZ

this is a great idea...i seen on many forums +1 button or thanks button or like button
and i really love it on other sites
i wish that admins add this !!great idea!

Never heard any feedback on this from the developer.  :(

I hope such a simple thing can be implemented.  So many times I have wanted to just "like" a post, without liking the poster or putting myself into a certain group for liking the post from a certain poster...

Just a simple (even anonymous) "Thumbs up" would be perfect.  Facebook got it right.

i'm with it on this, it could also reduce some spams, many post that start with agree and add unnecessary things, just to make them look alright, would no longer be needed

Or maybe the post with more "thanks" "like" will be highlighted respect the others and if someone is searching for an information, he can find it more faster and easier than now. What do you think guys? Is it a good or bad idea?

If you look at "long-term", it is a good idea but if you are going for "short-term" thinking, you can understand that plenty of alts will popup. However, "+1" from me.

I support the idea of redsnow, +1! We need the thanks button and also if the people will abuse , it doesn't matter.

It has been posted many times here. "Thanks" button is probably less good than "+1" or "Like" button. We may want to like a post but not thank them. So "+1" or "like" button is what we need.

Sounds good! I like it, but I think by commenting your opinion and you thoughts is more sincere than just a like, don't you think? But I still like the idea though, and I would be liking posts that I think is interesting. Hope it happens on this forum ! ;D

Dislike is good too, it prevents people from going out of line because flaming will be disliked immediately.

If it was integrated with a tip-jar then a Like button it could be fun to see how people react send a change-tip to users for constructive posts and have a dislike button that demands money for reading their awful ones  ;D
(That or dislike turns posts to hidden after the threshold is reached)

I vote pro to this idea, i have seen most of the forums have implemented this.
Like, +1, or a Thanks button would be good, in a forum i saw that these "Thanks" can be trade inside the forum.
So maybe this should work like a mini tip to a member, it can be manipulated but here comes the moderators.

Replying or Quoting the thread can also express if you like a post or not. Tho the idea of having a like button is really one too look forward to. It can implement people to make more constructive posts and maybe if that person got enough likes he can trade it for bitcoins or currency that we can use in this forum to buy stuff for our profile.

sounds just like reddit

I'd love if we could use rep for something like that, but sadly, people would abuse it badly by using a lot of alt accounts and doing like trades and such. I don't see this really working out.

I think the much better idea would be to have a "Thanks" button instead of "Like"
The thanks button will encourage more to the users and if someone help someone then the person can appreciate it by pressing the thanks button...Also it would be great if we have thanks meter too ;D

'Like' can be used for thanking or for liking but not vice versa. So IMHO, like button is better.

This is a good idea. Will help sort out the quality and contributing posts from the bad sig spammy ones. Another forum I use to participate in (Digitalpoint) has a similar feature that seems to work quite well. They even use it as a posting restriction to certain forum boards like the marketplace so newbie spammers can't just start new sales threads or scams right off the bat.

I also agree with this idea simply because it will get rid of the "+1" "agreed" "yeah totally" and other comments such as those.

I suggest instead of thanks or like button we should have donate or tip button.If someone finds your post useful,informative or helpful,he can donate you a small pre-fixed amount of btc.This will highly encourage people to post more quality stuff and will also prevent asking or buying likes or thanks

No, it won't.

I find no value in "likes" or "+1" or "thumbs up" or whatever.  It's silly stuff invented for social media and it's really pointless.  Who cares what if a lot of people "like" something?  A lot of people are idiots.

I dont understand the logic of having like or thank button.If people like your post,they can quote their post and appropriate word of appreciation would be more appropriate.People will resort to unethical ways to get like and thanks like buying them

I don't completely see why any of this is needed. Why can't people just keep their thoughts about a certain post to themselves unless they have anything further to add to the discussion.

well, for me there are many occasions when I wanted to say 'thanks' to some users but refrained from posting because I couldn't come up with something constructive to include on my post. in the end I didn't post anything and ended up feeling rather ungrateful.
the others might have different reasons for wanting this feature, but I would like it to be implemented for this exactly.

What keeps you from expressing your gratitude in a pm.If you find someone's post useful,shoot him a message informing him of your appreciation.What is the need of like or thank button for such rare occasions? Moreover if we have like or thank button,we must also have unlike button because on several occasions I strongly dislike what some people post in the name of Freedom of expression

I agree

Unless that post was pure sarcasm, this is a model post on why we need a "Like" feature. I see too many of these posts around the forum.

Then you should probably report them so that they get removed. Useless spam is against the rules on this forum.

I recall Digg when it was a tech site with Kevin Rose just starting it, the voting system was manipulated to the point that a couple dozen people were always on the front page. This being a forum as opposed to a news aggregator, I don't see an issue with being able to like or dislike a topic or single post. I do see the potential of abuse via spam and advertising if the site were to have a prominent "most popular topics or posts" area. The up side would be similar to the trust system for trading here in finding quality people to follow in your areas of interest.

I doubt that such an area would be implemented if Vod's suggestion was added. That would, as you said, be paving the way for people abuse the system of "liking" posts.

I'm in favor of liking/disliking posts (weighed by trust score&user rank), but not if it means the whole forum is aggregated liked posts. There could be a separate sub-forum, where content would be aggregated by this criteria, plus you could have settings to enable ignore all posts below certain threshold.

+1 ;).

This would be a great feature. I know nodebb has this feature.

Well it is not 100% hackproof it gives users awareness of which posts are of value and which are bogus.

SMF already has this feature http://www.smfpacks.com/page/sa=likes

A like feature would be great.

This thread has the most replies and the most views of any in this section.

The majority of people feel it's a good idea.

The two largest social networks, Facebook and Google+, allow you to show appreciation for a post.

I'm curious to see if the developers will include it.

may it also serve as a requirement,  say a user needs to have atleast a number of liked post to be able to access some section.

Opens it up to abuse.  I just want to show appreciation for a post.

How about adding a rating beside each thread/post if someone likes his OP or comment?

It will look authentic in this forum because +1 and like features are more suitable in social networking sites rather than an independent forum where open discussions happen all the time.

What do you think Vod? :)

If you're suggesting that each +1 would add to a total per post/topic, then yes, that is what I'm suggesting.  :)

Thought I would bump this.  The forum is attracting more socially aware members, and some may want this feature.

A simple 9 people liked this would be very inexpensive and a realistic feature of a forum expected to compete with the likes of phpBB and SMF.

Please consider adding this to the forum software.

I just learned that it is "forbidden" to post agreement posts like "+1", but missed a "thank you" button to show appreciation in such a case. I was introduced to this thread so i might contribute "original" content. I noticed the thread started 2014, now its getting closer to 2017, still no way to state that you agree with someones opinion "without cluttering the thread". A total counter like reddit has it would definitely be the goal, but for now im fine with a simple "Like" or "Thank you" button, though im not sure this will ever come, taking into consideration when this thread started.

Why? You have facebook and such for that. With all the farmed/bought accounts voting a +1, what purpose would it serve? This is why a poll is laughable here.

I guess 'thank you' or '+1' on useful posts wouldn't be a bad idea (as a way of showing appreciation), but then again it isn't really necessary.

I think that it would aid to help spread misinformation, among other (bad) things, as they could easily up-vote nonsense posted by their other accounts..

I concur. It's too easily to manipulate one.

valid points, i too like to show appreciation for some posts, but in my case id like to just show "i agree"

maybe just use this, not a rating system, this should also reduce the chances of "upvoting" from multiple accounts, as "i agree" doesnt make sense on information posts, just on opinions

yes it isn't really necessary but it remains a good idea and i don't see a harm to include it
sometimes i refrain myself from posting an appreciation to a post since it will be considered as a spam, i would show support to that member but i can't...

I've already mentioned potential 'harmful' cases:


That is correct. 'Thank you' posts are not allowed as they bring nothing to the discussion. However, you could thank a user as part of your post (e.g. write something relevant and constructive prior or after thanking them).

Lauda,

I see how one could abuse this system.  Sure, you can make a thousand QS alts and use them to "like" the heck out of a post, but to what end?  There is no benefit, no bonus for having many likes.  If someone wants to spend hours logging in and liking posts, let them.  

When an actual person makes an actual post and receives actual likes, they will be further encouraged to participate in the community.  We need people who want to post for other than financial reward.

Remember, this forum is supposed to compete with other software that already contains this feature.

Well, as an example newbies could get tricked into believing false information (since they're more gullible). I can see people spreading false information with self moderated threads where they've liked their post with a lot of alt accounts. Anyhow, I'm not trying to say that this is very dangerous though. I'm just saying that we need to be aware of (potentially harmful) cases of abuse.

Sure. I wouldn't mind some 'thank you' or 'karma-like' system implemented (as I've seen in other locations).

Please don't make a like count too complex. Just a simple count of the number of appreciative users is quite good enough imho. And don't mess with the order of posting, one of my filters is post count - if a thread has over 100 replies, and I haven't contributed to it, I assume it is a spam fest, and I ignore it. Messing with the sequence of posts based on opinions that I don't respect, will just lead to me ignoring threads. The more thrads that sensible active members ignore, the lower the value of the board advertising, please think of board economics before implementing over-complex changes.

A lot of other forums have this, I was going to suggest it as well. I think it's a quick and easy way to give some sort of legitimacy to a post when you're in a thread absolutely full of people, busting at the seams with posts. So many times I've agreed with a person as if they took the words out of my mouth and I've wanted to just "like" their post.

Is this something that is going to be in the new forum template for sure or not? It seems like a pretty good idea to me and shouldn't be too hard to implement?

Also, I think alot of you guys are overlooking the purpose of it, i think it gets obvious really fast if someone abuses it, and it should in no way represent the trust in a user.

Maybe some kind of hierarchial structure would be cool aswell. Just a thought.

You are right - it shouldn't be that hard to implement.

All the modern forum software features include this.  Yet the developers seem to have all but ignored this (very popular) feature request.   :-\

(HELLO DEVS - 16,000 page views - more interest than most other topics. Pay attention please!)

You may quite like a post. Why not? When writers want to post anything they also want us to read and care about their posts. We like it when it is useful content.

Idea good! But it has to be selectively from post to post, topic to topic.
SOMETIMES it's really can help appraise topics or posts.
But you should choose self when to turn it on.


THere could be additional function wich appear when you post new post or topic. like:
https://s26.postimg.org/9enpli4l3/new_post.png

https://s26.postimg.org/3t1ahg3w7/like_dislaike.png

I think it would be a great addition if all posts were able to be thumbs-up'd. The reason that forums do this is because it allows people to agree with something that someone else has said, and very easily make that well known to everyone else that reads it. It helps easily discern right answers from wrong, or good opinions from bad for those who seek answers or opinions. It allows everyone to collectively say "yeah, what that guy said made sense", and make that message as easy to read as possible for anyone, without searching through an entire thread.

Does anyone else agree with what I've said? Thumbs it up! :)

It is unsure of what you say, what prevents you from ignoring or blocking users or their messages that you do not like. But the scoring system is needed, it will at least somehow show the adequacy of the user.

You can absolutely love an article sincerely. You read the content and feel like it. I often read articles about bitcoin. I want to learn more about this currency. To invest in the right way.

I don't know if this was thought about yet, but couldn't there be some type of implementation of an algorithm to say that if there was a mass of likes/upvotes or dislikes/downvotes within a given timeframe that the moderator for that particular board has to verify when it comes to the reputation?

Do you mean that if a post gained a certain amount of dislikes then it could be put up for review for the moderators to remove? I mean that could work but I think if the post infringed a rule then someone would of reported it.

Just because a post is disliked by the majority doesn't mean they aren't expressing a legitimate opinion.

What I meant was if a post gets certain amount of dislikes in a certain timeframe, i.e. 50 dislikes/likes in 2 mins. That would be an indicator for the mods to look at the accounts to see if bots/alts were used.

Shouldn't this be canceled If It's planned? I liked the idea originally but since we now have merit points, I don't see much use for this, It will probably only make profiles and threads slower to load.

It's probably redundant now but it still could be useful I think. Sometimes you might just want to like something that is funny without necessarily giving it merit. You may also have run out of merit or not have any to give in the first place etc. Also, I don't think there's any guarantees that this system will be transferred over to the new forum as it's just a test run really. If it works out well enough then I'm sure it will be but maybe it will just turn out to not be an effective enough system but only time will tell if masses of lower ranked accounts aren't really getting anywhere despite descent postings etc.

Maybe you could use this approach instead of the merit system which is ineficient and restrictive to new users.
If you consider the post was useful to you, you like it, otherwise you don't. Simple, easy to implement and people are already used to it from FB.

This would make more sense.

It's a no for me. We already have merit smerit. Thread notification/following would be nice, and also the preview idea.

Some how it happened Vod, the implement of Merit is some how near +1 on posts.

I don't like some of the ideas, I think it would make it look irritating. I like the current simple design. It's a bit hard to navigate in terms of looking for people who quote" or answered you for you to quote back. I wish that one to be improved.

You can vod, and you can send more than 1 "like" to a someone, ill teach you how :
1. Find a post that you liked.
2. Click +merit button in the right bar of the post
3. Fill the blank box with number of "like" you want
4. Send
Thats how you give "like" to people.

It is obvious that if you really agree or think that the post of a particular is great and helped you then go ahead and 'like' it bu giving it a merit. Instagram has likes, facebook has emojis, twitter has heart, bitcointalk has MERITS. I know this forum is not at all comparable to social apps, still. Everything has its unique things.

Then you'll be using the merit system for the wrong reason (liking or agreeing to a post, is completely different to giving a small reward [in form of merits] to a high quality post):

To break it down for you (a simple scenario):

"User A", likes  or agrees to a post (made by "user B") and the content of that post was "I think you should wear a green shirt instead".
Clearly that posts doesn't deserve a merit (since it isn't a high quality post), therefore "liking" it would be the appropriate thing instead (if there was a like button).

This is great Idea, having "Like" button in every post we create. Also, the idea in number of Likes will be one of the basis having a merit point. Hopefully this may happen in our forum.

No.  I want people to be as free to like as many posts at they want.  It should have no influence on anything.

You start tying it to merit and you introduce restrictions.

If it will be free from liking a post, then some people would abuse it even they have trust rating. If we are giving a like on a certain suggestion that really help, then why just give a merit. Thats simple.

But still, we are a transition for the merit system. Positive effects for lower ranks really make a change if this members really want to stay in the forum.

Honest question, did you observe this positive effect you're mentioning yourself? Maybe it is biased because I see so many lower-ranking members in the local forum upset about not ranking up but I'm really concerned that the merit system doesn't work the way it was intended.

There is a transition, sure, but I fear that it'll get even harder to gain merit than it is now.

Right now, there are 77 Merit sources generating ~588 merit/day
But in contrast to that, since implementation, ~2152 merit/day were sent. So unless the number of merit sources gets almost quadrupled, it get's harder to earn merit. Or am I missing something?



I get what you mean but don't you think that this might be a good addition (not a supplement) to the merit system? I'm sure that there is a way to implement a "like"-system without the restricting element you mentioned. Nevertheless, it's a valid point.

^^ Its an economy with a deflationary monetary base :P    Also some of the merit given is then regiven possibly also some is given to less active accounts or just people who never bother to give merit themselves.

I'd rather Merit be the like system really, I think the like proposal just seems like it'd far looser and not count for as much.    Thats fine on facebook where you just like a pretty picture and people are happy anyone at all viewed it (alot of content is not public there also) but I prefer the merit system here where you either dont have any merit to give or you are quite selective in needing to really appreciate a post before it gets any upvote.    Just handing out as many likes as you want is too spammy, do we really need that.    You know some people are just going to like everything they ever click on because they are happy shiny people, thats cool but its not adding anything to my forum readability.
  This forum isnt really trying to get publicity kind of traffic especially, I prefer the quality route to be taken.

Perhaps everyone should get an occasional merit in line with their activity rather then it being a chosen few, actually I need to reread if thats already in there or not

Yes, I do agree with this suggestion and can we add thanks button too? Since we don't have merit to give in return with their help (response or reply) and posting "Thank You" migjt result to spamming, at least we can just hit the button thanks  to say our gratitude.

I think we all have "like" or comment on other people's posts. This contributes to the appreciation of the forum posts. Help you express your opinion, contribute ideas to the topic.

I like the idea of ​​a scoring system, but the way that score turns into a measure

This will also help the forum. We can conbined Merit and Like system like if the post was helpful and meaningful it will be merited for those who have sMerit while for those who didn't have sMerit will use the Like system or the upvote.
Rank          Required activity         Required merit           Likes
Brand new                 0                                 0                            0
Newbie                      1                                 0                             0
Jr Member                30                               0                             10
Member.                   60                               10                             50               
Full Member           120                             100                           120
Sr. Member             240                             250                           300
Hero Member        480                             500                           800
Legendary   Random in the range 775-1030   1000              1200

Upvotes will be easily get because everyone will have it only 1 upvote per 1 post every users.

No.  If you give a "like" some sort of value, then it will be abused.

The merit system has pretty much done what I wanted the "like" system to do.

Closing this thread.