@jeannie Was thinking the same thing! Instead of favoriting your post I will show my appreciation here.

The only thing I miss about the favorite button is as a full stop to a long conversation. On twitter those usually end by favoriting each other’s post (and it’s more poignant if the dialogue didn’t start amicably, which is the usual for twitter).

@jeannie That’s a good point :)

@jeannie Like and Favorite buttons seem to serve “platform engagement” more than actual communication between humans. It encourages shallow, drive-by’s and not actual thought. Social networks aren’t the only places with the issue either: my office has to frequently remind people that emoji reactions aren’t meaningful input to discussions because they’re so easy to misinterpretation.

@jeannie Agree heartily. Sites driven by algorithms have often found ways to get around an universal ‘like’ button by providing a set of five emojis as a way to react. Those are also equally useless while giving the senders a signal that they’re now leaving a meaningful response.

@jeannie – The Like button on various systems is a way of acknowledging that you saw something and thought it was noteworthy. Since micro.blog doesn’t have a Like button, what’s the proper way of saying that? As a person who writes posts that get zero response here (and not on other systems) I wish people had a less-committed way of saying they saw something I wrote. That would be a little bit of feedback where currently I get none.

@jeannie I fully agree with you. I myself felt in the trap of hitting “like” or “favorite” as a quick and easy way to show some minimal form of appreciation. One example being on the photo-sharing Glass platform. Your post is a reminder that I should do better and really engage with others.

@jeannie – here’s a parallel. My TV doesn’t have a brightness control. It’s an expensive screen, and I imagine that the designers of the system figured “we have a computer in this that knows how to automatically adjust brightness based on room light.” But it doesn’t work properly, I don’t know what the problem is, but there are times the TV is useless because you just can’t see what’s on the screen, because the lack of a brightness control. Maybe if TVs never had brightness controls I wouldn’t miss it, but they do in my mind, require one. Same thing here. “Like” is something that’s part of the language of social media. To try to deny that at this stage is kind of pointless imho.

@dave @jeannie I think the problem is that with time (I think), all positive feedback will be done through such ‘likes’ and written responses will be criticisms. I think if people want to let you if they found something they liked, they let you know (on Micro.blog at least) and often with different words.

@pimoore – in real life there’s all kinds of non-verbal communication. you can nod your head, smile. we’ve come up with a similar language online, i don’t think there’s any more meaning in this. we’re being human. not a huge surprise. 😀

@pratik – i don’t think it works out that way. if i see something here on micro.blog that i would Like on another system, i don’t comment, i just do nothing, not because i’m bashful or overly quiet, rather because this is a language and a comment has different meaning from a Like. I’ve been in this position myself in the past, trying to buck a larger trend, and the pressure really does get you to support the common way, the sooner you do it, the sooner the pain goes away. ;-)

@dave I don’t see that as a bad thing. Many of my posts have, as they say, no engagement. That’s fine. I’m writing them to document my thoughts. After all, it’s my log. People shouldn’t be compelled to acknowledge every thought. Only when they feel strongly enough they can/should reply, and the length of the reply doesn’t matter, at least to me.

I like your analogy of a nod or a smile in face-to-face conversation, but that often is true when you are “broadcasting,” and even then, after a while, presenters say, “I see you nod, can you share what you feel?” If I explicitly am looking for feedback, I write my post as a question. A ‘like’ for such a post would actually take away value.

@pimoore – this is the problem with this whole thread – “we shouldn’t be afraid” – fear doesn’t enter into it. i don’t usually nod or smile out of fear.

@dave @jeannie but why do I have to do something so you feel validated? And I say this as someone who is interested in everything Dave has to say.

@agilelisa 🙏

@dave Maybe you can choose to be kinder with your replies than “this is the problem with this whole thread”. That is a rather rude and uncalled for comment to make in any discussion.

@agilelisa @dave @jeannie Bingo. You shouldn’t need a reaction from me (or any other user) that is not a comment or question on your post.

If you like what I have said (or want clarification): then comment.
If you don’t have anything to say, a Like or emoji doesn’t add anything.

I agree with @pratik; emoji are the textual equivalent to nonverbal cues IRL conversations. 

In other languages there have been shorthand characters for things like smiling (ww/笑), sadness (泣) and before emoji, there was kaomoji (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵) in Japan – all created as a way of “humanizing” text so that mood and tone can come across more when having a casual text chat. I don’t see a real issue if people identified with my writings but have nothing more to say but “that was nice”– liking/starring/favoriting for me is the digital blogospherical analogue of that to me.

@jlg I’m fine with just emoji responses if they’re typed in and not via a emoji-reaction feature, like on FB

@pratik I agree. Typed emoji responses have a free of intentionality beyond the like/favourite/canned response features of the big social platforms, and so represent a more deliberate kind of engagement.

I feel the same as @jlg @pratik @heyscottyj describe. I don’t need a reply to my posts but any time somebody takes the time to type one (even if it’s just a single emoji) it’s welcome. The difference is the intentionality of stopping to communicate to me rather than reflexively tapping a button as they scroll by at speed.

@joelhamill – i wonder how people can make such sweeping moral statements without adding an imho.

@agilelisa – i haven’t asked you to do anything other than have a nice day. ;-)

There’s another thread in here started by Jason

With the resulting conversation here

all about likes - so adding to this thread to connect …

//

@dave
@jeannie
@jsonbecker
@pimoore
@pratik

… and likely others like @jean and @manton

@jasonekratz I know what you mean … this is a topic we have seen in here before. ‘Fear’ might be a little strong - but I am definitely not my ‘full self’ on some of these threads.

If I just wrote ‘💯’ to show my appreciation to this … or 🤯if you blew my mind or 😂if you had me rolling in the aisles with your superb sense of humour - it takes maybe 1 second longer than hitting a like button - but a few of us do that round here

@dave it’s a comment on the internet … it’s all my opinion.

@jasonekratz interact how you want to interact; there is no right way to interact. Don’t blog to get engagement. Blog to blog. Write to write. Chasing engagement is a fool’s game.

@jasonekratz Only you can answer that for yourself. The point of my website is that its mine.

@JohnPhilpin The ‘100’ one always mildly annoys me (not from you, particularly, just in general) because I feel it’s missing the ‘%’ symbol.

@devilgate 👍🏼 😀 I know what you mean

@jasonekratz no worries, no snark taken here. I was more frustrated with Dave saying he wanted Likes on a platform that doesn’t have Likes because Likes are on other social media.

@pratik me too. Reactji are good enough and no language barrier which is alao something else to consider especially for those of us polylinguals