@jsonbecker I, too, miss likes here, because they tell me that people are seeing and reading my posts. And it would be nice to know how many people follow me (even if not exactly who) if only to know I'm not talking to myself. But I'm perfectly fine with none of those stats being externally visible. I even prefer it that way.

@MultoGhost then again … you can see comments.

@MultoGhost yeah, I don't have a strong case for external stats. But I think throwing out all stats for users to see about their own posts is a bit throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

@jsonbecker What's the bare minimum, and which stats do you want? @MultoGhost @JohnPhilpin

@pratik I don’t have strong opinions … whilst lots of likes are ‘nice’ across every platform I have ever engaged with … if I hit double figures … I pop a cork … BUT … here on Microblog and on Mastodon I have often had ‘conversations’ with double figure people … where they take an idea, argue for it … argue against it … don’t mind which … it all adds to the quality of thought that a ❤️just doesn’t do .. no matter how many there are.

// @jsonbecker @multoghost

@JohnPhilpin @jsonbecker @MultoGhost While I sometimes like the private likes, it does change behavior. I get sucked into why this post (mostly photos) was more liked than I one I personally like. Or that person ‘liked’ 8 of my last 10 photos so what was wrong with the other two (focusing on the negative). The latter is true on Instagram coz had a couple of friends who would like EVERY photo I posted so I started focusing on the rare ones they didn’t like.

@pratik @JohnPhilpin @MultoGhost I don’t have super strong opinions. I think my ideal stat is probably views, but I think that’s fairly hard in a system with views in MB timeline, RSS, and my own site all being distinct. Absent views, I’d probably go with something like a follower count (which should include RSS subscriptions, active MB follow count, and ActivityPub subscribers). The third most interesting would be some kind of “like”. I don’t really think any of these make for bad incentives.

I understand some people are very sensitive and worry about incentives. I’d be interested if a compromise would be something like aggregating data weekly or monthly versus being daily or post-level. I’d be fine with say, weekly views or weekly likes etc. I just think “all stats are distortive” or bad isn’t quite right. And I believe that platforms have the best ability to supply reliable stats.

@jsonbecker @JohnPhilpin @MultoGhost You may be onto something with aggregate stats delivered once a week/month/year. I kinda like LinkedIn’s 500+ followers/connections indicator.

@JohnPhilpin [Re. comments] That's true, but I know that I myself see a lot of posts on here that I have a favorable reaction to, but nothing particularly intelligent to say about them, So I move on. It would be nice to let the poster know "hey, I read that, and appreciated it." A 'like' seems to be a good way to indicate that.

@pratik

I get sucked into why this post (mostly photos) was more liked than I one I personally like

Ha, I notice that blog posts that I just dash off often get more likes/comments than posts that I've crafted and toiled over. Conclusion? 'People are weird' :)

Of course, the ones I've dashed off are generally shorter, too. So there's that.

@MultoGhost the problem is that 'like' doesn’t neccesarily reflect that ... for example on Mastodon i use the 'like' as a personal bookmark - as in seen it - move on ... and many other people have many different reasons for why they like - one that particularly annoys me is that i want to flag to the author concurrence - with THEIR opinion - e.g. they are commenting on some heinous child trafficking act - not something to 'like' - but needs to be flagged - it gets complicated real quickly.