Rating System (was: what even are social noises round N+1)

Ugh, the new ratings don't apply to statuses! Statuses are where they would be most useful!

 

a winner is you

 

@seebs If the hugs button absolutely has to go, can it at least be replaced with "comfort" or "sympathy" ? So there is something with that function around. Since some have wanted that function for a long time.

 

That's a shame, I like hugs. But yes we definitely at least need an equivalent

 

(I don't understand what 'social noises' means.)

 

I think hugs and witnessed feel very different personally

 

I don´t really see the point if "Interesting". Informative and Useful both say something concrete. Interesting. Really doesn´t.

I read witnessed as "I have seen the thing" Outside of just conveying sympathy, so it can be used to acknowledge having seen something.

 

- obviously let's keep this -

Like = The default, an overall positive response. The only one that some of us will use, because ugh change, ugh decision paralysis, or some other ugh.

- I'd really like to keep these -

Agree = I agree with at least part of the content of the post and wants to communicate that agreement in a quick, wordless way.

Informative and/or Useful = This post taught me a thing I am glad to have learned. I don't necessarily like it or agree with it, but I appreciate that the poster said the thing. Could be used anywhere from acknowledging a point in a heated conversation, to saying "hey thanks for the instructions on how to cook this delicious food!" I'd be okay with finding a word to roughly combine these into.

Witnessed = the catch-all term for expressing acknowledgement, sympathy, and encouragement (thanks fury road fandom)

- I'm less attached to these -

Hugs = Fondness, and/or emotional comforting, and/or offering a physical hug, and/or approval of a picture of a pet.

Funny = I found this humorous!

Winner = This is awesome, and/or I'm being a whimsical wiseass.

 

I have a problem with 'useful' because, as stated up-thread, it can cause spirals. "Why did this person's post get a useful and mine not? Is my stuff not useful. I'm trash" ect. I can see myself falling into this. I'm not fond of hugs because it flat out will trigger people, and beyond that it'd probably trigger me unless I know you. Witnessed covers that for me because in general forum parlance from my understanding it's read as 'I see what happened and I am showing sympathy for it.' ect.

I also kind of feel like it might be better to just make a 'sympathy' button and cut out both Witnessed and Hugs just to combine them. Social noises is vague but almost too vague, like it's so vague that... What does it mean? Winner has the same thing for me but I can also see that causing some people to spiral. Funny / LOL also hit me as problematic in this way.

The problem is that individual users cannot control which rating they get, and thus anything that might cause a spiral needs to be avoided. Anything that could be abused doesn't need to be there, and yes I'm aware that all of it could in theory be used to abuse people but things like Hug or Funny are super obvious. What if someone went into my thread and started rating Funny on all of my talk about my abuse? That's not funny, that's not LOL, that's an easy way to trigger / harass someone.

Basically this. Maybe plus a 'Relatable' button.

 

what will happen to the ratings we already got if some of the options are removed or changed?

 

I knew I forgot to add one of the suggested ones.

 

my feelings on ratings are basically just, "i love watching the number go up," when it comes down to it.