The "Like" Culture

[Mindmaster]

All systems can be gamed... Personally, I look at things like this -

1) Over 365 posts a year, you live here. You are posting small obvious one liners that don't give people much chance to disagree with you. You are playing it safe. You will have more likes because you really do not deliberate on anything.

2) Like counts over 30% -- you aren't posting ANYTHING questionable or you are mean and someone likes your troll. There are plenty of them on any forum. You may only stay in a small section of the forum with people who like exactly what you like.

3) Extremely low like counts are generally people who switch among forums.... In contrast to what you would think their content quality may be very high, but just lost on the audience. Truly bad posters usually get to the point of breaking rules and get banned.

So basically, if you want tons of likes -- One line positive affirmations that confirm whatever notion is predominating in the area you are in. If you are Christian stay only in the Christian DIR and only post on positive messages that support posts -- you can be assured of a 2 to 1 like ratio most of the time. (Likes/Post) Combine with one line trolls in off-forums for people whom disagree with your beliefs (but have a following of those that share them.... comparative religion/theist dirs... etc... ) Eventually, you will get a good reputation with the forum warriors who share your beliefs and the ones that only want to talk about the relatively narrow range of topics in the DIR. DO NOT CREATE TOPICS.... Your posts must be small.

So yea, if you have a 50% like to post you're actually missing 1/2 of the likes you could have. lol

To summarize -- it is completely meaningless...

 

[savagewind]

All systems can be gamed... Personally, I look at things like this -

1) Over 365 posts a year, you live here. You are posting small obvious one liners that don't give people much chance to disagree with you. You are playing it safe. You will have more likes because you really do not deliberate on anything.

2) Like counts over 30% -- you aren't posting ANYTHING questionable or you are mean and someone likes your troll. There are plenty of them on any forum. You may only stay in a small section of the forum with people who like exactly what you like.

3) Extremely low like counts are generally people who switch among forums.... In contrast to what you would think their content quality may be very high, but just lost on the audience. Truly bad posters usually get to the point of breaking rules and get banned.

So basically, if you want tons of likes -- One line positive affirmations that confirm whatever notion is predominating in the area you are in. If you are Christian stay only in the Christian DIR and only post on positive messages that support posts -- you can be assured of a 2 to 1 like ratio most of the time. (Likes/Post) Combine with one line trolls in off-forums for people whom disagree with your beliefs (but have a following of those that share them.... comparative religion/theist dirs... etc... ) Eventually, you will get a good reputation with the forum warriors who share your beliefs and the ones that only want to talking about the relatively narrow range of topics in the DIR. DO NOT CREATE TOPICS.... Your posts must be small.

So yea, if you have a 50% like to post you're actually missing 1/2 of the likes you could have. lol

To summarize -- it is completely meaningless...

LOL LOL If a post makes me hear myself laugh I press like.

 

[Mindmaster]

LOL LOL If a post makes me hear myself laugh I press like.

I basically gave everyone on the forum a way to cheat. So much for points... lol

 

[Revoltingest]

All systems can be gamed... Personally, I look at things like this -

1) Over 365 posts a year, you live here. You are posting small obvious one liners that don't give people much chance to disagree with you. You are playing it safe. You will have more likes because you really do not deliberate on anything.

2) Like counts over 30% -- you aren't posting ANYTHING questionable or you are mean and someone likes your troll. There are plenty of them on any forum. You may only stay in a small section of the forum with people who like exactly what you like.

3) Extremely low like counts are generally people who switch among forums.... In contrast to what you would think their content quality may be very high, but just lost on the audience. Truly bad posters usually get to the point of breaking rules and get banned.

So basically, if you want tons of likes -- One line positive affirmations that confirm whatever notion is predominating in the area you are in. If you are Christian stay only in the Christian DIR and only post on positive messages that support posts -- you can be assured of a 2 to 1 like ratio most of the time. (Likes/Post) Combine with one line trolls in off-forums for people whom disagree with your beliefs (but have a following of those that share them.... comparative religion/theist dirs... etc... ) Eventually, you will get a good reputation with the forum warriors who share your beliefs and the ones that only want to talk about the relatively narrow range of topics in the DIR. DO NOT CREATE TOPICS.... Your posts must be small.

So yea, if you have a 50% like to post you're actually missing 1/2 of the likes you could have. lol

To summarize -- it is completely meaningless...

At least it's better than the old system, wherein frubal income disparity grew exponentially.
(And for you math geeks, yes.....I mean exponential growth.)

 

[Mindmaster]

At least it's better than the old system, wherein frubal income disparity grew exponentially.
(And for you math geeks, yes.....I mean exponential growth.)

All I was hinting at is that it is subjective and useless. I really hate to suggest that likes shouldn't work for one-liners (Everyone loves a good zinger!), but that's actually about 2/3 of the problem. Also, if there were monitoring of back to back likes the like whores would have to venture outside of their boxes to collect. That would say more about the quality of the member, and also probably promote more diverse content.

 

[Revoltingest]

All I was hinting at is that it is subjective and useless. I really hate to suggest that likes shouldn't work for one-liners (Everyone loves a good zinger!), but that's actually about 2/3 of the problem. Also, if there were monitoring of back to back likes the like whores would have to venture outside of their boxes to collect. That would say more about the quality of the member, and also probably promote more diverse content.

I don't read much into frubals ("likes", as you call them),
but where there are numbers to be measured by, there is fun to be had.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Frubals are the essence of life.

Yea. They killed them off and boiled them in mayonnaise.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I have one small problem with the 'Likes' system. Back in the day, when we gave a 'frubal', we would have the opportunity to write a note to the recipient. Now we can't.

For me, a 'like' doesn't mean I agree with a post. It means that I found it funny, or thought-provoking, or thought it was introducing something needed to a discussion (like calm rationality, historical accuracy, etc)

I miss Frubals.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

The change to allowing unlimited likes has resulted in an increase in the ratio of posts-to-likes by a substantial amount. Unfortunately, this explosion of likes doesn't seem to represent an actual increase in the number of quality posts.

 

[dust1n]

All systems can be gamed... Personally, I look at things like this -

1) Over 365 posts a year, you live here. You are posting small obvious one liners that don't give people much chance to disagree with you. You are playing it safe. You will have more likes because you really do not deliberate on anything.

2) Like counts over 30% -- you aren't posting ANYTHING questionable or you are mean and someone likes your troll. There are plenty of them on any forum. You may only stay in a small section of the forum with people who like exactly what you like.

3) Extremely low like counts are generally people who switch among forums.... In contrast to what you would think their content quality may be very high, but just lost on the audience. Truly bad posters usually get to the point of breaking rules and get banned.

So basically, if you want tons of likes -- One line positive affirmations that confirm whatever notion is predominating in the area you are in. If you are Christian stay only in the Christian DIR and only post on positive messages that support posts -- you can be assured of a 2 to 1 like ratio most of the time. (Likes/Post) Combine with one line trolls in off-forums for people whom disagree with your beliefs (but have a following of those that share them.... comparative religion/theist dirs... etc... ) Eventually, you will get a good reputation with the forum warriors who share your beliefs and the ones that only want to talk about the relatively narrow range of topics in the DIR. DO NOT CREATE TOPICS.... Your posts must be small.

So yea, if you have a 50% like to post you're actually missing 1/2 of the likes you could have. lol

To summarize -- it is completely meaningless...

Not to mention, two people could just implicitly agree to like 1000's of each others post, effectively rendering it all moot.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Not to mention, two people could just implicitly agree to like 1000's of each others post, effectively rendering it all moot.

I can't believe anybody would disrespect the sanctity of the like system in such a manner.

 

[dust1n]

I can't believe anybody would disrespect the sanctity of the like system in such a manner.

I speak of only what is possible. But it is hard to imagine two actors of such little character who would mastermind such a fraudulent act of mischief.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I speak of only what is possible. But it is hard to imagine two actors of such little character who would mastermind such a fraudulent act of mischief.

Sadly, I find it easy enough to imagine the existence of two low-lives who would engage in such a sad and pathetic scheme.

 

[dust1n]

Sadly, I find it easy enough to imagine the existence of two low-lives who would engage in such a sad and pathetic scheme.

Given the abundance of intellectual dishonesty on this forum, I suppose I can imagine a handful people whose blatant disregard for fairness and justice leads me to believe they would love to do such a thing. But I can't imagine very many are hardworking enough to make it actually happen.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Given the abundance of intellectual dishonesty on this forum, I suppose I can imagine a handful people whose blatant disregard for fairness and justice leads me to believe they would love to do such a thing. But I can't imagine very many are hardworking enough to make it actually happen.

Just like genius, criminal schemes are 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

 

[Revoltingest]

We should also thank our lucky stars there isn't a <dislike> option.
On my & Wirey's old forum, they instituted a system wherein posters ranked each other from 0 to 5 (or was it 1 to 4?).
All posters who had any sizable history made some enemies, so their rankings fell.
The only high ranking ones were newbies who hadn't made enemies yet.
But even they fell as others wanted to knock them off their pedestal.
It was the most stupidest thing ever.

 

[dust1n]

Just like genius, criminal schemes are 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

I hope we haven't said too much. I would be devastated if anyone actually attempted this easily concealable, and ultimately unpunishable activity.

 

[Revoltingest]

I wish that I could dislike this.

Hey, that gives me an idea!
What if instead of a <dislike> subtracting from one's <like> total,
there were a separate accounting for likes & dislikes?
Then we could not only compete to see who's the most likable,
but also strive to be the most dislikable!

 

[Desert Snake]

Hey, that gives me an idea!
What if instead of a <dislike> subtracting from one's <like> total,
there were a separate accounting for likes & dislikes?
Then we could not only compete to see who's the most likable,
but also strive to be the most dislikable!

Yes, that would be better, imo.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I hope we haven't said too much. I would be devastated if anyone actually attempted this easily concealable, and ultimately unpunishable activity.

I suppose if someone tries to enact this cowardly scam for real, it will be our fault.