Reactions–Yea or Nay?

James Puckett

How do you feel about the reactions features on TypeDrawers? Reactions includes both the various like/agree/disagree buttons and the abuse flags. They’re really designed to help manage post quality, spam, and abuse on high-volume forums, and I’m not sure that they add much here. How does everybody else feel?

George Thomas

I use them but only occasionally. If the majority like them, that's fine; if they don't, that's fine too. If you decide to keep them, I would vote to abandon the troll flag.

Craig Eliason

I love them. I now find myself looking for them on Typophile too!

Mark Simonson

I like them. Sometimes you want to react to something but it seems like overkill to write a whole post about it. It's like an audience reaction, too.

Jan Schmoeger

I like them too, perhaps disable troll, abuse and spam? I think these all have been used inappropriately, including quite recently by posters with very short memberships …

John Hudson

I like them, for the most part. I think they're a useful barometer of discussions in general and one's own contributions in particular.

Stephen Coles

I agree with Mark that it’s good to have a way to react without littering the thread. But perhaps the presentation of reactions is too showy. I find it can distract a bit from reading the discussion itself. They could be given less prominence by showing a "Reactions" link (perhaps with a figure) that expands on click. Akin to the way some blogs show comments.

Nick Shinn

I don’t pay much attention to them.

Ray Larabie

I like them. The happy face could use a less ambiguous smile.

Deleted Account

Here, there is self-moderation, moderation and the reactions features for each member of which you speak. My feeling, is that they are good guides to the incoming participant, but , being provided by other members, should not be used otherwise, as reactions features themselves are not moderated. I.E. I could post entirely on-topic, someone could flag it as off-topic or troll, and I don't care at all to chase 'em. Do you? So reactions features are unqualified, and I think they should be not used beyond what Mark and John e.g. suggest.

Rainer Erich Scheichelbauer

I must admit I feel flattered when many icons appear below one of my posts.
So please add some more :-)

Ray is right about the smileys. I mouse over them to see if someone is agreeing or disagreeing.

Ermin Međedović

About smilleys; disagreeing could be inverted, like negativised.

Ben Blom

I like them, although I do not take them too seriously. Two remarks.
Some people use them a lot; some don't. This overemphasizes the opinion of the "heavy users".
Sometimes they make me feel like there is a group of like-minded high school kids, always supporting each other.

Nick Shinn

Good point David, which you so ably demonstrated by posting my comment above as off-topic (which I did pay attention to, belatedly—but only because of the nature of this thread!) A tangled web we weave, indeed.

Thomas Phinney

I like them a lot. I used them on the comments on this very same thread, so that I could register my opinion without writing an actual post. Well, fine, I just did. But only because of the meta-level of the discussion.

Chris Dean

Indifferent. Question however: What is the difference between Troll and Abuse?

Alex Kaczun

In general, I find them all distracting.

I can hardly tell the difference between 'agree' and 'disagree'.

James Puckett

What is the difference between Troll and Abuse?

I think the point of the distinction is that its possible to be abusive to other forum members without seeking to start flame wars or hijaack threads. On this small forum the distinction is irrelevant, but Vanilla also has to be able to serve people who are getting thousands of new posts a day.

Unfortunately reactions is not a customizable feature; I was just asking about reactions in case everybody hates them and wasn’t saying so.

Stuart Sandler

When I was reaching out to folks about TypeSnitch, reactions gave me an actual sense of how our community of fellow designers felt which gave me the confidence to pursue it, so it was a good 'finger in the wind' litmus test for me to know if it was worth continuing . . . If you are taking votes, I'd vote to keep 'em in addition to Mark's thoughts above . . .

Chris Dean

Thank you for the clarification James. Very helpful. “Unfortunately reactions is not a customizable feature.” Am I correct in assuming that this means there are two possible outcomes?

1. Keep them as is
2. Ditch them entirely.

I ask as there seem to be many “I like them but if you could just…” responses to your original question.

Max Phillips

I think they're important. We can't see each other's faces or hear each other's tones of voice. This helps get an idea of the emotional tenor of the discussion, if nothing else.

It is too bad these can't be customized. Agree & Disagree do look damn near identical.

Jan Schmoeger

Indifferent. Question however: What is the difference between Troll and Abuse?

I see that on March 31 Chris Dean awarded 2 trolls and 6 abuses to many of us in just one thread. Is that really indifferent?

Jan Schmoeger

Well, since you ask, Frode: to be quite honest, this forum was formed by a group who did not agree with the direction Typophile was going. Typophile is still there for all those who like it. Why would anyone from Typophile want to come here and criticise the way it is run?

My personal opinion: James P. is the owner and moderator here. He runs the board on behalf of the majority of members. To mark his posts with an abuse or troll mark is in itself abusive. As they say, if you do not like it, take a hike. Now, Frode, you and Chris can put the troll marks on this post.

Craig Eliason

There's no contradiction between being indifferent to whether feedback buttons should continue to exist, and using those buttons as long as they do.

Eimantas Paškonis

It's a good idea, but there's redundancy. I don't see the difference between "troll" and "abuse", between "like" and "agree".

I like reddit's system more: Up, Down and Flag.

Deleted Account

You can like a joke you don't agree with, e.g.

Deleted Account

...and you can be abused by someone on-topic .

I'm not saying that these buttons are perfect, but they are what they are.

Paul van der Laan

Whether we need all these different categories is one thing, but at least I like the ability to endorse posts in a non-intrusive way.
Usually I will only comment/respond to posts when I disagree, or feel I can add something new to the discussion. In all other cases I refrain because I feel it’s a waste of time and bandwidth.
Being able to express approval via a simple ‘agree’ mark gives valuable feedback about the quality of a post, and a discussion in general, I think.

Jan Schmoeger

There is an AA meeting in progress, is it polite to go in and try to sell grog? Or is it just plain rude?

Matthew Butterick

I'm imagining a system of reactions to reactions, thus enabling recursively nested micro-flame wars.

Eimantas Paškonis

[mistake - deleted]