The State of the CBG: An open invitation to your comments

[Mason]

I would really like to have a 'like' button on each post. There's a lot of the time when I look around and I think 'that was a really cool idea!' but I either don't have the time to reply or I can't think of anything constructive to say. A Like Button would at least show the author people ARE reading your work and liking it, even if they don't respond.

Interesting idea, what are people's thoughts on this?

 Depends on the implementation. Would a 'liked' thread display the user name of all the people who liked it? I suppose that's useful.

This is copied over from the Cross-Recommendation thread. I think this might be a better place for this:

What about a keyword cross reference like they do with blogs. Like a list of words that are linked up to settings/elements?
  Off the top of my head: Macabre, Haunting, High adventure, Western, Feudal(Japan/Europe etc), system/rules-heavy, Homebrew Mechanics, Extensive, Bare-bones, Visually Striking(meaning thread presentation)

 Your right Rorschach, I agree.

[Steerpike]

If I was to play devil's advocate, adding a "score" to each setting might lead to the development of a kind of unpleasant competitive quality.

Several members over the years have commented that they found entering into the community somewhat intimidating.  What if the person wasn't racking up enough "like" points as they expected?  It might not even be their fault - maybe everyone was just busy with other stuff that day or whatever, and missed the thread.  But if you're sitting there with only a couple of "likes" while the setting beside yours has 100 likes, or whatever, then it might be really discouraging and frustrating.  That would be really ironic, since the whole "like" thing is about encouragement.

Just my 2 cp.

[SDragon]

I would really like to have a 'like' button on each post. There's a lot of the time when I look around and I think 'that was a really cool idea!' but I either don't have the time to reply or I can't think of anything constructive to say. A Like Button would at least show the author people ARE reading your work and liking it, even if they don't respond.

Interesting idea, what are people's thoughts on this?

+1

[Elemental_Elf]

If I was to play devil's advocate, adding a "score" to each setting might lead to the development of a kind of unpleasant competitive quality.

Several members over the years have commented that they found entering into the community somewhat intimidating.  What if the person wasn't racking up enough "like" points as they expected?  It might not even be their fault - maybe everyone was just busy with other stuff that day or whatever, and missed the thread.  But if you're sitting there with only a couple of "likes" while the setting beside yours has 100 likes, or whatever, then it might be really discouraging and frustrating.  That would be really ironic, since the whole "like" thing is about encouragement.

Just my 2 cp.

I was thinking more on a per post, rather than per thread basis. Liking a thread says nothing, liking a post says a lot.

I'll grant you could feel bad when someone gets a bunch of likes and you have few but is it really any different than people responding to another person's thread while no one is responding to your's? At least with the like system, you would know people like your ideas, even if they don't want to respond.

[Lmns Crn]

If I was to play devil's advocate, adding a "score" to each setting might lead to the development of a kind of unpleasant competitive quality.

Several members over the years have commented that they found entering into the community somewhat intimidating.  What if the person wasn't racking up enough "like" points as they expected?  It might not even be their fault - maybe everyone was just busy with other stuff that day or whatever, and missed the thread.  But if you're sitting there with only a couple of "likes" while the setting beside yours has 100 likes, or whatever, then it might be really discouraging and frustrating.  That would be really ironic, since the whole "like" thing is about encouragement.

Just my 2 cp.

If I recall, this is exactly the reason we didn't implement this kind of thing when the site was first started up. We didn't want a popularity contest. (Similarly, there was a lot of debate about whether or not to include visible postcounts.)

Honestly, some of the projects on this site are huge and hoary enough to be plenty intimidating all by themselves.

[Elemental_Elf]

If I was to play devil's advocate, adding a "score" to each setting might lead to the development of a kind of unpleasant competitive quality.

Several members over the years have commented that they found entering into the community somewhat intimidating.  What if the person wasn't racking up enough "like" points as they expected?  It might not even be their fault - maybe everyone was just busy with other stuff that day or whatever, and missed the thread.  But if you're sitting there with only a couple of "likes" while the setting beside yours has 100 likes, or whatever, then it might be really discouraging and frustrating.  That would be really ironic, since the whole "like" thing is about encouragement.

Just my 2 cp.

If I recall, this is exactly the reason we didn't implement this kind of thing when the site was first started up. We didn't want a popularity contest. (Similarly, there was a lot of debate about whether or not to include visible postcounts.)

Honestly, some of the projects on this site are huge and hoary enough to be plenty intimidating all by themselves.

If that is your thinking, then why display views? It can be awful disappointing to see just a handful of people have looked at your thread while hundreds have looked at others.

[Kindling]

If I was to play devil's advocate, adding a "score" to each setting might lead to the development of a kind of unpleasant competitive quality.

Several members over the years have commented that they found entering into the community somewhat intimidating.  What if the person wasn't racking up enough "like" points as they expected?  It might not even be their fault - maybe everyone was just busy with other stuff that day or whatever, and missed the thread.  But if you're sitting there with only a couple of "likes" while the setting beside yours has 100 likes, or whatever, then it might be really discouraging and frustrating.  That would be really ironic, since the whole "like" thing is about encouragement.

Just my 2 cp.

Big agreement here. I find it disappointing when I don't get as many replies to my thread as I had hoped, let alone if the website is actually telling me that only 2.5 people even like what I had to say, lol.

[Kaptn'Lath]

If I was to play devil's advocate, adding a "score" to each setting might lead to the development of a kind of unpleasant competitive quality.

Several members over the years have commented that they found entering into the community somewhat intimidating.  What if the person wasn't racking up enough "like" points as they expected?  It might not even be their fault - maybe everyone was just busy with other stuff that day or whatever, and missed the thread. But if you're sitting there with only a couple of "likes" while the setting beside yours has 100 likes, or whatever, then it might be really discouraging and frustrating.  That would be really ironic, since the whole "like" thing is about encouragement.

Just my 2 cp.

Adding "likes" is well, adding a way to get feedback. If people are upset about not getting enough feedback, how does adding an easier way of "feedback" cause a problem. We already have ways of measuring how liked your topic is (replies, view count,ect) and people already want more feedback. People already have the problem bolded in your post. We are trying to come up with MOAR! ways of giving props with less work on the readers end.

[Kaptn'Lath]

Big agreement here. I find it disappointing when I don't get as many replies to my thread as I had hoped, let alone if the website is actually telling me that only 2.5 people even like what I had to say, lol.

How is the site supposed to responsible for this?

2.5 "likes" is more feed back than 0.0 replies under the current system.

The system for giving feedback establishes how easy it is to give feedback, not how much feedback you will get. That depends on the post not the system.

[Lmns Crn]

If that is your thinking, then why display views? It can be awful disappointing to see just a handful of people have looked at your thread while hundreds have looked at others.

Honestly, I don't remember. This whole business was set up a long time ago, and I was not directly involved in the decision-making process. The wherefores and whys are all eluding me.

[Steerpike]

It just seems like adding a "like" feature might quantify setting popularity, which means inadvertantly hierarchizing the various settings on the board.  I'm not saying that's how the "like" feature would be intended, or how it should be used, I'm just imagining how it might turn out.  I'm 100% in favor of feedback and giving as much of it as possible, I'm just not sure a "like" button is the best way to go about it.

In all honesty, how difficult is it to make a very short post saying you like something anyway?

I understand my point my seem a bit counter-intuitive.  Basically, it takes a lot of courage to post one's writing online, at least for some people.  Having a system where you not only post it for review but are scored on it, in a way, might lead to disappointment and discouragement.

I could be wrong.  It could work beautifully.  Maybe I'm kicking up a fuss over nothing.

[Kaptn'Lath]

The more raucous the debate, the better the outcome!

I think I get your point, and understand its intentions
You dont want to keep "score", or mesure how popular the idea is, or if other people think its creative or original and..... wait a second, Thats why we come here! thats the risk we take showing our work to others, Steerpike.

So you want more opening for positive feedback (I am not alone, others want to use) without more openings for negative feedback (disapointment, feeling unaccepted).

With "less" people that access you work, the chance of no feedback is high, as you increase the number of people encountering your work, the risk of negative feedback increases but lack of responce goes down.

"which means inadvertantly hierarchizing the various settings on the board" I think thats kinda one of the goals of this thread accually. We are brainstorming ideas on how to search, find and recognise the data posted here better. Which means we have to have criteria for searching, I see you (and others) dont like searching based on whats most "popular" among reader/reviews here, Then I guess its tags.

I get your GOAL Steerpike and respect it. Your recommondation seems to me, counter-intuitive as you put it.

I have communicated all i have to say (thats constructive) on this topic, but eagerly look to see others views, or a better understanding of some that are already here.

[Elemental_Elf]

I understand my point my seem a bit counter-intuitive.  Basically, it takes a lot of courage to post one's writing online, at least for some people.  Having a system where you not only post it for review but are scored on it, in a way, might lead to disappointment and discouragement.

But we already ARE scored. The number of views and replies you receive IS your score. Things like the Clockwork Jungle and Celtricia are in a whole other league compared to my settings. The addition of a like feature for individual posts is not going to change that. :)

[Lmns Crn]

The more raucous the debate, the better the outcome!

I think I get your point, and understand its intentions
You dont want to keep "score", or mesure how popular the idea is, or if other people think its creative or original and..... wait a second, Thats why we come here! thats the risk we take showing our work to others, Steerpike.

So you want more opening for positive feedback (I am not alone, others want to use) without more openings for negative feedback (disapointment, feeling unaccepted).

My apologies if I'm misreading you, Lath, but I feel perhaps this is a (possibly unintentional) distortion of Steerpike's point.

We can have civil discussions even when we disagree, friends, but lampooning each others' opinions will get us nowhere.

[Kaptn'Lath]

My apologies if it came across as crass, it was not an intentional distortion of Steerpike's point, it was a statement of how I interpreted his statement, and asked for further clearification as in summary I did not understand his position.

The Second line was not ment as lampooning but rather communicating the incomplete/illogical intention I understood from his post. Not to insult, but to further clearify what I did or did understand in hopes he could use the information to construct a reply that I may better understand his position. ie. "What did he get and where did he get derailed?" from his persepctive.