"Likes" Enhancement

[potato_hamster]

JEMC said:

potato_hamster said:

I'm not at all afraid about what others would think, like not even a little bit. I do, however, expect it to affect the way conversations are had in the future on this site in a negative way. Like systems automatically add a degree of popularity or implied "correctness" to conversations.

As for reporting, I've also had enough experience with the reporting system to have a more cynical opinion about it than you appear to have. That's all I'm willing to say about that.

The problem with how other sites handle the like/dislike system is that posts are displayed regarding the number of likes/dislikes they have, which can led to a fight to have the most popular post and be featured fist. It's already stated that this would not be the case here, and that postd will still be displayed in chonological order.

Seriously, I've been (as a lurker, but still) on many forums with a like or thanks or reputation system where it was far from a problem. It's more a problem of how it's implemented, and the guys here seem to be doing the right steps in that regard, and how the userbase uses it.

Besides, a couple users have already posted ways to reduce even more the possibility of abuse by making it only visible to the author of the post or by simply giving us the option to see or hide the names of those that have liked the posts.

Why not just make the like total of likes a post has only visible to the author if you really want to take the teeth out of any like system?