+1 Button for Discussions
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The +1 button has been very popular recently. I would like to have it as a feature request for all Discussions, Blog posts etc.
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Hi Sanjay,
Thank you for your feedback! I have created a ticket to consider your feature request. The ticket # is 24683319.
Sincerely,
Celeste
I think "+1" or "like it!" buttons are inherently problematic feature. Indeed, they seem to be everywhere these days, and for me it was one of the reasons for choosing groupsite over other sites.
Note that the endorsment system is already in place - and it requires stating explicit reasons for each endorsment. I'm not sure about the point of having two features that in principle serve the same purpose, when the existing solution is already stronger.
The problem with +1 buttons is that they are too easy to use in an irresponsible manner. By nature, many people tend towards laziness, and it's always easier and faster to just click the button rather than comment and provide proper in-depth feedback.
This can be deceptive. It often leads to a false sense that people care, when in fact unless followed by actual communication, the poster never knows for what exactly those +1s where given. Sometimes, the poster thinks +1s refer to their favorite part, when in fact it's the weakest part and endorsing users liked something entirely else about the post. Sometimes, people click the button out of sheer personal sympathy, without careful consideration of presented ideas. Sometimes the button is clicked by people who would otherwise remain silent, and it surely won't make them say anything productive when they have nothing productive to say in the first place. It's super easy to click +1 and forget, but afterwards the poster is left with an empty rating that nevertheless bumps endorphin levels.
In short, +1 buttons are very good at informing how many people cared to click the button, but not how many people actually liked the post or what they liked about it. Also, features like that promote popularity contests.
Actually, I can see how +1 buttons may be useful in purely social, popularity oriented groups. As far as focused and project oriented groups go however, they seem detrimental. They make sense to me as an optional feature that could be configured for each groupsite separately, for admins who like it. I just wanted to voice some worries about the consequences of this becoming a global feature.
Hi Filip,
Thank you for your input. Your feedback has been added to the ticket.
Sincerely,
Celeste
Nudging this thread as I recently had several customers ask me to add a "Like" feature to their site (which of course I can't do ;-). There are some good points about engagement mentioned above that are quite true. But one important thing that we've found is that many users would like (no pun intended) to indicate their approval of a topic, response, content item, photo, video or other content but may not have the words, time, or even the ability to do it. Affording the ability to give a virtual "head nod" let's them say thank you to the poster which is positive energy for the site. How many times have you seen a very interesting thread or post with a ton of views but zero replies? That in itself is discouraging to content creators and those are the people that we want to encourage the most! The Like button is not about a popularity contest, it's about gratitude. And for those users who really do have something to say in reply, oh that like button wont stop them, they'll start typing :-)
That said, I'd love to see this added to Groupsite and have had requests for it. I agree that making it an optional feature might be best.
Hi Bill,
I hope all is well! I agree with you 100% (adding a "Like" feature as an optional feature that managers can disable. I will see what we can do to move the priority up a little on this ticket. No promises though because we have several high priority tickets that we are currently working on and are up next on the development schedule.
Celeste
Thanks Celeste, much appreciated! If you do ever want to test this out I know that myiecareer.com would be more than happy to do so.
In the meantime, and slightly off topic, I gave them some simple sharing functionality to help them share content on social networking channels via a ShareThis widget. It works quite well on Groupsite I'm happy to say (screenshot below) :-)
Hi Bill,
We have many groups on our Platform who have also reported using (ShareThisWidget) http://sharethis.com/publishers/get-sharing-tools# and have echoed your "thumbs up" with using the code in a Groupsite. You guys have convinced me to try it out for myself... thanks!
Celeste