What about New EDGE system instead of likes: 
agree, 
disagree, 
funny, 
dumb?
What would be the advantages of using New Edge’s like system instead of the current one? The purpose of GrangerHub’s forums is to encourage and enhance civilized discussions that create, find, and develop good ideas/suggestions/questions that improve the game and the community.
If a post interferes with that purpose by violating the forum’s guidelines, then it should get flagged (then either get corrected by the poster or otherwise made hidden permanently). It is the hope that posts that greatly contribute towards the purpose of these forums receive more likes, but of course that depends on the ability of the community to recognize such posts. If a post follows the guidelines but is a dead end and nothing more can be added to it (for at least the present), then that post would naturally receive no further replies, unless something changes later where more can be added to such a post. If you do not like a post that does not violate the forum guidelines, then you can choose to not select “like”.
When researching and developing, almost all explored paths lead to dead ends. However, the paths that lead to treasure would not be found if you do not effectively explore. There are two sides to this exploration, the generations of ideas through brainstorming (the paths need to be found) and the evaluation of ideas through analysis (the paths need to be examined) . We want brainstorming and analysis to work harmoniously and optimally together.
We want our members to not hesitate in regards to constructively contributing towards the discussions and to not be afraid to make unforeseen mistakes. It is through mistakes that we learn. I believe that including ratings like “funny” and “dumb” would be destructive by discouraging people from taking good risks in presenting different and potentially innovating posts, as well as by discouraging other people from seriously considering a post to perhaps figure out how to improve that post or be inspired from that post to contribute other new ideas.
It seems like choices of agree, disagree, funny, and dumb make more sense as options in a poll than as part of a like system for posts. As a side note, here is information on how to create polls for topics: https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/plugins/poll/README.md.
1 Like
What comes to mind when considering this: “Use your words”.
I feel that emoticon-styled ‘reactions’ do not contribute to a meaningful discussion. Whatever can be communicated by these reactions can also be said in a post. If you ‘like’ something in a post and have nothing to add, clicking the ‘heart’ is sufficient. If you don’t like something, you are free to reply and share your opinion. For actual-crap posts, notify the OP to fix it by flagging their post. Note: OP can edit their own post once flagged as an opportunity for them to fix it, otherwise subsequent re-flag can bring in an admin to examine the issue if it is still not resolved.
I agree with dGr8LookinSparky that these kind of reactions would be better suited for polls, and we will have a feature on the GrangerHub website where Group Admins can add quick-polls (and also more in-depth forms, like surveys) to their own group pages for getting feedback.
However, make sure that your opinionated posts adds value to the discussion. If you feel the need to make a post out of disagreement or dislike, in that same post be sure to clearly elaborate on why you disagree or dislike something.