Bantari wrote:[..] I do wonder about the reason for the 'like' button.
I’ve never wondered about these, or about “thank you” or “Karma” buttons. What I do wonder about is why some people in other forums seem to fish for likes/karma/thankyou and brag about high numbers
(having lived on this planet for over half a century, I actually don’t wonder), but
I have never observed such behaviour here (I think I’ve been here for about 2.5 years now which, to me, seems a long enough time to have an opinion).
Maybe its to cut on 'me too' posts?
Possible, but perhaps those programmers also think a little bit like me
What does many 'likes' give you?
I’m actually more interested in liking than in being liked
I click “like” when I like what I read, which may be for different reasons,the raisins being … helpful (i.e. I learnt something, or I think it is helpful for others), funny, friendly, thought-/mindful, caring, informative, etc. Cleverness alone usually is not enough for me to click. I click “like” to express my appreciation towards somebody for investing their time in meaningful communication.
I won’t deny, though, that it usually makes me happy if somebody liked what I wrote (although sometimes I wonder
what exactly they liked), but I write what I write because *I* like it, and not in order to be liked by others.
I usually *do* hope that others like it, but this does not mean that I wish they clicked any button, but I rather wish it would be … helpful, informative, funny, etc. (see list above what I like). Seeing that somebody actually clicked the button is just a small sign that somebody liked it, which is nice to know, especially if the thread contains no direct feedback to the post/comment the person liked.
The impression of “cliques” that you, Duckweed, write about, is probably just related to what somebody wrote previously about internet & politics, and I guess it can be expected that people with similar mindsets “like” each other’s stuff more often than that of people with other views, but this is certainly not exclusive. Actually, it makes me happy when I can click “like” for somebody’s writing whose texts I usually don’t like that much. I guess I like crossing bridges/canyons
In the same direction, I think, goes the following observation of my own
reading behaviour: Sometimes I notice that some people have many “likes”, but that I often either don’t understand or dissent with what’s been written. In such cases the “likes” give me reason to reconsider, and to watch more closely, because … maybe I
really didn’t understand, maybe I can attain a new perspective … and also similar thoughts/feelings when somebody whose stuff I usually don’t really appreciate “likes” some of mine, this also often leads me to reading theirs with more patience to think about what they have meant.
Greetings, Tom
At least with the earlier suggestion, that the client itself is laggy, someone can monitor their own machine to see when packets are being sent, and if there were some client side-lag, I'm confident that it would have been seen by now. So my uninformed assumption is that the client is not producing any slowness. But as far as any slowness on the server-side, it's just "trust us!", things are ok.