# Is "liking" a post too intimidating?

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/is-liking-a-post-too-intimidating/37695>\
**Category:** UX\
**Created:** [January 10, 2016, 2:53am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/is-liking-a-post-too-intimidating/37695 "2016-01-10T02:53:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 12

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**Author:** ![erlend\_sh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/erlend_sh/32/119475_2.png) [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2016, 1:39pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/is-liking-a-post-too-intimidating/37695/12 "2016-01-10T13:39:57Z")

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> [@Drew\_Warwick](#):
>
> Any thoughts on why the poll had more votes than the OP had likes?

It’s an interesting UX story. My personal theory:

Likes are really personal, so when someone Likes a feature request, they feel like they’re not only expressing their feelings for that feature request, they’re expressing their feelings for that person. It doesn’t have to be about genuinely liking or disliking another person, it’s just that not everyone wants to explicitly “favour” anyone. Likes is also a form of social currency, since it affects Top list rankings, Trust Levels and Bagdes.

This is why I theorised a “[Likes Archetype](https://meta.discourse.org/t/feature-to-allow-uservoice-getsatisfaction-suggestions-and-voting/19812/20)” that could be detached from regular Likes and be made less personal. When you’re strictly voting on _a thing_ and not also on _a person_, it’s suddenly not a loaded decision any longer.

Reading your topic I also saw that your forum’s old equivalent of “Likes” was "Thank You"s, which will certainly leave an imprint in older user’s minds.

> [@ccdw](#):
>
> I’ve been participating in online communities for over 30 years (Pre-Internet in other words) and I’m surprised ‘we’ haven’t yet managed to evolve beyond the like button. It’s a very blunt tool and in cynical (undignified?) hands can be used to express negative sentiment. Something I rather clumsily refer to as negative likes.

I’d rather say that Likes are largely unappreciated and underestimated as a communication tool. It’s a style of communication that needs to be lifted up by healthy norms just as much as the general discourse on a forum. I believe Meta is quite an excellent example of Likes Done Right. From very early on the co-founders themselves Liked a large amount of posts, indiscriminately yet righteously. Likes are not a rare commodity; it’s a non-zero-sum social currency. Likes begets more Likes begets more Likes.

(p.s., cool feature of Likes: In my reply to you I’m expressing some disagreement, but I still Liked your post, because I think you added value to this discussion. Granted, a user more personally & competitively invested in a discussion might not use Likes that way, which brings us back to healthy norms and setting good examples.)

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