Taluntain

Taluntain

Keeper of the Watch
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There'll be a new feature enabled every now and then and a change made that warrants pointing out, so I'm making a dedicated thread for it.

Right now, I've enabled push notifications. This will probably be of most interest to those keepings tabs on the RPGWatch forums on their mobiles, but it works on desktops too, if enabled/allowed. It should work in a similar fashion as Tapatalk, but without the need to have a separate app installed. If enabled, you'll receive push alerts to your device when any of the content you follow is updated, you receive a new PM and so on.
 
I've also enabled reaction summaries on list pages (such as thread lists). This will display the top three reactions in a thread and in time will be a bit of a quick indicator of general sentiment in the threads which have posts with reactions in them.
 
Taluntain said:
I've also enabled reaction summaries on list pages (such as thread lists). This will display the top three reactions in a thread and in time will be a bit of a quick indicator of general sentiment in the threads which have posts with reactions in them.
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By the way, was a negative / "I don't agree" reaction deemed too risky, even if stated in a diplomatic way?
 
Yeah many years ago the site tried to implement such a system. End result most didn't like or want it so the plus one option was added instead. So yes I'd say a positive outcome.

Anyway I've seen such systems abused to much on opinions no one likes.
 
Redglyph said:
By the way, was a negative / "I don't agree" reaction deemed too risky, even if stated in a diplomatic way?
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IIRC the default one was "angry" and Myrthos disabled it when going over the options. I don't know if it'd be problematic here or not. Given that this is a mature, moderated community, it shouldn't be. But still, it could be disabled for the P&R forum if it proved problematic. Personally, I can see myself using such a rating to express anger not at a poster here, but if they posted some external content or some kind of story that would make me feel angry. And obviously this would be very rare. The other more common usage would be using it jokingly, which would naturally be fine. I didn't get around to the reactions yet, but as they are now they're too limited to get even the most common reactions across, so I'll add a few more at least.
 
Taluntain said:
IIRC the default one was "angry" and Myrthos disabled it when going over the options. I don't know if it'd be problematic here or not. Given that this is a mature, moderated community, it shouldn't be. But still, it could be disabled for the P&R forum if it proved problematic. Personally, I can see myself using such a rating to express anger not at a poster here, but if they posted some external content or some kind of story that would make me feel angry. And obviously this would be very rare. The other more common usage would be using it jokingly, which would naturally be fine. I didn't get around to the reactions yet, but as they are now they're too limited to get even the most common reactions across, so I'll add a few more at least.
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Angry (in general) seems a bit aggressive to me, in that case I'd rather have someone post about it than just giving a reaction, given that anger usually calls for more anger, or so I've been told. I was rather thinking along the lines of (y)=I agree / I like, (n)=I disagree / I don't like, because it doesn't always require a long explanation and it's easier to count than going through so many repetitive posts... especially if they're as long as mine ;).

It depends so much on the community. I've not been around for a long time so it's hard for me to tell, and I don't read everything. It's a relatively mature one but still prone to go awry in some circumstances (*), so if that's been discussed and rejected in the past, now we know it's probably not a good idea.

(*) just start posting about Early Access or Baldur's Gate 3, and you'll see 😂
 
If I recall correctly the feeling was that people should write what they don't like and not just have a thumbs down, given that it is a negative expression and because of that it should require some clarification.
The other opinion was that we are not facebook :)

The once I disabled are angry and mad. Both are indicated as being neutral. But both can be interpreted as being angry/mad at the author writing what is written, or agreeing with the author. So they could also be somewhat confusing. There is no thumbs down by default, but it can be added.
So, I just made it behave similar to what we had before.

Update: I think that the discussion started here.
 
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Reactions today are an expected part of any community software, so XF is no exception here. People like them, they're used to them and they can do wonders for user engagement; probably more than anything else easily implementable. And user engagement is what keeps a community alive. So no community is doing itself any favours by not using them.

In any event, we have a range of options when it comes to reactions on XF, even disabling them for individual users for a time if necessary. I'm more inclined to do that than disable an entire range of reactions for everyone due to one or two bad apples.
 
Like Myrthos said, it may engage some people, but people in this community who aren't posting aren't contributing much. So I think the view was that adding too many buttons would dissuade people from providing their points of view...
 
I don't have any stats. I think that was just the consensus of feeling before the thumbs up was implemented.

If your stats indicate otherwise, I'm very open to including other types of reaction. :)
 
From the discussion Myrthos has linked, there was more discussion on the words themselves than on the general agree/disagree meaning, or on the principle. I'm not too surprised, interpretation can be very subjective or dependent on the context. Interesting read. :)

EDIT: I don't have any stats either, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't stop me from posting if I had something to add to what was said. On the other hand, I'd just click yes/no if I had nothing else to add. Wouldn't that be the same for anyone who regularly post here?

It's a minor thing either way. When I initially asked, it was mostly out of curiosity.
 
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I think that 8 years ago the reactions were still a relative novelty, unlike today. So I expect that people's perceptions and usage have also changed somewhat since then. Having buttons for some of the most common reactions makes it easier for everyone and saves time, which most of us are chronically lacking. Having people type out a sentence that they agree, disagree, like or find a post informative isn't necessarily going to yield anything more than just another post. Most people won't even go to the effort of posting any more today unless they feel invested enough in a certain issue/community, whereas reacting gives them the chance to still remain connected with a certain subject, but with minimal effort. Which realistically is still better than not responding in any way at all.

But for those people who do post replies, reacting as well makes the experience less dull than having to spell out "I like what you wrote." a dozen times a day, for example.
 
I think, though, that 'engagement' is not necessarily an unalloyed good. It's well-understood, for example, that a Youtuber needs to drive engagement, and negative responses are as valuable as positive ones. Many are professional arseholes purely on that basis. The social-media giants also clearly thrive on driving conflict and people forming brigades, 'ratioing' each other, and so on.

I think having reactions is fine, but the selection of responses, and what messages you want to simplify to push-button ease, I think can have a not inconsiderable impact on the tone and nature of a community.
 
Try adding donuts to spice up your life.
RetardedDancingDonut.gif

Look at him go. Very happy and positive!
 
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