👎 Should we have a Dislike button on posts?

@cmh7882 True. But sometimes I see a post and I just want to express displeasure and move on quickly. I don't really want to get into the drama of actually commenting in the negative, but I want to express my reaction in some way. I feel I would express negative comments less often if I could just thumb down and move on. Then both I and the other person would have less drama and a more positive experience here. And maybe, just maybe if that other person got a lot of thumbs down, then maybe he/she would change their posting habits?

@IAmJess but usually someone would want to know why you don't like it

@IAmJess I believe a dislike would just be used to bully others. If people dislike something they should at least be brave enough to comment and explain why. Anything else just amounts to trolling, really.

@IAmJess People would also have less drama if you just ignore the post and move on. I will never get this modern culture of needing to say what you dislike, each to their own. It is just so easy to scroll past a post that is of no interest to me without feeling any need to dislike or comment on it. I feel no need to get involved and feel the culture of getting involved in subjects of dislike to you is what creates trolls in the first place as that is what they live for. If everyone just got on with joining in with the things they like and not getting involved in the things they don't then SW would be a much friendlier place to be.

@cmh7882 @fazer1k Hmmm ... I do hear what you are saying. And I understand. I was just hoping that the ability to thumb down a post and move on would reduce the amount of negative comments. Maybe that's wishful thinking.

I don't think a dislike button / thumb down button amounts to bullying and that's a subject I'm very sensitive to.

@SAandME Hmmm ... okay, I hear you. I do. And 99% of the time I do move on. But let me ask you something...

Do you see the possibility that a post might be so objectionable that you feel compelled to object to its inclusion in the community of SW? I've seen posts on here talking about women as property, talking about what amounts to physical child abuse, and much more.

If you were walking down the street and saw these things, I would hope you would express some opinion to the perpetrator. Why does being online make expressing that opinion somehow wrong? This is the part that I don't understand.

@IAmJess A dislike button doesn't tell you anything about why it was used. Was it the view expressed in the post that was disliked? The subject material of the post? The person who made the post? On EP there was a Gestapo style group of people banding together to flag anything they, as a group, didn't like - a dislike could be used for the same purpose to drive people away or make them wary of posting anything and that it wrong in my view. SW isn't supposed to be a popularity contest in my view, neither should it be turned into one.

@SAandME EXACTLY! This is what i love hearing from people. It sad that we only come in small amount.

@IAmJess With things as wrong as that you do not need to express your opinion, you flag it and report them as their is no place for it. Posting your opinion is like moaning at your neighbour for lowering the tone of the neighbourhood for being a bank robber rather than reporting him to the police.

@fazer1k @Nymnin I get it. Idk, maybe SW could make it so you couldn't give more dislikes than likes? Or maybe require 10x as many likes as dislikes so the people you're talking about who would go around disliking tons of stuff wouldn't be able to? Just a thought. Seems I'm outnumbered anyway so we won't have to worry about it. :)

(Some reason it showed i double posted but when i deleted it deleted both lol)

@IAmJess think of it this way. Imagine a scenario such as what im about to say.

Someone talks about something personal some will believe it and some wont and the ones that dont will thumbs down or dislike the thread.

Now you dont know this person. Maybe they are going through a tough time and just seeing people thumbs down them increases how bad they already feel.

Some people here on SW are trolls and dont give a crap about other feelings. So why should sw allow that kind of behavior?.

Having a thumbs down/dislike feature just givea trolls a weapon to use on people for there own self merit.

We have a heart option. If u like it heart it if not dont heart it. It should stay that way.

If you displeasure something dont heart it and move on. Why do you need to tell the user that you dislike there post?

@Nymnin Weird. It posted once on this end. Already read and responded to.

@IAmJess A dislike is worse than a negative comment for the reasons I explained above - the nature/reason for the dislike isn't known and is, therefore, unhelpful and amounts to trolling in my opinion. Comments disagreeing can be helpful and offer different perspectives. Sure, some are just rude but a dislike button wouldn't prevent them commenting as well.

@IAmJess This!

@fazer1k To me it's the only way they should add it, in place of a comment.

@Peaches Then that should also be true of a 'like' and any other reactions. Reactions are meaningless anyway - you never know exactly what the reaction was in response to. At least with comments we get something to work with and those trolling cannot hide behind emoticons.

@fazer1k We don't have "like" just "hearts" and I know what it means, the emojis and reactions say it all to me.😊💓

@Peaches I meant hearts, as they are basically likes. Okay, so let's say you receive an 'angry' emoticon. Does that mean the person doesn't like the post topic, your view on the topic, or just that they are fed up with or want to get back at you for some reason? At least with comments we get an idea of the reason for any particular response.

@fazer1k I've had enough of mentally disturbed comments from trolls, I'll take the angry emoticon instead and feel grateful I don't have to look at their nasty remarks.👀

@Peaches Trolls will just use both tactics to double their enjoyment, I fear. But you never know...

@fazer1k Well I'm for the thumbs down button only if they can't comment after they click on it.✌🏽

@IAmJess
As you can see by reading these comments, many people have a very strong opinion against adding a dislike button.

Now imagine if a good amount of those people started not only disliking your opinion about it, but also went around and started disliking your other stories and posts on completely unrelated topics. And enlisting their friends to do so as well. And then after a while you find out that no one is even seeing your stories or posts except maybe your friends because algorithms are determining you must be posting objectionable content in violation of the terms of service, otherwise why would you have so many dislikes?

Put that all together and you essentially have EP's "flagging" system.

That's why it's bullying and that's why it's a bad idea.

@beckyromero Spot on.

@beckyromero I would think that might work once or twice, but any semi-intelligent flagging system should be able to identify people who excessively flag and then degrade the value of their input.