I don't have a strong opinion either way in regards to a like button. I must say however, that adding a dislike button would most likely be a mistake.
There is pretty much no way this is not going to backfire horribly. The concept looks good on paper, with bad posts getting bad scores. I guarantee you though, that this feature is mostly going to be used to do one thing: Ganging up on unpopular users. We have already had problems of this kind before. Imagine what would happen if everyone suddenly had the ability to show contempt for another user, in one click, without the need to provide an actual reason or really anything.
You may think "Well, what the hell, everybody should be able to take a little criticism, no big deal". This feature does not offer criticism however. Criticism, or at least the constructive variant, usually comes with some sort of explanation, or suggestion of what to change. For the person on the receiving end, there is no usable feedback of any sort. They just see that someone disliked what they said, and they have no idea why. It doesn't help anyone.
"What if, whenever you dislike a post, you have to explain why you did that?", is what could be replied to this. And here I have to ask: If you are already voicing your disapproval in a written explanation, then why do you need a dislike feature in the first place? You already made your point better than the feature ever could have.
There's just nothing good going to come off of this. You're just going to invite animousity and flame wars with it. We had to live through the same thing with Userpedia and enemy lists already. Don't make the same mistake. <_>
There is pretty much no way this is not going to backfire horribly. The concept looks good on paper, with bad posts getting bad scores. I guarantee you though, that this feature is mostly going to be used to do one thing: Ganging up on unpopular users. We have already had problems of this kind before. Imagine what would happen if everyone suddenly had the ability to show contempt for another user, in one click, without the need to provide an actual reason or really anything.
You may think "Well, what the hell, everybody should be able to take a little criticism, no big deal". This feature does not offer criticism however. Criticism, or at least the constructive variant, usually comes with some sort of explanation, or suggestion of what to change. For the person on the receiving end, there is no usable feedback of any sort. They just see that someone disliked what they said, and they have no idea why. It doesn't help anyone.
"What if, whenever you dislike a post, you have to explain why you did that?", is what could be replied to this. And here I have to ask: If you are already voicing your disapproval in a written explanation, then why do you need a dislike feature in the first place? You already made your point better than the feature ever could have.
There's just nothing good going to come off of this. You're just going to invite animousity and flame wars with it. We had to live through the same thing with Userpedia and enemy lists already. Don't make the same mistake. <_>
