It’s unfortunate that this has to be my first post on the forum, but it is what it is!
I’ve been trying to gain access to the forum for a few weeks now, and I thought that liking posts might help my chances. And having read some other topics, it seems that this is a common misconception — much to everyone’s dismay.
I also assumed that I would be able to later revoke these likes, but now that I’m in, I’ve discovered that I cannot and my likes are already clogged (for lack of a better word) forevermore.
For the most part I recognise that this is not that important, but like many others, I am very particular and have seen multiple people create similar topics on this same issue:
I would like to have full control over how I allocate and organise my likes and bookmarks, and as users have previously mentioned, people do not want to be targeted with likes from visitors. So why don’t we fix this ongoing issue for all involved?
Feel free to share your thoughts, and thank you for reading.
Why would you try to abuse the like system to get access to the forum (regardless if it worked or not)? As a Visitor, you also have an opinion in the form of liking a post/reply. Therefore, you are responsible for the activity that takes place on your account. Besides, 24 hours is plenty to form a clear opinion on someone’s post.
I think we need the forums to state that liking posts does not help you rank up from visitor to member, it is only done by coming across posts, which discourse counts as reading
@Hooksmith could you give a reason as to why the following is the implementation? (even though yes, it is not a quote by you)
I’m looking for a philosophical reason, but it could just be a technical one like it being the default or an issue for Discourse. That said, as I think you’d agree, this topic/feature isn’t exactly an important thing to put engineering efforts into.
I personally don’t care for the feature being discussed, but I think the direction of my question would clarify things more than that by the OP.
I don’t think anyone genuinely cares enough that random people can like your post on the forums. Welcome to the forums dude no reason to come in with some weird segregationist mindset lol
I couldn’t find any clear guidance on how to gain access, so I don’t think that it is unreasonable for me to have assumed that this might work. Perhaps a lack of clearer guidance is the larger issue.
Thank you for sharing this quote from Jeff Atwood, as this was something I hadn’t considered. I don’t think that ‘rage-unliking’ would be an issue, but I can see why the first line could be.
There is no set criteria for when you get access (they don’t expose the numbers at least), you just need to have enough activity in the forum to show that you actively read/participate in it. Now you can spam likes and earn post read time hours like a farmer, but you shouldn’t come and complain about your activity history being ruined, after you made these decisions by yourself.
I know the pain, I once made a scathing post revealing the sickening and deplorable actions of a fellow forumer, (they were playing a game made by a troll), and they liked the post. It was a clear threat, and I lost sleep over it for several nights. But, just 6 hours after this person liking the post , I received not one, but two responses ‘debunking’ my post. This gave me severe mental anguish. I defended myself only for these vial agents of the enemy to post ‘screenshots with proof that the user was not a troll”
The harassment of these constant “debunking” led to me having to talk to my therapist about it, and develop PTSD.
Thank you for sharing this, and I’m sorry if my original post came across poorly, as it seems to have bothered a few people. This genuinely wasn’t my intention, and I almost wish I hadn’t said anything now, as it’s become a pretty lame introduction from me to the forum.
I completely agree that my activity is entirely my fault. I just wish I’d known what I know now, and perhaps articulated myself better. And I see now why my original suggestion could cause problems.
I also realise that to a lot of people it simply isn’t this deep, and I get it. I’m just a bit of a control freak for neatness and organisation, for lack of a better term, so although this is minor to other people it will bug me – but I’m sure I’ll get over it.
