Add clarification that liking posts do NOT help you level up quicker

pyxfluff · October 8, 2024, 3:57am

I get an insane amount of likes from visitors going down and liking every post in a thread it’s crazy and fairly annoying; so much so I just wrote an extension to remove visitor likes from my notifications. Back a while ago there was a thread suggesting they’re outright blocked from doing that but the answer to that was in short “no because a like is too subjective.”

So now my suggestion is to clarify it does not help them at all. Whether through the “how to level up” thread, Discobot, or any other medium, (maybe even a notification t which shows their first time saying something like “Likes are a great way to show appreciation for a post, however they do not affect your ability to gain member.”) the forum would greatly benefit from having new members know that spam liking posts and blowing up notifications isn’t achieving anything. This is a common issue and I think this is a fair solution if disallowing it isn’t one.

Hooksmith · October 10, 2024, 1:46pm

What makes you believe folks are liking posts to get from visitor → member faster?

pyxfluff · October 10, 2024, 4:49pm

A good example is this thread. If you expand the likes, a lot of the same set of hsers are liking a lot of the first posts.

This goes for a lot of the threads in #updates:announcements, you can go down the list and there are a lot of people with grey names or free avatars who are liking a lot of the posts in the first 25ish

Out of all of the likes to these two posts only two (on the bottom one) are from members

ModelObtainer0 · October 10, 2024, 8:17pm

That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re liking the posts to get member

that made me laugh a little

pyxfluff · October 10, 2024, 8:23pm

My point is that you don’t usually see members doing it. Seems to be a misconception that clarification would solve which is why i made this request

lolmanurfunny · October 11, 2024, 5:25am

The main tell is that they’re liking posts faster than they can actually read them. It’s scary how common it is to spot a visitor in the wild who’s given out 50 likes with only 10 minutes of total read time.

If you have a new-ish thread up on screen, out of nowhere you’ll see post 1 receive a like, 0.5 seconds later, post 2 receives a like, 0.5 seconds later, post 3 receives a like… and so on. And when you check who gave the likes – whad’ya know, it’s a visitor who joined 5 minutes ago… every single time.

Exhibit A:

lolmanurfunny · October 11, 2024, 5:42am

pyxfluff · October 11, 2024, 5:54am

I disabled full like notifications a long time ago so I don’t have any great showcases for this besides the posts which I have had exploded by visitors. Currently the only solution I can think of besides outright removing the ability (which I agree is a little harsh) is adding the popup to the like button only appearing once, like this:

Pish85 · October 11, 2024, 9:24pm

To start off, every once in a while I get a giant chain of notifications saying ____ liked my post, when I click on their profile they usually have joined a few hours ago and have given an insane number of likes.

Also it’s nice devforum has someone looking at feature requests now!

TimeFrenzied · October 11, 2024, 9:30pm

This doesnt help your point at all, also you’re complaining about free likes lol, just disable like notifications

nvthane · October 11, 2024, 10:52pm

Hey! I just finished setting up my own Forums today. Now that I have experience, let me tell you…

They quite actually do.

Just not a lot. It’s just part of the requirements. I think whoever set up the Devforum probably has changed something up, so we can’t be for sure. But on Discourse, you need to like 30 posts to qualify trust level 3.

pyxfluff · October 11, 2024, 11:04pm

I ran a Discourse forum a while back and I know that but the DevForum settings are not anything like the default. I don’t think TL0 → TL1 here involves likes and if they do I’m wrong but it should be clarified.

TL3 is totally different and is locked here (you can see your own on your site by going to user → admin → “TL3 Requirements”).

GamersInternational · October 12, 2024, 12:13am

If I recall correctly, the default settings for promoting users to TL3 is usually promoting users who have made at least 10 posts and have been active for 50 out of 100 days with a good moderation history?

DevForum requirements are definitely much different though, it’s much more difficult to get permissions initially compared to other forums (but some of the default settings are weird anyways for users, with not being able to edit after 1 to 30 days depending on trust level).

foodeggs7 · October 13, 2024, 12:03pm

If you follow the disco bit tutorial it was something about liking posts I really thought you need to like much to get to member rank

Hooksmith · October 14, 2024, 6:59pm

Incorrect, liking posts has nothing to do with getting ability to post (~ ranking up from trust level 0 to 1).

walywhale · October 14, 2024, 9:29pm

I swear this is a problem for me. This user named Ieatk_ids did it to my Bug Report for the forums named Shouldn’t I get push notifications. Here’s the images from his activity

pyxfluff · October 14, 2024, 9:56pm

yeah this is absolutely obvious in literally any announcement thread

even with a warning 50 likes is far too much for brand new users. should be more like 5 or 10

walywhale · October 15, 2024, 8:40pm

As we spoke. This person has joined and liked posts

(Ignore the top corner I was watching YouTube)
The user in question: Profile - wd3k - Developer Forum | Roblox

pyxfluff · October 15, 2024, 9:24pm

yeah this is why my visitor radar is so necessary

code for anybody who wants it

// ==UserScript==
// @name         Hide like notifications from visitors
// @namespace    http://devforum.roblox.com/*
// @version      2024-09-22
// @description  hides or outlines visitor notifications
// @author       pyxfluff
// @match        https://devforum.roblox.com/*
// @icon         https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?sz=64&domain=roblox.com
// @grant        none
// ==/UserScript==

(function() {
    'use strict';

    // Initialize
    const action = "highlight"; // highlight or remove
    const userCache = {};

    function processUserData(usernameElement, notifObject, json) {
        if (json.user.trust_level === 0) {
            switch (action) {
                case "highlight":
                    usernameElement.style.color = "red";
                    break;
                case "remove":
                default:
                    notifObject.innerHTML = "";
                    break;
            };
        }
    }

    function update(item) {
        if (item.classList.contains("liked")) {
            let usernameElm = item.querySelector("a div span");
            let username = usernameElm.innerText

            if (userCache[username]) {
                processUserData(usernameElm, item, userCache[username]);
            } else {
                fetch(`https://devforum.roblox.com/u/${username}.json`)
                    .then(resp => resp.json())
                    .then(json => {
                        userCache[username] = json;
                        processUserData(usernameElm, item, json);
                    });
            }
        }
    }

    function pullList() {
        Array.from(document.getElementById("quick-access-notifications").querySelector("ul").children).forEach(ul => {
            update(ul);
        });
    }

    // Run
    document.getElementById("current-user").querySelector("a div img").addEventListener("click", () => {
        setTimeout(pullList, 450);
    });

})();

walywhale · October 16, 2024, 1:35am

Me who always uses and relies on apples famous home buttonless iPads for the internet: I hate life as I know it