Likes given and likes received

[Parsons]

I have noticed pretty much every aspect of the Like button discussed here, be they positive or negative. I have come to see it as a truly double edged sword, and I am rather on the fence about wanting it to continue to exist or not.

To review some of the negatives: I have seen very long posts (and made them myself on occasion) get 0 likes because someone more popular than the person making the long post weighed in with their opinion which conflicted with the opinion of the long-poster. Then their "clique" simply likes their post for either: A) They stopped using discernment and decided to just trust the opinion of another blindly or B) The concept introduced was new or "out there" and they agreed with the first opposing opinion that came along or even C) The person was more articulate with expressing their concept in words than the other.

The part that disturbs me the most, really, is people stopping thinking for themselves even in this community (in ANY community).

Then again, I do indeed use the like button when someone says something that I wanted to say but didn't really feel like posting about it. But unless I reply and say this specifically, there is no real way to know why they did this.

People are using the like button for a huge range of concepts, positive and negative. So I don't know if there is much value in the button in it's current representation.

I vote we should make a poll thread (or maybe the mods can do some magic and turn this thread into the poll) and find out what people think about it overall.

But IMO I think we should either flesh out the function more (how about +1 -1 buttons coupled with some kind of "I read this post" button). Or we should just scrap the button entirely.

Note on why I think there should be +1 -1 function in that case: some of us (heck, I'm sure I must be guilty of this at some point) are using the Like button to express their negative opinion of a post by liking a post with a negative opinion of another's post anyways.