A like button or rating system for threads, I think, would be a great idea! That way you could sort threads by their popularity and get an idea of how good the threads you started are. It would also be a good way for users to know what kind of threads are spam like (or actual spam).
I'm more for just a like button on the threads (with no dislike button)it would keep a more positive site atmosphere and remove the negativity of knowing a bunch of people disliked your thread. But then again a full 1 out of 10 rating system on threads would allow users to see what threads are more creative and what ones are more spam like or uncreative/repeats.
[I hope this is a different enough idea than the like button on post, because this is for the threads themselves and the rating system for threads is in this as well.]
That's a great idea! I think a 1-10 rating system wouldn't be so good... because, well you said it, people would like a positive atmosphere! if the thread "standard" is for instance 5 then if a thread has an average of 2 the user would know that a bunch of people dislike his thread.
Trolls would use this to their advantage. And not only that but if anyone were to get angry at another user rating their thread down would be a way to get back at them and start disputes.
Probably when he says something that trolls could use to their advantage, then most definitely he wouldn't support it.
Plus, people would use the rating system to rate their own thread a 10 to attract attention, thus people reading the thread and figuring out that it's crap.
I'm not talking about a 1-10 rating system, I already said that I think it's not that good. I'm talking about the "like thread" button. Although the same arguments could be used against that...
Comments left about achievements and activities will have a "like" button, and a "flag" button, and you can do one or the other. The more people "like" something, the more that author's "karma" goes up. The more people that "flag" it, the lower that author's karma will go. If you flag something, it will disappear from your view.
Once some quantity of people "like" something, the author may get an achievement of some kind, or an extra karma boost. Or, if a quantity of people flag something enough times, the moderators will step in, permanently delete the post, which will give the author an even bigger negative karma "hit".
If your karma gets low enough, we might start restricting your actions on the site, like making you wait longer between posts, or stopping you from posting at all for a while, or issue a temporary ban, etc.
And at this time, we have no plans to introduce a "like" button on forum posts. We'll revisit this later once we make more decisions about the forums themselves.
