Suggestion and Update Thread

[Lurker]

with the reaction score, my monkey brain will always see a number go up and go "LORGOR HAPPY". it's an innate thing in most people, i think, even if they can't outwardly admit it. still, i could see why you removed it.

i'm just gonna be autistic and say that i like reaction alerts and if that makes me a shitty user who uses the site incorrectly, well, fuck me, i guess, i'll have to cope and seethe and learn to use the site in the way daddy null intends.

 

[Baraadmirer]

with the reaction score, my monkey brain will always see a number go up and go "LORGOR HAPPY". it's an innate thing in most people, i think, even if they can't outwardly admit it. still, i could see why you removed it.

i'm just gonna be autistic and say that i like reaction alerts and if that makes me a shitty user who uses the site incorrectly, well, fuck me, i guess, i'll have to cope and seethe and learn to use the site in the way daddy null intends.

There are... alternatives...

 

[Lurker]

wait
MY JOIN DATE
edit: THE MADMAN, HE JUST WON'T STOP
edit 2: MY RED JOIN DATE WAS MY ONLY ACCOMPLISHMENT

 

[I'm Really Feeling It]

It breaks if you don't check the thread for awhile.

I've noticed that when that occurs, tapping First Unread will still take you back at least in my experience.

 

[NyQuilninja]

What is this?

 

[Lurker]

-hovers over profile picture, sees join date-

HAHA, I HAVE DISCOVERED AN EXPLOIT

 

[stupid frog]

I've noticed that when that occurs, tapping First Unread will still take you back at least in my experience.

I stopped paying attention because I assumed Null wasn't going to fix it. This only "works" if it was a thread you were up to date in.

I'll try paying more attention going forward so I can complain properly about it.

 

[Ted's of Beverly Hills]

What is this?

View attachment 5791748

Be sure to thank Mr Hitler for his benevolence.

 

[NyQuilninja]

Be sure to thank Mr Hitler for his benevolence.

Only if it's kosher

 

[N Space]

Now that join dates no longer appear below our avatars and reaction scores are gone, wouldn't it be better if the gaping ass space left be filled with the join date?

 

[Seethecoper]

Why not just make it so that you only get a notification for 1 type of reaction, and your posts only show 1 of each reaction given?

 

[Strange Looking Dog]

I want people to be able to see what people think about their posts and come to reasonable conclusions about if that should inform how they post. If you expect your post will be welcomed and it is not, you know you're off the mark. If you expect negativity because you're going against the grain, you probably won't care people aren't praising you. This is the kind of feedback I want to see and how I would like posters to interpret that information.

My recommendation; thin the herd of reactions and whittle the selection down to those relevant to site intention (and add a laugh react.)

I think facebook got it mostly right with their five reactions —like, laugh, sad, mad, heart— which are all very relevant to the (at least theoretical) purpose of facebook. There's no dislike or otherwise combative reacts because facebook isn't trying to foster argument, rather the reactions are simply expressions of how the post made the reactor feel. On the other hand, KF is intended to be a comedy site with a focus on the real foibles of *special* individuals (correct me if I'm wrong) and I feel like this purpose is somewhat distorted in the reaction system.

What I do not want is high intensity emotional or reactive engagement.

There are a variety of reactions intended to moderate the behavior of other users —'you're gross', 'you're dumb', 'you're mad', 'you're autistic', 'you're getting carried away', 'you're sharing TMI'— and these can serve a useful purpose for the less socially aware members of the forum; but they are innately combative and thus must be expected to produce the occasional (or even frequent) emotional outbursts among those very same people. I don't think there's a way to have it both ways —and I'm not objecting to their inclusion, they serve a purpose.

I also do not want people to think anyone is keeping score, or that violating consensus is going to punish them, affect how they can use the site, or cause other people to adjust their initial perspectives on your content.

There are then the consensus feedback reactions —'I dislike this/you're dumb', 'I agree/disagree', 'like/winner/semperfi/achievement'— which can fill a useful purpose in eliminating one word replies but they innately represent a social consensus mechanism, and since (most) people are programmed to respond to social consensus they will tend to have this effect regardless of if there are any actual systemic incentives attached. These could all be reduced to 'like/dislike' (keep semperfi and achievement maybe.)

The rest I feel are mostly joke reactions; what does 'islamic content' mean? It's a sort of silly react, not really antagonistic but nobody is really sure and year by year fewer people understand the reference. This is fine, a probably neutral effect.

I think of all 'informative' is the most useful well suited reaction and I feel it would be well paired with a 'laugh' react of some kind. Both together would reflect the purpose of forum well. If kf has any problems at the moment it is sidelining of true & honest laughter. Much debate (and I'm not just talking the containment boards), much essay writing, much preening and much fretting over whether a lolcow is getting sufficiently 'owned'. Not enough simple laughter at the absurdity of these character's lives. (Look at me being a hypocritical essay writer, old habits die hard.)

 

[Roxanne Wolf]

My recommendation

And a God tier reccomnedation that is!

If I may throw my two cents in - the rating system is a double edged sword - at least with how the site is currently laid out.

To preface it with context, there's been many a thread with a captivating OP and tons of engagement to the point where I want to try and catch up on the fun and drama. What is one of the ways to do this easily without going thru hundreds of pages? Highlights! Problem with that is that any high engagement post is highlighted, and more often than not it's either non contributory to the topic or something that was made to harvest that sweet kiwi karma.

I'm certian there is a better way to sort through the wheat (good informative, relevant or entertaining/funny posts) and the chaff (karma bait and tourist remarks) that make up highlights in threads both small and large.

Perhaps there may be a way to make highlights sortable by date and majority reaction received? The downside is to this is that everyone must be on the same page as to what reactions mean and are worth to the thread filtering as a whole if implemented, and can lead certian posts open to reaction brigading.

The opposite end is self-tagging posts as relevant / informative / silly /opinion / other / etc which I feel would be a game changer. But that too can open to abuse by people looking to shit a thread up with mis-tagged posts.

I do hope this fosters conversation on how to better sort through posts in threads that get a lot of touristy/peanut gallery posts so the chaff can be more easily ignored in favor of the wheat that makes it so intresting and entertaining.

 

[Crass887]

Why tf the scores gone

 

[Hff201]

I actually think removing the sticker notifications will be good for the health of the forum in the long term.

Notification systems give a shot of dopamine that acts as a reward for "good" (read: popular) posts. Social media sites know this and maximise the effect of it with icons, sound effects, and phone popups, and the result of this is those sites becoming insufferable because they've been taken over by attention-seekers desperate for updoots like a junkie craving his next hit. No-one's interested in discussing nuance or elaborating on their opinions, they just package it up in an oversimplified, almost slogan-like statement that everyone else will pat them on the back for, because that's what the system incentivises.

This forum doesn't have this exact issue, but it's not uncommon for posts that get featured on the front page to be immediately followed by pages on end of empty nothing-posts reciting an almost identical opinion on the matter as the one prior - which pings from positive reaction stickers encourage. I feel like a lot of politisperging gets rewarded because of them too, posting ">she" or "ywnbaw" in every thread that involves a troon is basically just spam at this point, but it's an efficient way to get positive stickers for little effort if you're that way inclined.

Reaction stickers themselves have a place since they let us give simple responses to posts like "I agree" or "you have autism" without needlessly clogging up the thread, but having the little icon at the top telling us we've been a good boy can bring out the worst in people. I feel like the current system is a good compromise (although maybe put the number of each sticker back to normal, maybe a bit optimistic on my part but I'd like to think someone out there will see a high number of dumb/MATI reacts and think "I've been kind of a retard lately, maybe I should tone it down").

 

[Mankirk]

Signatures aren't working, boss.

Now that join dates no longer appear below our avatars and reaction scores are gone, wouldn't it be better if the gaping ass space left be filled with the join date?
View attachment 5791797

Maybe we should remove join date from the pop-up menu and make people click into the profile page to see it

 

[Migraine Box]

I don't particularly like the join date being removed. Nearly every forum I've ever used across the eons has featured them, removing it just feels wrong.

One thing that is genuinely irritating is the watched threads box being undocked from the side and being made front-and-center. Front page is now ungodly long and my stubborn autismo brain refuses to adjust. Fucking gay.

 

[Snuckening2]

Maybe I'm just a complete retard, who's been using the site wrong all these years (this is not my 1st account), but without sticker-alerts, keeping up with active threads is near-impossible. (The way I've been using it, at least...) The "watched thread" function is more of a liability, than a help now.

I couldn't give a crap about the score-count being gone; I 100% support that change. But sticker-alerts where the main tool I used for seeing which of the threads I posted in are active. And I guess I haven't been using the watched-thread feature "correctly"? It was handy before, in combo with sticker-alerts. But now it's an irritating time-waster, that makes it HARDER to follow active threads (maybe because I haven't been using it "correctly", but still)

I've always just clicked "watch thread" on any thread I had even a vague interest in. So I have a few hundred watched threads (dumb, maybe. But it worked fine, before)- Including many very active, fast-moving threads, but which I don't care about enough to read every post; I just follow the thread, in case something big happens, or maybe to dip into, when everything else is slow.

So now, when I click the "watched" tab, I will ALWAYS have a huge wall, of fast-moving threads like ALR, or Ralph, or Chris-related threads, that will ALWAYS have fresh posts. "So un-watch them". OK, but then how do I tell whether they're super-active because something is kicking off, vs the normal activity of a popular thread?

To use the system as it is now, with sticker-alerts gone, half my time is spent clicking on each of the 30 or 40 of my watched-threads with new activity (most that I have pretty limited interest in), scrolling to the end to make that goddam dot turn not-solid, one after the other... Then by the time I did that for all 40, half are solid again. If I DON'T do this weird chore, I get no alerts at all, for watched-threads.

"You are using the site like a dumb nigger retard". Ok. But it worked well, til now.


SUGGESTIONS (I'm a dumb nigger retard, especially in terms of tech, so I have no idea how practical/do-able this stuff is. But from a site-user POV, it would be helpful.)

-The "highlight" feature is great; It'd be great to have the option (especially with those active, popular threads) to ONLY get alerts (or for it to pop up in the 'watched' tab), when highlight-worthy posts are made, not just every "fat, would not have sex" comment.

-Some way to prioritize watched threads would be really good. There's some threads where I DO want to read every post. But others (esp popular ones) where I just want to see if there's been 5 posts today, vs 200 posts.

-As I understand it, alerts for a watched-thread stop, if you don't read a post. It would be great if this was an option; ie, If I could choose for each thread "get alerts for each post", or "Stop getting alerts, when thread is unread".


I don't like asking for shit like this; I'm mindful that Josh has other, more deserving priorities. I'd be happy with the sticker-score hidden, but otherwise, a return to the old system. But it seems like I'm far from the only person, who's site-usability has been harmed by recent changes.

[Or, if it IS the case that myself and many other users are just retards, who've been using the site "wrong" for years, then it would seem that at the very least, there's a need to spell out the "CORRECT" way to use features like 'watched' threads, for us in the short bus]

 

[Geranium]

I don't want to be restrained in my flexibility of addressing problems because there is this unintentional use case built up around it.

XKCD 1172

 

[S.C.U.D.]

My main question is, if getting a negative reaction score is having a chilling effect on posting unpopular opinions, wouldn't stickers still have that same chilling effect?

It doesn't have a chilling effect on me because everything I post is objectively good and if anyone negrates any of my posts it means they have profound mental illness and their opinion can be disregarded.