I think people are being way too reactive to this. Disagreement is an inevitable part of any discussion; demanding that it not happen or that it only happen in a way that someone prefers seems to me to be much more damaging to the discourse than leaving it more open. You’re essentially asserting the right to control how people say things, hardly a model for open discussion.*
*Obviously, there’s some of that already with Adam’s moderation, but (1) it’s his place, and (2) that serves the purpose of encouraging discussion, not shutting it down.
Only in the sense that clicking a thumbs-up icon, without saying why, expresses fawning adulation. Which is to say that reading “fawning adulation” or “hostility” into either response is probably taking both of them way too personally.
Most people when reading a post, will have a reaction that is either agreement/positive or disagreement/negative. Those two reactions are obviously huge oversimplifications, but I would argue that allowing the two is better than a void, and definitely better than allowing only agreements.
The fact is, most people will not be interested in taking the time to write a full, nuanced explanation of the way they feel. Demanding that they take ten or fifteen minutes to discuss exactly why they like or dislike what they read is asking too much. (I certainly hesitated a long time before writing all this.) I believe most people, in most cases, would probably not bother to respond at all.
Might I suggest that reading hostility into “I disagree with you but frankly I don’t feel strongly enough about it to take a long time to say exactly why” is perhaps oversensitive?
(That was actually the perfect spot for the thumb’s down, as I would essentially have been repeating my comment a few lines up, which didn’t seem useful. Instead, “I disagree!” saves everyone from having to read the repetition)
Here’s some background behind the design of the “Likes” feature of Discourse forum software, and why they don’t recommend “Dislike”.
Likes
The “Like button” is a key feature enabling users to express agreement, support, and highlight interesting posts on Discourse forums.
Absence of downvotes
Discourse does not have downvotes as opinions cannot be scientifically proven. Instead, empathy is crucial in discussions. Downvotes can harm opinion-based systems. More on this can be found in the following links:
And for the people for which a simple “agree” (or “disagree”) from me is not enough and who think that instead everyone who clicks on an emoji should better write something in reply:
“What he said” ;-)
I mean right there they lose me – something has to be scientifically provable to be disagreed with? That’s a remarkably silly thing to say and would immediately neutralize (almost) every sports discussion ever.
I think it shows that we’re having a vigorous and reasonably polite discussion where lots of people disagree with each other and use a variety of methods to show that disagreement. I don’t think that’s a problem.
An interesting discussion indeed! I’m pondering what everyone has said. I do agree that there’s a sense of negative evaluation that comes with a , such that even if you know that it merely means “I disagree,” you might take it more personally than it was intended.
For instance, imagine someone says, “I don’t think there’s any reason to back up because keeping all my files in iCloud Drive is safe enough.” That’s an easy post to disagree with. But what would the poster think upon receiving a bunch of ? In a theoretical world, they’d see that lots of people disagree with the statement and would revisit the decision to rely on iCloud Drive for all data protection. In reality, they’d be either embarrassed or angry at the negative responses and would be less likely to post in the future (possibly improving discussion quality, but hindering them from getting the help they need). And they probably wouldn’t be likely to change their behavior.
The best real-world outcome is probably for someone to kindly point out the limitations of such a strategy and everyone else to either say nothing or vote up the reply.
What I’m still trying to wrap my head around is if the emoji, pedantically accurate or not, is helpful or if it will still be perceived as a negative vote and taken personally.
This discussion has also made me reconsider the reaction, too, since it’s used infrequently. I suspect when people are confused, they usually ask for clarification in a real post.
If you see such a post and it seems problematic, you can flag it. I don’t want to encourage lots of flagging because it increases my workload, but I can agree with the flag and alert the poster if they seem unaware of how best to reply.
I’d say that the reverse is somewhat more common: when people don’t use the Thank You emoji in their answers to questions and instead post repeated “Thank you for your answer” messages that clutter the discussion for very little benefit. I suspect a lot of those people are engaging via email and don’t even know the emoji reactions are possible.
I’ve always been a fan of the SlashDot moderation system. Of course, it was designed for a site like SlashDot, which gets so much traffic that it is practically impossible to have a team of dedicated moderators.
One particular thing I like is that an up/down vote is accompanied by a reason:
Offtopic (-1)
Flamebait (-1)
Troll (-1)
Redundant (-1)
Insightful (+1)
Interesting (+1)
Informative (+1)
Funny (+1)
Overrated (-1)
Underrated (+1)
So readers can see the moderation history in order to determine why something is rated high or low.
Something I think often leads to bad behavior is when sites either rank users using a helpful/not helpful score or display running totals on users’ profiles. Rank striving and voting circles poison a message board’s atmosphere.
I know there are precise meanings provided, but that doesn’t necessarily change what an emoji means to someone. I don’t have a strong opinion on whether or not to keep the , but regardless of how it is officially ‘defined’ on this site, I always see it as more negative than ‘I respectfully disagree’. It comes across to me as ‘that’s a rubbish post/opinion’. I’m not saying that’s what’s intended by everyone who uses it. That’s just what it looks like to me.
Personally, I read as equivalent to ‘wtf’, so possibly more negative/dismissive than . I might be alone in that, but I’d caution that emoji can be interpreted very differently by different people. If TidBITS Talk had a different demographic, the would be considered the negative/dismissive response in the set!
“Like button” is a key feature enabling users to express agreement, support, and highlight interesting posts on Discourse forums.
, such that even if you know that it merely means “I disagree,” you might take it more personally than it was intended.
emoji, pedantically accurate or not, is helpful or if it will still be perceived as a negative vote and taken personally.
reaction, too, since it’s used infrequently. I suspect when people are confused, they usually ask for clarification in a real post.
, but regardless of how it is officially ‘defined’ on this site, I always see it as more negative than ‘I respectfully disagree’. It comes across to me as ‘that’s a rubbish post/opinion’. I’m not saying that’s what’s intended by everyone who uses it. That’s just what it looks like to me.
as equivalent to ‘wtf’, so possibly more negative/dismissive than 
would be considered the negative/dismissive response in the set!