My vote is for heart = love and thumbs up = yes or I agree; thumbs down = the opposite. Clapping = applause, 100 = 100%.
I do see a difference between “I think you should read this” and “I agree with it”.
There are some topics (especially ones involving politics and cutting-edge science work) where I may think it is important to know about a point of view that I disagree with. Because for these things, it’s important to know what all sides are saying, in order to form coherent arguments when writing about the subject, no matter what your opinion may be.
But I will agree that such topics are less common on a technology forum like this one, where the focus is more on facts and less on opinion.
Except I only read posts via email, so I never see any of these icons until I log onto the website (which I only do for posting as email posting sucks), so none of these are significant or useful in any way.
Am I the only one who reads TT that way?
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That’s exactly my thinking. But my understanding as per @ace was that there’s no way to get rid of 
since it’s the default.
Under those circumstances, I’d do away with 
just to keep things simple. I don’t need two ways to say I like a post.
I do exactly the same. Reading on the web site doesn’t work for me; having messages arrive in email slots well into my workflow. But for posting, I go to the web site because otherwise you don’t see edits otherwise, and the formatting of posts via email is never what I want it to be.
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Yes, there is a default reaction but I don’t see any requirement that the default be any particular emoji.
The description above of the plug-in says:
These for 6 reaction buttons including the default which is on my site is
Likewise, the documentation says:
To customize the reactions use the site setting
discourse_reactions_enabled_reactionsand define emojis you want as reactions separated by|eg:open_mouth|cry|angry
And later:
discourse_reactions_enabled_reactionsTo define the list of enabled reactions, any emoji is allowed here.default: laughing|open_mouth|cry|angry|thumbsup|thumbsdown
Nope, I’m the same. Maybe that’s why all of this doesn’t really matter all that much to me. I do like saying I agree with this post, I disagree with this post, but that’s all I really need.
Good discussion, folks, thank you. I’ve dropped 
from the list; although it was fun to learn about making and enabling custom emoji, it doesn’t really have much meaning.
I’ll keep watching the use of and — I’ve been using as a way of rewarding posts that I think add to the utility of TidBITS Talk, and as a way of saying that I think the technical details in a post are correct.
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I like the way you frame that.
But if you say is agreement whereas is meant to acknowledge utility to the forum, wouldn’t that already be covered by thanks 
?
(not trying to beat a dead horse here, just curious if it can be whittled down to the bare minimum)
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I do read emails I get alerting me to updates to threads I’m particularly interested in. And I appreciate that we can get those.
But I then always go to the actual board through Mac Safari to read the entire thread or reply. I like to see all the meta data. Also email reply doesn’t really do it for me. Obviously, YMMV.
To me these icons are actually useful. I also really like the idea of showing my appreciation through a little badge when another poster helps me figure something out. Sure I could write thanks, but unless there’s more to it than that, that just clutters the thread for everybody else. To me these little icons solve that issue in a very simple and clean way. Just my 2¢.
Conceivably, yes, though I just can’t get past the fact that doesn’t signify “Thank you” to me. Or, frankly, much of anything. I’d never make that gesture to indicate anything other than perhaps “I surrender!”
Just to support @Simon’s point—this is exactly why I use the Web interface for reading and replying. Email is good for notifications, though I go back and forth on how many of those I want. But Discourse’s Web interface is really good, with lots of subtle little touches that I appreciate every time I hit them, and these emoji are just another indication of that.
I’m essentially using the reaction emoji as a way of awarding points to posts that I think add to the community discussion in one way or another.
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I’m with you. I’m still not aware of a good icon for thanks.
The raised hands thing for me is not intuitive (rock concert?) and the other one 
to me just looks like religious service.
Perhaps I should learn to adapt. Maybe this is a reminder that I’m getting old and need to put in active work to stay flexible in my mind. 
I’ve seen icons (like on Slack) with the just the words “Thank you” written out. That seems the clearest to me, but it may be hard to have small.
Sorry, I missed this discussion as for some reason I wasn’t tracking this thread. But I have to say I’m fairly disappointed with how things turned out (with a small ‘d’ given this is fairly inconsequential in the grand scheme of things!). 
My thoughts:
-
I still really dislike
. Not because of the emoji, but because I think for many (most?) people, there’s no real difference in meaning to , it’s a personal preference. But doesn’t count towards the Likesstats, so if someone wants to simply like a post, it would be best to get everyone using the Discourse standard. I also think it’s cleaner to have a single emoji for “I like that you posted this”. -
to me is far more distinct, and I miss having it. and mean “I like this post/great post”, but not necessarily that one agrees with everything in it. is emphatic: “I couldn’t agree more, this is what I think too.” -
was just a bit of fun, which is part of the Mac/Apple spirit. Not everything has to be of imminent utility. It was nice to tag the occasional post with it. If it adds a bit of mystery as to what the person meant, that’s fine – it’s good to have some pauses in the day where you ponder the vagaries of life
.
I’m not convinced that having all the emojis fit on one line on a phone screen makes any difference, but it’s largely a style choice, and this is @ace’s site. But if they need to be weeded down, I would much prefer:
-
remove
as it doesn’t add anything beyond a stylistic difference to the reactions -
reinstate
because it does add a distinct level of reaction/agreement -
remove
because we’ll do just fine without a negative reaction and importantly it creates space for: -
reinstate
because it’s fun and harkens back to the days when TidBITS was founded
[As a slight tangent:
@Simon I think you’re already adapting – you used the reaction on a post of mine 24 days ago, soon after it was available 
.]
Thanks for the thoughts! Nothing is set in stone, but I’ve found that I need to live with it for a bit and see if it feels right.
-
just didn’t feel right. Partly it’s the look—what does a number have to do with something, and I haven’t seen a grade on a test in 35 years, so it doesn’t evoke much. And I couldn’t separate it from and enough.
-
That said,
and do seem to feel different to me. is a reward, it’s points for contributing, whereas feels more like “Yes, that’s correct.” or “I agree with what you’re saying.” without also implying the reward. -
I certainly hope
doesn’t get used much, and I haven’t seen that happening, but my hope is that it will head off some of the personal sniping when people do disagree with one another. Use and move on rather than arguing. -
is cute, but I just don’t know what it’s supposed to signify when applied.
-
And I’d still like a better Thank You than
or , both of which leave me cold.
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How about just a miniaturized “Thanks!”?
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Ah, the old 7-bit text trick—clever!
Great suggestion. The hard part was finding a way of doing it that maintained some readability (on a Retina screen, at least) at the emoji size. There were various Thank You icons in speech bubbles, but they all became really hard to read when shrunk down. I think this 
works, though I’m open to alternatives if someone is enough of a graphics person to make one more readable at that size.
We could also make it another color if that would help, though the black stands out against the other emoji pretty well.
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You’re welcome! Happy to help.
The “thank you” pops on the light interface but is a little hard to see on the dark interface. Maybe an orange color?
This is fun.
How about using the purple in the TidBITS logo?