So far I only notice getting recs when skimming back over a thread, but have not been able to find out who rec'd my posts.

Personally, the rec button saves me a lot of time. It also helps keep the thread clean because TBH, most of my replies are one-liners anyway, and don't really contribute to the conversation.

...we are notified when a post gets 25 recs. Seems a bit high to me, but I accept their design.
So, the answer to your question is yes, but with a "but".

Now that you mention it, he said there's no recommendation for posts being recced, which made me question the value.
If it's not a compliment the poster ever knows about, I'm not sure what good it is.

to hide.

...before the post rec feature. I think I'll have to go back to it.
After this conversation, I don't think clicking "rec" is sufficient.

Great post, great observation, and I completely agree. I've thought about it a lot - and come up with a selection of factors

Lots from DU1 and DU2 no longer with us, or here, or posting much

Use of tweets or FB or videos changes the dynamic. Leads to less interactions. I've stopped opening posts with videos or social network links myself

Also I think the TFG years have lead to great mental fatigue and angst. I often find myself at a loss for words to capture what my reactions are.

Just a few thoughts from my end.

Maybe an update to this version would be a notification when a post gets a rec?

I haven't tested it yet, but I assume the recs do show who by?

indeed!

It’s way too easy to hit the ‘rec’ button without any comment not even the ‘+1’. Add to that you have no idea there are any unless you go back to the post and you have no idea who recced it.

MiHale.

I'm certain our wonderful admins thought this through.

I'm interested in their thoughts process..

So take it as meaning when a person recs a post, it stated what it needed to perfectly!

Maybe recs could
be attributed by name. Or, two, only rec with a comment. Think I like the 1st one better. Rec names.

- anyone know?

Or I can send them an email and direct them to this question.

Thanks!

Badges or some significant graphic for popular threads? The FIRE graphic is a good start...

You can see the recommender’s handles.
I can’t find a way to see who recommended downstream responses.

the new rec function where you can rec a reply instead of the OP. I miss the old days too. I try to engage in others' OPs or respond to replies. More often than not, I get no response. But I try to do my bit.

Rec'd your reply.

So you're walking the walk.

But reccing a post also helps place it on the Greatest page, where it will garner more views and hopefully interesting comments.

I'm finding it difficult to wade through long threads consisting of numerous references to excrement and vomit smileys and little else, and often don't bother.

As NHL said above, I also avoid video and tweet threads and use the indicators to highlight these threads. Tweets sometimes show for me, sometimes not; fewer people are copy/pasting the tweet text these days.

Good post and interesting comments. Rec.

I sent the thread to admin. Will receive an enlightening response, if not a change, at least!

As I said, I'm sure they thought this through and have good reasons... I do like the rec on replies (I used to hanker for it, in fact!), but I do wonder if it doesn't diminish discourse...

Thanks!

There's a lot going on. So many negative headlines. It's kind of depressing and depression makes you say (or write) less.

Second, depending on the topic, I think some people like the ability to anonymously rec an individual post instead of going on the record or taking a side (and potentially alienating other members).

observation, ecstatic!

Last edited Tue Dec 19, 2023, 08:39 PM - Edit history (1)

People have requested the ability to recommend replies for a long time, because they found it tiresome to have to reply "+1" to anything when they wanted to express agreement with a post but didn't really have a comment to add. That's why we added it to the software update. However, it is very "bare bones" at the moment, partly because I wanted to see how -- or if -- people would use it, and what effect it might have. I do have some observations.

The reason we didn't spend too much time on additional functionality for reply recs is because we weren't even sure if people would use the feature. However, since DU4 launched it seems to have become quite popular -- I run into threads all the time which have plenty of replies with 5+ recommendations.

Personally, I don't think it takes away from conversation -- it mostly serves to eliminate is a bunch of "+1" replies, which weren't adding anything previously.

However, there are a few negative effects:

1) Posting "+1" in reply to something you like also has the added effect of kicking the thread back to the top of the forum. But using the rec function on a reply does not.

2) In addition, posting "+1" in reply to something has the added effect of notifying the person being replied to. But using the rec function on a reply does not.

So it seems to me that the system itself is fine -- people are using it -- but it could be more effective in terms of what happens after the rec button is clicked, particularly in terms of the feedback it supplies to the person who is getting their post recommended. It seems that is where we could use some more work -- so that people are better notified when their replies are recced.

Off the top of my head:

1) We could make it so that reccing a reply automatically kicks a thread back to the top of the forum. However, this would mean that threads will "ghost kick" -- it might be confusing if people expect to be able to read new replies in a thread which has just kicked back to the top, only to find that there aren't any. (Also, the ability to recommend replies without kicking a thread might be seen by some as an upside, not a downside. If you don't like the OP and you're reccing a reply which criticizes it, you might not want the thread to kick.)

2) We could make it so that reccing a reply auto-posts a notification in the thread -- essentially this would be the equivalent of posting "+1" in reply to someone, except it would happen automatically when you click the rec button. However, this might get complicated if you want to change your mind and undo your recommendation. It might also add a considerable amount of clutter into threads. (Whether you think this is a good idea or not probably depends on how much you value +1 posts.)

3) We currently send a sidebar notification/add an item to your Feed every time one of your OPs gets a multiple of 25 recs (ie we send one every 25, 50, 75, etc.). We should also be able to do this for recommended replies -- say every 5 recs -- which would keep you up to date on which of your replies people are reccing. Unless there's a technical issue with this I can't think of a downside and this is probably something we could do.

4) We could potentially add a "recs" column to your Posts page, and have threads on that page kick to the top every time they are recced as well as every time they are replied to. Again, unless there are underlying technical issues with this, I think it could be worth exploring.

5) We can supply the names of reply recommenders on the single post view of a reply, similar to how we display recommenders on the "Thread info" page of an OP.

6) We could come up with a way to include "Greatest Replies" on the Greatest page, although it might take a bit of figuring out.

Those are a few suggestions for things we might be able to add to the reply recs function. It seems clear that people like the function and are using it, so it does seem like we should now work on improving it and making it more useful.

There are a few people (fewer than half a dozen) who snark back at me even when I reply to a post of theirs with a comment supporting what they said. It occasionally devolves into me saying, "All I did was support what you said," with a response similar to , "How dare you question me?" for several exchanges. Sometimes even devolving into someone else alerting on the attack, it being hidden, and the poster switching to DU mail to continue the attack.

It had gotten to the point that I now check see whose post I ams replying (something I never used to do at all), and avoiding making even supportive comments if the post was authored by one of the half-dozen who always react negatively

So the reply recommendation is quite a relief - If I don't have anything substantive to add I can just recommend it - without having to worry about any reaction to my recommendation. It allows me to interact more spontaneously (without censoring myself based on who I am responding to).

I kind of like that the recs are anonymous. It eliminates the "social media" type pressure.

As far as kicking a thread, I think if people want an OP kicked, they will respond, even if it's just a k&r post.

I wish it were that way on thread recs as well. I've seen a few posts where someone suggests someone else is a troll based on the threads they rec'd. I've yet to look at anyone's profile to see what they've rec'd nor would I ever care.

Like so many things on DU, the current rec system is built upon previous systems that gradually fell by the wayside over the years. A long time ago recs on OPs were anonymous and people would often get bent out of shape wondering who recced threads which they disapproved of.

That problem went into overdrive after we introduced the "unrec" system which allowed people to essentially downvote a thread. Threads could not be "unrecced" below zero, but if you thought a thread was crap you could "unrec" it and essentially cancel out someone else's rec.

Again, this system was anonymous, so it generated a tremendous amount of meta-discussion as people were constantly whining about the unnamed individuals who either recced a thread they didn't like or unrecced a thread they did like. For so many threads, the first reply would often be "WHO UNRECCED THIS??" followed by a bunch of snide comments about trolls. It was pretty lame, and after some time we did away with the unrec system.

As part of the removal of the unrec system and also the transition to DU3 back in 2011, we decided to make recs public (and other things too, like voting in polls.) This was done in part because one of the driving forces behind DU3 was our experiment with "radical transparency" and the introduction of the original Jury system. Some of that experiment remains, but a lot of it was changed when the Jury system was revamped in 2016.

We decided to keep recs public though, and the reason is pretty simple -- if you are recommending something, then, well, you're giving a recommendation. You're telling other people, "Hey, I think you should check this post out because it's worth reading." And so it seems to us that it sort of goes against the spirit of the system if you want that recommendation to be anonymous. Can you truly recommend something if you simultaneously don't want to be associated with the thing you're recommending? (And also bear in mind that we're talking about being extra-anonymous here, because most DUers are already posting under pseudonyms.)

Ideally each member's list of recommendations (found on your Recommendations page) should be a list of threads which you're proud to let other people know about. Recommendations pages are public -- if you look at someone's recommendations page, it should give you a good idea of the kind of things that member is interested in. Even better -- if you like someone's posts and you check out their Recommendations page, you might find other threads of interest to you.

Anyway I'll wrap up this long winded response now, but the bottom line is that we think the current public Recommendation system works fine as it is and while there may be individual issues here and there, we have not seen any widespread problems with people getting hassled for their recs. So we're likely going to keep recs public for now, unless we see a good reason to change the system.

I got halfway through your reply and just needed to take a pause to processs your substantive, dense reply, Earl!

Thank you so much for responding! I'm embarrasingly honored for you to chime in. I assumed my sense of it was skewed..

Anyhoo, really interesting to read of your thought process - thanks.

We've been focusing on behind-the-scenes server stuff the last couple of weeks -- tweaking and optimizing -- but improvements to the reply recs system has been on the post-launch list for a long time, and I think the time is about right for me to start looking into it. Thanks!

Recently i have read a lot of posts and recked many. If i totally agree I will also like.

... incident within a forum. Now, if something interesting happens, there are a bunch of different threads on that one incident. It's like every body opens up a separate thread rather than reply to an already existing thread.

Latest Breaking News is the only forum that doesn't permit duplicates -- all the other forums have always allowed dupes and whenever a big news story breaks there are always multiple threads about it. But DU has been like that since the beginning.