Digital Doctor
Well-known member
Indeed.
Combating Like abuse
- Thread starter Erik
- Start date
The problem, as shown clearly in this thread, is that when you are trying to combat the abuse of a feature, you end up removing the enjoyment of the feature. I personally don't log how many likes I receive, but I know that some of my users will be powered by likes. By that, I mean users who are frequently liked are going to post more, because they feel that their posts are actually contributing. Frankly, that is something some users may want to show off.
Restricting how many likes a user can give out is, in my opinion, ridiculous. A user shouldn't be restricted in how many posts (s)he can show appreciation/agreement towards. This is going to create a ranking type system, where a user will like X posts and then unlike posts so (s)he can like more posts that (s)he's come across, and this is going to be so annoying.
The only suitable option I can think of is the following:
Each user will have a statistical graph of how many likes they have issued (and/or received) over a certain time period, then when the amount of likes reaches a certain threshold (say 300 per day or something), admins are alerted to this user so that they can inspect the likes. The user should also be notified, something like "you have liked X posts today, are you feeling generous or are you a big bad spammer?"
The above solution seems the most appropriate for me, but hey I'm just one guy in a community of thousands!
Restricting how many likes a user can give out is, in my opinion, ridiculous. A user shouldn't be restricted in how many posts (s)he can show appreciation/agreement towards. This is going to create a ranking type system, where a user will like X posts and then unlike posts so (s)he can like more posts that (s)he's come across, and this is going to be so annoying.
The only suitable option I can think of is the following:
Each user will have a statistical graph of how many likes they have issued (and/or received) over a certain time period, then when the amount of likes reaches a certain threshold (say 300 per day or something), admins are alerted to this user so that they can inspect the likes. The user should also be notified, something like "you have liked X posts today, are you feeling generous or are you a big bad spammer?"
The above solution seems the most appropriate for me, but hey I'm just one guy in a community of thousands!
mikel
Member
This seems an idea worth exploring. I'm not in favor of a numerical limit, but could get behind an admin report, for example, that would show users who have given more than X likes and have "spent" more than X% of their likes on one member. As an example, I might set those settings to 100 total likes and 80%. If user A has given 100 likes and 85 of those were given to posts made by user B, users A&B would be identified on the report.
In addition to this, I think a 'Like cleaner' functionality similar to spam cleaner would be a great feature for cases such as this.
AnthonyCea
Well-known member
LOL, I like this thread !!!
Can someone explain 'Like abuse', is this like vB reputation module abuse ??
Can someone explain 'Like abuse', is this like vB reputation module abuse ??
kforo
Active member
or not actually show other people how many likes a person has received. Let people see their own likes on their personal profiles, but not make it public for anyone to see others likes. It would take some of the game out of it. The same thing happens on reputation systems when it's public. People always want to have the highest #. I want people to be able to see someone has liked something they posted, but when people see a list of who's received the most,.... I think people turn it into a game.
I hope there could be some modifications in the future maybe?
I hope there could be some modifications in the future maybe?
Xarcell
Well-known member
Kier joking about not counting posts like +1 etc etc, that's actually not a bad idea. Make it so that the post count doesn't count unless it is a certain number of characters specified by the admin. The admin could set the amount to 10 characters for example, so then only posts consisting of 10 characters or more count towards post count.
Xarcell
Well-known member
If you have serious problems with your user's focused on post count and number of likes, try to make an emphasis on trophy points instead. Remove post count and like count from your forum, and just show trophy points instead. Don't tell anyone what is the requirements for the trophy points...
Dean
in memoriam
I think what you are eloquently trying to say is, that since this thread started there is now a 'Can like' permission in the xf AdminCP
AnthonyCea
Well-known member
LOL Dean !!
Kier does not want to talk about 'the massive like abuse issue', so I won't discuss it any longer !!
Kier does not want to talk about 'the massive like abuse issue', so I won't discuss it any longer !!
Wildcat Media
Well-known member
On the opposite side of all of this, I have Likes enabled, and our members rarely ever use them. :shrug: I have to remind myself to use it more, that way they will see what the posts appear like and may be inclined to try it themselves.
One way to combat Like Abuse™: I am going to be making parts of our forum subscription-based. One or two of the off-topic forums will be hidden from non-subscribers, as will features like Custom Title and now, I'm thinking, Likes as well. The subscription will be minimal cost, but the missing features and forum areas enough of an enticement to get them to cough up a bit of money for the server fund. I want them to look at a feature, say "Hey, that's cool," and then, "Oh, it's only $10 to subscribe for the whole year. Let's do it!" It also helps I've been in the forum hosting game for 14 years now, and nobody actually minds it when I mention raising funds for the site. (Many, in fact, encourage others to do so.)
One way to combat Like Abuse™: I am going to be making parts of our forum subscription-based. One or two of the off-topic forums will be hidden from non-subscribers, as will features like Custom Title and now, I'm thinking, Likes as well. The subscription will be minimal cost, but the missing features and forum areas enough of an enticement to get them to cough up a bit of money for the server fund. I want them to look at a feature, say "Hey, that's cool," and then, "Oh, it's only $10 to subscribe for the whole year. Let's do it!" It also helps I've been in the forum hosting game for 14 years now, and nobody actually minds it when I mention raising funds for the site. (Many, in fact, encourage others to do so.)
Not exactly but there is this: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/trophypromo-trophy-based-user-group-promotions.9847/
Wildcat Media
Well-known member
I think what is even more odd: a few of our members are very prolific on Facebook and have no problem using "like" over there! A lot of them, I think, are just busy and are so used to coming in and posting, that they don't bother checking out a lot of our features.
Wildcat Media
Well-known member
Our members are just drinking different Kool-Aid than yours are. 
A lot of ours I'd say are 30+, and most of the discussion is music, audio hardware, collecting, etc. I think they'll use it more once they get used to XF. Most were used to vBulletin, and I was using SMF when I first launched the site a year ago. XF to me is very simplistic at first glance (which makes it easy to use), but you really don't start tapping into all it can do until you've had a chance to poke at all the various corners of it.
They're still all loving it, BTW...I've never had this many positive comments about a forum system in the past.
A lot of ours I'd say are 30+, and most of the discussion is music, audio hardware, collecting, etc. I think they'll use it more once they get used to XF. Most were used to vBulletin, and I was using SMF when I first launched the site a year ago. XF to me is very simplistic at first glance (which makes it easy to use), but you really don't start tapping into all it can do until you've had a chance to poke at all the various corners of it.They're still all loving it, BTW...I've never had this many positive comments about a forum system in the past.
Anthony Parsons
Well-known member
My members average around the 40's, and they love the like feature, quickly adopted it... and until just recently, never really had anyone abuse it. Saying that, the person abusing it, isn't abusing in the manner of one or two people / self inflating, but is literally a "likeaholic" if such a term exists, because everything they read, they hit like on... like an acknowledgement to the author that they have read this. I am hoping they just run out of the "new to the site" anticipation soon.
Similar threads
- Question
- Solved
