Add explicit `+1` feature for issues that isn't a comment

[isaacs]

Often people post github issue comments like 👍 just so that they can get notified when there are updates, and to indicate that they are also interested in an issue.

It'd be nice if they could just click a thing to do that, without posting a comment that emails everyone else uselessly. It could even put the 👍 comment on the page for cute factor if you feel that's important, but without emailing everyone.

For bonus points, let the project maintainers sort the issues list by the number of votes.

Then the 👍 behavior would be useful, rather than spammy.

---

Update: (there's a Change.org petition for this now](https://www.change.org/p/github-inc-add-voting-functionality-for-github-issues)

[ericf]

+1

[isaacs]

@ericf I see what you did there. ;P

[sarahhodne]

Such a button already exists:

It might be made more prominent, though.

[polotek]

@henrikhodne I'm not sure if people think of watches as an indicator of importance on issues. To me it just means I want to get emails about new comments. It can probably be repurposed to have more meaning though.

[imakewebthings]

@henrikhodne I think what @isaacs wants is a distinction between watchers and a vote of support for the ticket. The Chrome bug tracker does this with "starring" an issue. They may be an interesting case to study because despite that feature they still get a ton of +1 style comments. I think in part because the star is not featured prominently, not explained in any way inline, and generally is not a good representation of what it means.

[sarahhodne]

Ah, sorry, I missed that there were two parts to the issue, I only read "make a button so we don't have to comment 👍 to get notifications".

[isaacs]

@henrikhodne Yeah, also, there's no way to sort the issues list by the number of watchers, and maybe it could be set up so that the watch link is closer to the "comment" button, and a sort option in the issues list, or a variety of other potential approaches. It would also be nice to not send us all an email for comments that are just an emoticon, maybe. I'm not sure the best way to do this, but it seems like the functionality and data is there, and some relatively minor adjustments could make it much more useful.

[dresende]

+1

[jsocol]

Is there any way to expose the number of watchers? "Participants" only includes people who comment.

+1 to the 👍 button, though if nothing else, at least in the short term, saying "6 participants and 18 watchers" would be helpful.

[jzaefferer]

On Chromium, maintainers are suspicious of issues that get a few dozen stars within a day, blaming the reporter to have a "huge twitter following".

[polotek]

Ha, does that somehow make the data less valid?

On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 3:15 PM, Jörn Zaefferer notifications@github.comwrote:

On Chromium, maintainers as suspicious of issues that get a few dozen
starts within a day, blaming the reporter to have a "huge twitter
following".

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/9#issuecomment-19296086
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Marco Rogers
marco.rogers@gmail.com | https://twitter.com/polotek

Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond
to it.

• Lou Holtz

[zbynekwinkler]

👍

[patcon]

Can we separate this out into separate issues? As it stands, I want to express my support for some things mentioned here, but some of it feels like feature creep.

Here's what I see for issue candidates:

• I want a way to watch a thread without needing to comment/+1 DONE
• I want a way to +1 an issue without inflating comment count (and presumably without notifying others)
• I want a way to sort issues by watchers.
• I want the option to not get notifications on +1 comments (or comment below a char threshold?)

Did I miss anything here?

[fgrehm]

We used to have "upvotes" or something similar in a remote past but it ended up getting removed.

From http://blog.leahculver.com/2009/04/github-issues.html

[carols10cents]

I want a way to sort issues by watchers.

OR sort issues by 👍 votes, if that functionality is made independent from watching. People might want to leave a 👍 to indicate that they're experiencing that issue too, or they agree with the idea, but don't want to get notifications-- I suppose it's up for debate which number would be a better metric for user pain/need.