Likes or other interactive functions

[Nuan8]

One weakness that I think is fairly obvious in Discuss is the lack of the ability to "like" other people's topics (new posts) or comments. I need to build a core of dedicated users and build a real sense of community, and these interactive tools can help me do that.

People online want to be able to come into contact with others, and this can in my view be a very positive thing, and a way to build a sense of community in the user.

Of course, this function is now widely used. I can like every twit or pic or link provided by BobRay. On twitter, it is a nice thing to do, keeps us active, but is a little thoughtless and perfunctory already.

Liking a person rather than a message or post is getting perhaps a little more personal and also more like support rather than like.

Of course PM is always there to try and directly connect with others. As I understand they are widely ignored in twitter.

When users provide others with a solution or a fix, they may say, hey go like my page or whatever, it can create sort of a bond between them, and also motivate knowledgeable people to help others. Of course we know these online relationships many times are transitory, but this little function can lead to real if virtual relationships or collaborations.

More types? Could have two levels, one is I like you in a more personal way, another is I want to support (your cause or your project)...just spitballing here.

Of course there is also gold, which can be earned through various activities. Fill in your forum profile, get gold. Click through some dialog, get some gold, provide feedback or join a special list, get gold. It works quite well and allows the site to give out some additional thing to get what it wants.

Finally, badges serve the same basic function, although slightly different. Vanilla does a lot of this, when I signed up for their support forum I got a badge for uploading an avatar, for making my first comment, and so on. We analyzed a site called "The Bump" www.thebump.com early in our process and all these active ladies have like 10+ of every single kind of badge...haha so that's a bit overkill.

On top of all of this, user classes in another way to inspire people to commit more efforts to the community. Special classes tell users who is more committed and presumably more trustworthy, and increasing in class is a small goal that some users (maybe your core) will want to accomplish. So I would put this with likes, in that it inspires dedication from your user base.

Gold is more like I can get a couple little things I like as a forum admin, but wont by itself get people answering more, helping more, caring more.

I would say the likes, gold and user classes are necessary today for an extensible forum, and the badges are a plus. That might have been Vanilla's selling point.

I will try to get some info about what some Chinese websites are doing about these things. On one forum, the list of personal info, not private mind you, but in-forum info, is like 3 levels deep under the avatar pic in every post, its insane, they got gold and all sorts of stuff.

Of course, some or even all of these functions could be plugins or optional packs, but I wouldn't consider a system without them going forward.