Tags
There has long been this ongoing controversy, this raging debate about people clicking “like” on blogs without leaving a comment. I’ve gotten into trouble over this a few times myself and even had one of those wordpress happiness engineers snap at me.
Here’s my official stance on likes. I like them. I like it when people leave a “like.” It is like writing on the bathroom wall, “I was here.” Or leaving your calling card. It doesn’t offend me at all, I find it charming. Comments are great fun too, but they are certainly not mandatory. I understand, we all have busy lives, we read a lot of blogs, sometimes we just have nothing to say. It’s all good.
Some people do not agree with me. We writers can be a touchy bunch, so some people actually find “likes” to be offensive. This actually surprised me, but they think you haven’t really read them. They think you don’t like them. They think you hated it. They think whatever it is we people think.
I’m not going to change any minds here, but I want to encourage people to think more positively. I have genuinely clicked “like” when a post simply left me speechless. (Hard to believe I know, but I am sometimes speechless.) Sometimes I need time to process what you have written, to relate it other things. Sometimes I am pondering your post for several days. There are times when I am simply smiling, when the writing was good, when the experience was pleasant, but I just have nothing to say. Sometimes I click like because I read you but I just haven’t got time to respond.
One thing that is never on that list is, “I clicked like because I hate you.” Seriously! Erase that one from your brain. Nobody in the history of the internet ever saw something they disagreed with or hated and just walked quietly by, spitefully clicking “like” on the way out. That is so not how it works.
Especially not in the year 2016, the year of actively celebrating our right to be offended about absolutely everything.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
I was tempted to just like it and leave – to crack myself up – but I can’t because I must applaud and add my amen to paragraph 2. To the whole post actually.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I like this! 😉
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yay for paragraph 2. I like likes! I am thrilled with comments assuming they are nice,lol, but i never turn my nose up at anyone who has stopped by long enough to like!
LikeLiked by 4 people
I like the likes too, lol. Like you said, comments are awesome, but not mandatory. I’m just stoked when somebody stops by to read, and I hope they get a chuckle out of my nerdy shenanigans. XD
LikeLiked by 2 people
And sometimes it’s because we’ve read, we like it, and we are new to the blogger world and don’t know what we are doing. I’ll insert a little blogger plea here. Please help us newbies figure out the best way to read, like, AND comment in one place!!! As in…there’s an app for that 😁
LikeLiked by 1 person
People really complain about that? To me, a “like” lets you know that I took the time to read your post, that I thought it was worth reading (whether I agreed with it or not), and that it is a show of support. If I leave a comment, it generally means the “like” was not enough to show my repose to a post, or because I want to interact with the author. Life is full of too many problems to have the time to write something to everyone. I have never seen likes as anything but a positive thing. These people who are making such a bog deal out of that must not have many friends outside the virtual playground we call WordPress. (PS: I will be very hurt and offended if you do not like and reply to this comment–NOT!).
LikeLiked by 3 people
I am also with the paragraph 2 crowd. I like a like. I use like a lot, too. I read a bunch of blogs, and could never comment on them all. And sometimes, I just don’t have any input that would be worth more than just idle blabbering. It sure is nice to see that little message, though. You know for just a sec that you were on somebody’s mind.
Now…having said that. I must confess is is bothersome to see 5 days worth of posts get liked in 30 seconds. I know I don’t usually write really long stuff…but really? A post a second? I don’t think so, Tim.
LikeLiked by 3 people
LOL! We all have our fans, don’t we Wally?
I knew the moment I wrote this declaring absolutely no one ever comes by and clicks like just to be annoying…somebody was going to show up and say, uh huh I know this guy Tim! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
But, I do like that button. What about the debate on comment likes? Do we hit like to show we simply read a comment, or do we have to actually like it to hit the button?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Ha! I do not know. I suppose that is yet another raging debate within the wordpress community.
LikeLike
Sigh…so many unanswered questions
LikeLike
‘a debate on comment likes??’ …wow, now that is hilarious!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lol
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s true! I had a detractor of mine state that I obviously agreed with him because I liked the comment.
And a friend told me that to like and not comment is rude
LOL
LikeLiked by 1 person
Whaaaaat????? ‘to like and not comment is rude’??? what a load of ****!!! ‘liking’ is akin to appreciation….giving a nod to the effort and time it takes to write a post. You may not ‘agree’ with a comment but merely clicking ‘like’ acknowledges that you respect the right of whoever made the comment. It’s like saying ‘I hear you’…seriously some bloggers are just too intense!
LikeLiked by 2 people
This is an actual debate?! That’s like getting mad because someone clapped for you but didn’t yell “I love you!” from the crowd. No one claps for spite! Quite silly…
But, here I am, liking and commenting. 🙂
Likes mean that they appreciate the post. Comments mean that they have something to say. Done. 🙂
Squid
LikeLiked by 2 people
Well said!!! 😘
LikeLiked by 1 person
doesn’t matter to me if anyone comments or not either, and the likes are nice , lets me know you passed through , why on earth would anyone get butthurt over someone leaving a like and not a comment ? .. there are many times on this blog and others, i enjoy what i have read, but have nothing to contribute, or the post has me lost in thought … eh well, those who snap at you can go kiss a goose , just be you and do what you do. 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
thank you!! (you got me at ‘butthurt’)…it is such an insane debate!!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reblogged this on Theological Rejuvenation and commented:
I clicked like because I hated what you wrote…lame, IB (epic sarcasm)–ha ha
LikeLiked by 3 people
Ha! Your sarcasm is not lame. Thank you for the reblog 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Enjoyed your commentary. In spite of whatever the “time-stamp” says, I’m making this at 10:55 pm PST.
Have a posting in the works; one which is sticking in my craw. Bye for now – “X”
LikeLiked by 1 person
I like likes, IB. But have you ever put up a post and in 2 secs someone likes it? Two bloody seconds! That’s why some itch. It might feel insulting to them that you don’t read a post but feel you have to like it because some bloggers visit the blogs of their likers to say hello.
It’s just… deceptive I guess.
Me, I don’t actually care. I used to, but haven’t cared for over a year now.
You last paragraph cracked me up :D. Amen to exercising rights to be angry lol!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m glad it doesn’t bother you anymore. You have stay confident, trust in yourself and don’t worry about the little things. 🙂
LikeLike
Good post. I would have never guessed people out there can see “like” as hate. But I can see it happening, thinking about how people can be offended when you say something is “nice” instead of it being “good” have offended people before in my own past.
LikeLiked by 2 people
brilliant!!! some people defo see like as ‘hate’ in some really warped way! Basically want you to jump up and down, doing cartwheels to show appreciation!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you!…great post!! I click ‘like’ in appreciation…it’s a nod to the writer…if I strongly disagree with something I may/may not comment but I will definitely NOT click like…chances are I probably wouldn’t even waste my time commenting…would more likely blog about what has irked me! There is absolutely nothing wrong with liking a post because it gives me the option to mull over posts that I ‘like’ in my own time. Being upset about ‘likes’ in the absence of comments is seriously a bit of an ‘ego trip'(to put it mildly). Thanks again for brilliant post! 😘
LikeLiked by 2 people
You make a great point about liking a post so you have time to mull over it.WP has a list of “your stuff,” that keeps track of the posts we’ve liked. I often go back to that list later in the day.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yep! 😘 it’s basically a great way to take your sweet time to read posts
LikeLike
This is an issue that was of great interest to me a couple of years ago when it was a problem. Not as much a problem since then.
Ministries of Love, Peace, Plenty, and Truth are ministries in George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. If it had included a Ministry of Happiness then it would today be staffed by WordPress Happiness Engineers on DoubleSpeak political correctness steroids. I despise them for their job title and for the arrogant way they conduct their job.
I recall a couple of years ago a disagreement between them and some writers about what defines a spam blog. It was spam blogs that were guilty of the majority of Like Button abuse. That kind of abuse, to use the Like Button to draw attention to a blog and in turn a business or product or service amounts to what I refer to as passive spamming or indirect spamming, and placing an ad for their blogs at the blogs of legitimate writers like us – like most WordPress users. Not as bad now as it was 2 years ago. Twitter has a similar problem, but at least legitimate users there can block the abusers and remove their Likes.
Using a combination of WordPress Stats, plus the free version of StatCounter, I know when someone has actually visited my site and actually read an article, and how much time they spent reading it. I’ve had Likes from the “Reader” when stats show I had no readers at the site for the article, so it was only Liked from the “Reader” showing the first few lines. If it had been clicked on to read all of it at my site instead of at the “Reader” then the reader would have been counted in Stats.
Presidents Clinton and Kennedy were known to have near perfect photographic memory. They could read a page in a split second and remember all content. Some people were at first offended important documents were only given a glance and not seriously read, until content was read back word-for-word without giving a document another look. Few people have that talent. I tend to write long articles and longer postings for science fiction stories. It offends me when I see one of those is Liked within a few seconds after being posted, because it is unlikely most people could have read them that fast. I do have a plan now for writing much shorter postings at WordPress as I continue to increase interaction with use of Twitter.
Worse than Like Button abuse is abuse of the About page in such a way that it has been encouraged by Happiness Engineers as they have tried to find ways to add social interaction at WordPress like at Facebook and Twitter. I’m referring to Comments at the bottom of About pages, of which some are obviously there not to really comment on the visited blog but to get attention for their own blog, which is another kind of passive spam. WordPress does a good job stopping normal aggressive spam or direct spam, but is unable to recognize what passive spam or indirect spam is. Because of such abuse, I don’t allow Comments at the bottom of my About page. I created a separate page for legitimate Feedback and for Contact, but it’s rarely used. At one time I had a page just for legitimate bloggers to use Comments under it to promote their own blog like a free ad, but none used it so I discontinued it.
I would like it if WordPress were to have an internal social interaction system similar to Facebook and Twitter, especially with use of a hashtags system for creating a topic and place where users can interact, almost like a multi-subject forum. But without censorship by Happiness Engineers, like is sometimes done in their forums. I enjoy interaction with legitimate WordPress users, so Likes and Comments from them (and you) are always appreciated, even if there is ever disagreement about an article topic.
LikeLike
All that I just wrote, and I knew I was overlooking something! It isn’t necessary to Like AND Comment. There can be Likes without Comments. There can be Comments without Likes – after all, if a reader disagrees with a posting then I’d not expect the reader to Like it. WordPress should include Dislikes, like having a total of thumbs up and thumbs down, would be helpful. However, WordPress does have something I forgot about and have just turned on at my site – Ratings – now will be under each new posting – I’m not sure yet if the change is applied to past postings. [WP Admin – Feedback – Ratings.] As for Comments, I do appreciate a wide range of opinions, because I consider it to be like doing a poll or survey. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me – my editorial articles. However, there is a difference between Trolls including personal insults against me, which I will not allow, and opposing views – simply expressing their own opinion about a subject of a posting.
LikeLike
I’ve just discovered that “Rate this” [WP Admin – Feedback – Ratings] is applied to all past postings – so readers finding articles I posted long ago can rate them. I don’t know why I’ve not used it before – I did notice that option – but I am using it now. It adds a useful third dimension to Comments and Likes. It uses a 5-star system. Just as easy as doing a Like, and when no time or no desire to do a Comment is another way of expressing an opinion in general.
LikeLike
One more thing – I just discovered about the use of the “Rate this” option. I put mine at the bottom of postings just above the Like and Share buttons. It is applied to all past postings. Now, going to the “Reader” to check my most recent posting, I see the 5-star “rate this” system is not included at the “Reader” for readers to use there like the Like button is. That means a reader must actually visit my site, and at least scroll down to the bottom of a posting to access the 5-stars “Rate this” option. Less chance of it being abused than the Like button has been in past years, so it should be a useful feedback tool.
LikeLike
Any blogger who finds the “likes” offensive or insulting or whatever can disable the feature; it’s very easy to do. Anyone who allows “likes” on a post or page and then complains about them is just being an idiot.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ha! That is far too simple, bluebird. If likes offend you, just turn them off.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am not even remotely tech savvy, but even I know how to turn the “likes” off and on. (I never turn mine off, because I love getting “likes.”) One of the things I like about WordPress is that they make things easy for those of us with no technical expertise.
LikeLike
I recall reading about this in one of the forums a couple of years ago when this was a hot topic and many writers were complaining about Like button abuse. Likes is part of the WordPress social engineering plan to make WordPress more like Facebook and Twitter, I recall a Happiness Engineer explaining in such a way I could picture a smirk on his face. Yes, in Settings, Likes can be turned off. That’s the illusion WordPress allows. The truth is it only removes the Like button from your postings. It does not remove the Like button from the Reader and the other Like button from the reader’s own toolbar at the top for those who have it. So with those two other Like buttons still there, Likes can’t be prevented, and that’s the way WordPress wants it. I turned off Likes in Settings for a week back then, and postings still got Liked by the other two means. I quit letting it bother me after that, turned Likes back on in Settings, and started ignoring the abuse of it. So a few bad ones get through to draw attention to their spam blogs, but most are legitimate Likes, so I’ve kept it on since then.
LikeLike
Here’s one of the problems I see. A recent posting. Stats page. 0 Views, 1 Like. How can someone Like it when in same report WordPress states zero views? Probably it was Liked from the Reader instead of at the posting at the blog. That’s a flaw in the WordPress system. A legitimate Like but without visiting the blog to be counted as a View.
LikeLike
WordPress can be wonky and their stats do not happen in real time. So it is possible to get comments and likes without ever have having had any views, something that usually resolves itself after a few hours. I have had 3 views from a dozen different countries on more than one occasion, something that always makes me laugh, because 3 people cannot possibly be in a dozen different countries all at once.
The thing to remember about stats is that there is always a delay and that they can be quirky as they update themselves.
LikeLike
@ insanitybytes22
What a bunch of comments! I think folks have a bunch of mixed feeling about that “like” function.
Here is the last post I wrote on it => https://citizentom.com/2015/08/27/so-you-liked-my-post-my-about-page-my-comment/.
You read it, but others may find it interesting. Since I have closed comments, I suppose they can comment here if they want to so.
LikeLiked by 1 person
…spitefully clicking “like” on the way out… rofl
LikeLike
I liked this. AND I read it. Well, actually I read and browsed it 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
LOL! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person