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What does Thumb Down mean?


!Friendica Support
How should we use the Thumbs Down reaction emoji? To express our feelings about the content of the post (eg. oh god what has Trump done now) or to condemm the post itself as spam or inappropriate?

I've been afraid to use this thumbs down, but there are a lot of valuable posts I don't want to give a thumbs up to.

Are there any consequences to posts getting thumbs down i.e. are they flagged for moderator attention?

Friendica Support reshared this.

in reply to fionag11

@fionag11 Good question. I think of it as "I don't like this post". But to be honest, I can't remember if I've ever used it. It seems rude and unhelpful.
in reply to Noam writes

agree - that's why I don't use it unless it were blatant spam, which I've never encountered on here

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in reply to fionag11

@fionag11 They're not flagged for moderator attention afaik. I've disliked things and haven't seen any reports, and I just did both a test report from my other account, and disliked something from my other account. The report showed up, but not the dislike. Feel free to give this a thumbs down to see if remote thumbs-downing functions differently, though.

As a user I don't use it much, I just scroll past most things. When I've used it it was just to mark things I didn't want to see again. Hell, you can like *and* dislike a post at the same time. Not sure what the function is, especially since the broader fediverse doesn't get them, though people on Friendica will on posts that come from Friendica afaik

fionag11 doesn't like this.

in reply to Gizmo Gadabout

I gave you a thumbs down as an experiment. Thanks for looking into this.

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in reply to fionag11

Probably the most important consequence: Mastodon ignores thumbs-down, but treats thumbs-up as a "favourite". Or at least, that's what happened when I tested it just now. I've heard rumours of other platforms treating thumbs-down the same as thumbs-up or any other reaction. I almost never use thumbs-down, because if I'm going to use a standardised reaction, might as well use the lowest common denominator.

I guess the feature is in Friendica because Friendica consciously imitated Facebook. And Facebook has it because people demanded it for years. If you're reacting to a Friendica user, probably the appropriate semantics are whatever Facebook people use it for.

in reply to Matthew Exon

@Matthew Exon @fionag11
This feature is very relevant for other Fediverse projects. I also follow some mbin or Lemmy groups, where it is used according to the local definition. Since it is an option that the user must first activate, it should be rather inconspicuous. Furthermore, it is part of the ActivityPub standard.
in reply to fionag11

Interesting @Matthew Exon , because Facebook doesn't have the thumb down anymore. It has replaced it with a more expressive collection of emojis so one can express surprise, sadness, support, or anger at the content of a post without implying objection to the existence of the post itself. Maybe Friendica should move that way too - at it seems the thumb down is not very useful at all atm.

Not that we want to be toxic like Facebook, but I don't think there's that danger since we don't have their algorithm. I like giving and getting a reaction to show that a post is seen and appreciated, without making a comment just for the sake of making a comment. Otherwise it feels like posting into a void with no sense of community or engagement.

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in reply to fionag11

Ha, that's me humble-bragging about how long ago I gave up Facebook again 😂 I think "react with any emoji" like Akkoma is the way to go, especially since Friendica already supports displaying those.
in reply to Matthew Exon

and here's the open feature request for that: github.com/friendica/friendica/issues/12805

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in reply to fionag11

@fionag11 @Matthew Exon I believe it's in the works, there is support in the standard and in other platforms for emoji reactions.

Friendica has partial support currently for it, if you're on the latest version we can see those reactions but not make them yet. I imagine the biggest blocker there is the lack of front-end devs for Friendica, since that involves creating a new interface.

in reply to Ji Fu (Domestic Terrorist)

@Ji Fu (Domestic Terrorist) uh... this is not only 5 days old but you missed that it's replying to a comment on the original?

The comment I was replying to was talking about the option of replying with any emojii like Akkomma and some other platforms, so I was telling them it's in the works...

in reply to fionag11

"thumbs down" is a dislike. It is mostly only processed by Friendica and Lemmy (although it is part of the standard). It is nothing bad and nothing wrong about using it.
in reply to fionag11

My understanding is it is like a down-vote, but Friendica doesn't rank posts, so maybe only Lemmy makes use of it? I don't know. Regardless you can disable showing it under Settings > Display > Content/Layout. It is weird that you can both "Like" and "Dislike" a post, you'd think they should cancel each other out but they don't.
in reply to fionag11

@fionag11

Using it to show disagreement on content or to express dislike for the information itself.
It can be used for to vote on things.

in reply to fionag11

@fionag11 You can hide/disable that feature in your settings. Also an advantage of running your own instance, like I do. Go to /settings/display then choose Content/Layout, remove the check from "Display the Dislike feature" and click on "Save settings".
This entry was edited (2 months ago)
in reply to fionag11

@fionag11 it's also used as the DOWNVOTE option when connecting to a group on a platform that supports such and uses it for prioritization, like Lemmy, Mbin and Piefed.
in reply to fionag11

Actually, looking at the layout and the immediate one click options at hand, staring a post is way more useful as a tool than the few times one uses the thumbs down. I wonder if it wouldn't be reasonable to change the layout so the thumbs down is part of the drop down menue and staring at hand for a one click action.
@Michael 🇺🇦 @Hypolite Petovan
in reply to utopiArte

It's not a "star" like starring things on Mastodon, which is a post engagement. Starring a post on Friendica is just "favoriting" or "bookmarking" it for yourself, which is why it is in the drop-down menu of actions you can take just for you regarding a post. A "dislike" is an "action button" post engagement that gets shown to everyone. They are categorically different things for different purposes.
in reply to Random Penguin

@Random Penguin
Thx for explaining these details for those out here in the fedi that might misunderstand.

As pointed out:

staring a post is way more useful as a tool


This consideration is not about same categories but how often an option is used and how useful it is. Staring -> bookmarking, especially in combination with the settings for expiration of posts is quite important, and actually only available in initial posts, not answers. It deserves to be a one click option.

@Michael 🇺🇦 @Hypolite Petovan

in reply to utopiArte

in reply to Random Penguin

in reply to utopiArte

btw @Random Penguin, just saw that the term bookmark is used in /settings/display -> timelines.