Feature Request: Upvote / Like button

I still don't grasp why everyone is losing their minds over this proposal. I’m talking about having two or three different ways to sort posts. Right now, we only have a chronological feed. You can track a conversation that way, sure—but look at how messy it gets. George told Peter he was being an idiot, then Peter snapped back with a comment about his feet smelling, followed by Jane jumping in to reply to something buried ten pages ago, and then George ends up cursing out Peter again...

The glaring flaw in our current system is that there isn't a way to handle "esquelle-style" replies effectively. If you quote a lengthy post just to say, "I agree, this is great," you end up creating a massive wall of text that serves no purpose. Having better sorting options would be incredibly useful in the politics section, where discussions constantly drift off course or devolve into petty bickering about things completely unrelated to the original topic. For instance, on a thread about doctors leaving the US, you might get some guy under a handle like "Zionist USA" who stubbornly insists that doctors are somehow more important than any other profession. That has nothing to do with the actual topic. But because he’s being provocative, people lash out at him, he snaps back, and it becomes a cycle. All that nonsense isn't worth reading, yet when everything is sorted strictly by time, it clutters the thread and kills any meaningful debate.

If people like the chronological view, they can keep using it. However, some users would probably prefer to sort by upvotes or downvotes. We could simply add a "Sort" dropdown menu next to the "Time" option, featuring "Plus" and "Minus." Wouldn't that be progress? Just a simple sort menu and two small icons: a blue plus and a red minus.

nimbleharbor10 said:I still don't grasp why everyone is losing their minds over this proposal. I’m talking about having two or three different ways to sort posts. Right now, we only have a chronological feed. You can track a conversation that way, sure—but look at how messy it gets. George told Peter he was being an idiot, then Peter snapped back with a comment about his feet smelling, followed by Jane jumping in to reply to something buried ten pages ago, and then George ends up cursing out Peter again...

The glaring flaw in our current system is that there isn't a way to handle "esquelle-style" replies effectively. If you quote a lengthy post just to say, "I agree, this is great," you end up creating a massive wall of text that serves no purpose. Having better sorting options would be incredibly useful in the politics section, where discussions constantly drift off course or devolve into petty bickering about things completely unrelated to the original topic. For instance, on a thread about doctors leaving the US, you might get some guy under a handle like "Zionist USA" who stubbornly insists that doctors are somehow more important than any other profession. That has nothing to do with the actual topic. But because he’s being provocative, people lash out at him, he snaps back, and it becomes a cycle. All that nonsense isn't worth reading, yet when everything is sorted strictly by time, it clutters the thread and kills any meaningful debate.

If people like the chronological view, they can keep using it. However, some users would probably prefer to sort by upvotes or downvotes. We could simply add a "Sort" dropdown menu next to the "Time" option, featuring "Plus" and "Minus." Wouldn't that be progress? Just a simple sort menu and two small icons: a blue plus and a red minus.

Let's look at it this way. This guy gets hit with ten dislikes per post. You really think people aren't going to read what he writes? If you set the filter to only show positive posts, things would get incredibly messy. You’d end up skipping over certain replies entirely, losing the context of how a conversation evolved, and you might miss some key info needed for the debate itself.

Sophia Thomas7 said:Let's look at it this way. This guy gets hit with ten dislikes per post. You really think people aren't going to read what he writes? If you set the filter to only show positive posts, things would get incredibly messy. You’d end up skipping over certain replies entirely, losing the context of how a conversation evolved, and you might miss some key info needed for the debate itself.

Some news sites use that kind of sorting, and it’s useless. Take CNN, for example; their comment section works like that, and it's a nightmare. You read the top post, realize it's an answer to something else, and then you have to dig through layers of junk just to find the context. In the end, if you actually want to follow a discussion, sticking to chronological order is the only way to go.

Screw Facebook and these damn likes. ☕

Wait, you join a forum, start a thread like this, and then what? You were just expecting everyone to agree with you without any actual debate? 🤷

If all you wanted was some validation, maybe you should've just posted this on Facebook so your friends could hit the "like" button.

I'm all for it

Kudos to the Facebook generation, but honestly, hitting like is just noise.

If you're on my side, I'm liking it. If not... well, dislike. Just pure muscle memory at this point.

Brenda Hayes16 said:If you actually look at the post I quoted, it’s pretty clear what you wrote. You specifically mentioned liking posts—you didn't say anything about PMs or DMs.

Which subforum even allows us to spam praise by quoting people ten times over?

And honestly, sending private messages just to "like" a post? That’s hilarious. Who actually does that? Only someone with way too much free time, probably. The whole point of an online community is to interact publicly and share opinions where everyone can see them.

It would be totally brainless to turn an American forum into Facebook.☕
That's just what those FB influencers want—people who need an ego boost from likes.

George Sanders37 said:Wait, you join a forum, start a thread like this, and then what? You were just expecting everyone to agree with you without any actual debate? 🤷

If all you wanted was some validation, maybe you should've just posted this on Facebook so your friends could hit the "like" button.

And apparently, those of us who've been here for years don't actually know our own minds, so he thinks he can enlighten us.

Listen, OP, if you think sorting by likes would actually surface "useful" posts—even in a specialized sub-forum—you're dreaming.
First off, based on how forums work, likes aren't always tied to quality; they’re subjective.
Second, imagine a thread about moving to a different state. Someone writes a great, detailed guide, gets tons of likes, and hits the top of the thread. Then someone else replies: "Hey, that info was true last month, but things have changed since then." If that second comment doesn't get likes, it gets buried. The person looking for facts ends up with outdated info. Third, since some threads stay active for years, a high like count on a post from three years ago doesn't mean much today.
Fourth, fifth...

The whole point of a forum isn't just a database of objective facts. It's about exchanging perspectives from people with totally different life experiences. If you don't listen to all sides of the story, you aren't really getting the help you came for.

I’m seeing some new options popping up in the subscription threads. Honestly, it’s about time someone actually put in the effort to optimize things around here... finally. 🙂
It makes it way easier to just write off a thread and move on.
But I don’t really see the point of having a specific "reply to thread" option, unless we're talking about those very niche topics that aren't even meant to be actual conversations—you know, like those "what are you listening to right now" posts.
Then again, let's be real—it’s all just a single mouse click difference anyway, so even in those cases, there isn't much of an actual advantage...