It's toxic. a form of oneupmanship social capital. we all use it subconsciously to big up people (with the loudist voices / I'm not absolving myself here) but that can mean not engaging with people properly or really having to think through what they say. or more prosaically it being halled out as a form of character judgment. It does not indicate that the post is actually useful, it's analogous to head nodding. this is why i propose that we get rid of the button so that more quoting, measured and thoughtful responses can be encouraged.
It is all those things, but removing it won't make engagement here better. In the other place before they had "likes" you just got one line posts saying "agree".
the like button here isn't the main reason why there isn't as much quoting, measured and thoughtful responses, engagement etc in my view:
There are less people here now, which I would say is a combination of factors including
a. more endorphine hits from social media
b. the association of this place with a particular moment in time which has now gone (bloggers into grime, pre-facebook, etc)
c. the intensification of the capitalist crisis meaning less of us can fuck around on the internet all day
d. people who were posters in the heyday are now older and might be interested in different things or are cynical about the value of online discourse, or have become professors or something
e. spending 9-5 in a windowless bunker looking at screens, maybe Nina has a point about going outside
f. we're all going to die in a tidal wave of human pollution in the next twenty years unless there is an incredibly violent worldwide proletarian revolution so what is the point