I'm not sure that anyone has yet suggested that a thumbs feature be a default.
It might be best implemented as an option with each post made—a checkbox that
lets you add the feature to a given post—rather than as something which gets
turned on or turned off for the entirety of a journal.
There are all sorts of options present on LJ that some people hate and other
people love, any of which could be considered to be altering the overall tone
of the user culture— depending on your point of view. Some folks were
completely up in arms when LJ added embeds as an option, decrying the very
existence of that choice as something that was turning LJ into another
Facebook. Other users don't even like the fact that there's a rich text editor
and think everyone should have to do their entries in straight HTML. Most
recently, a fair number of people have freaked out over the LoudTwitter posts
popping up all over their friendspages. I don't use embedding as a general
rule, just like I've turned off the scrollover web previews, and I've used
custom CSS to block LoudTwitter's output. But I wouldn't deny those features to
other people just because I personally find them annoying.
There's nothing that says that the culture of a social networking site can or
should stay fixed in stone: the latest trend on Facebook is for grandparents to
sign up so they can catch up on what their grandkids are up to. Hardly what the
founders envisioned when they started the site, one would imagine.
principia_coh
Alexis Carpenter
----- Nora Bombay wrote:
|I can, and it isn't just an argument involving this- I think a hands
up/clap/whatever could be very useful in communities & for certain |purposes. I
think it would be a very poor choice for a default option on personal journals.
|
|One of the reasons to consider a feature is the social transformation it will
involve. How will the existance of the feature alter the |landscape and
personality of the site? If it became a default to have personal entries
graded in some way, what change does |that cause in the entire user culture?
|
| It could be good changes, or it could be bad. And there is no way to
anticipate what use features would be put to.
|But the possible cultural change evoked by new features is not something to
dismiss out of hand.
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