So. The idea came up yesterday of having the ability to upvote blog comments. Many times, after someone’s posted a particularly informative and well-researched comment — or a particularly pithy one — I’ve longed for the upvote button, only to be left with itchy fingers and no way of casting that vote.
Turns out though, according to He Who Fakes It Well, that the upvote ability (upvotability?) is already built into one of our WordPress plugins and needs only be activated.
The question is now: do you want it? If you say you do, it’s a simple matter of a few clicks.
As I understand it, this is strictly for “likes.” No downvotes, no smiting, no using it to disagree with somebody or protest a troll. Just a little reward.
What do you think?
Seems to me that the comment section works fine as it is. Those who want to “upvote” simply do so in a few (or many) words. And that leaves room for thoughtful disagreement as well. It’s not broken, so I’d say don’t “fix” it. 🙂
But, of course, it’s your blog.
Sounds good, Claire. May I also suggest enabling threaded/nested commenting?
https://wordpress.org/support/topic/add-threadednested-comments/
Not sure that your comment volume would make that too useful, except in a few cases. Then, it might be nice.
Now what I CAN’T STAND is the ‘continue reading’ arrangement…..
Might be interesting to turn it on and see how many people even notice. It isn’t exactly intrusive.
rochester_veteran — Threaded comments were turned on by default when the blog moved to its own site (from Backwoods Home) earlier this year. I disliked them because it made it hard to find the most recent comments. Others liked them. By a very narrow vote of the Commentariat, we decided to disable them.
I do like that comments that are replies to somebody are bordered in gray.
Two minds: I’d say that MamaLiberty well covers the bases, but there are times when I would “like” a comment if I could, though I haven’t much to add.
And I, also, am not thrilled with the “continue reading” feature, but appreciate consecutive, rather than threaded comments.
I agree with ML as well.
Sure, enable upvoting. It may help identify the most valuable comments and commentators. Those who don’t want upvoting are free to ignore it.
I like “upvoting” (and, for that matter “downvoting” as well, if that’s available!). If I like a comment but don’t have anything particularly useful to add (rare, I know, but still . . . ) clicking a “thumbs up” icon is better (and takes up less space in the thread) than typing “What he said” or “+1 ML” or whatever.
And FWIW I agree with Claire on the nested comments idea. Don’t like them. They make it far too easy to miss a new comment, especially in an active thread. Thumbs down on that one! 😡
Well, let’s see how this works…
Are we liking the blog, or the comment here?
I’m asking because LIKE is below the blog, not below any comment.
(And, sorry, I didn’t get this comment in before time ran out.)
Have to laugh, after all this I can’t see the “like” any more than I can the ads. LOL Guess I’m lucky to see the comments! 🙂
I can’t see a comment “like” button. I also see a “like” button that applies to the blog post — which isn’t what we were aiming for. Heck, I assume you like my posts and if you don’t, I assume you’ll wander off.
HWFIW is working on the problem.
You should now see a thumbs up like button on both the post and comments. Clicking it adds a like, and clicking it again deletes the like. See what you think.
Ok by me as long as I don’t have to be anyone’s friend!
Thumbs Up works well. Deleting it didn’t work, it left the thumb red. Is it supposed to?
Ok, now I see the upvote thing. Still no ads. 🙂
Pat: “Thumbs Up works well. Deleting it didn’t work, it left the thumb red. Is it supposed to?”
No. Clicking it a second time deletes the “like” you registered with the first click, not the button. If you look at the count box beside the thumb, you’ll see the number change as you toggle like/dislike.
No, it doesn’t delete. It says I don’t have permission to UNLIKE. Not that I ever would anyway, but I was just trying the buttons.
I’d still like a thumbs-down “dislike” button! But I don’t really expect to get it. I’ve complained about that to the Wall Street Journal, too, and they just ignore me.
But I think I’ll start “liking” my own posts!
Yup, that works!
Pat: No, it doesn’t delete. It says I don’t have permission to UNLIKE.
For that, I think you have to be logged into the site.
HWFIW “Pat: No, it doesn’t delete. It says I don’t have permission to UNLIKE.
For that, I think you have to be logged into the site.”
Now I’m really confused! I should be logged in to what site?
All I was trying to do was test the LIKE thumb. I LIKEd your instruction, and then tried to UNLIKE it (for testing purposes). The thumb turned red, but the number (2) did not disappear. A short time later, I tried again and that’s when it said I had no permission. OK, that I understand, if I tried to LIKE twice on the same comment. But it’s the number I expected to disappear, not the thumb icon, and I’m still not sure if the UNLIKE is working as it should. I repeat: the number DID NOT disappear as expected.