seeing another round of "don't favorite posts on fedi"

[coba@gruene.social]

@sarae @colo_lee @GPJohnston it is very nice to assume someone just wants to share newfound knowledge.

maybe it is worded as "advice" because this a style of conversation people are used to.

you can also word it as "something I learned" and hope that others find useful so I am sharing it.

[earlytwix@sueden.social]

@sarae an not every post I write is meant to be distributed. Some posts are just for fun - or because I know my followers are interested in - but not the whole world

[firlefanz@writing.exchange]

@sarae

I favorite posts a LOT.

And that favorite could be an internet hug, an encouragement, a genuine like - basically a sign of interaction and possibly kindness.

We all need more kindness in life.

[nellie_m@autisticpri.de]

@sarae @GPJohnston @moss @awawawa

Sometimes e.g. in the actuallyAutistic group, people post kind of personal things, and even if they didn’t set it to followers only, I sometimes feel it should perhaps stay in the group. Then I just favour it, rather than boost.

Also, I have a pinned post about this very topic

[nellie_m@autisticpri.de]

@kimapr @sarae

wow, that’s interesting, thank you! I didn’t know that!

(Mastodon user here)

[primo@donphan.social]

@sarae I'm baffled. I remember discoursr on Twitter where people were displeased with faving pushing tweets into other peoples timelines, because they would have used retweets for that.

[nwengrov@tooot.im]

@sarae I click like/favouriote on anything that made my day brighter or that I find useful. If I think it may brighten the day or be useful for others in my feed, I also boost it. I like the idea that I can express my feelings about what I read in my feed with just a click, without worrying about whether I'm training some algorithm etc.

[sven222@soc.hardwarepunk.de]

@sarae Full ACK. If I see somebody posting something lovely I will favorite it. Some Artwork for example. If the artists has to sell it, to make his or her living, I will boost it. Also I'm happy, if somebody just likes what I'm posting. It tells me, that somebody is reading my output. So just hit the favorite button if you like something, the author will see it and thats good.

[qrreia@meow.social]

@sarae Wild if that's much of a discussion. I would have expected less of a "pragmatism and productivity only" from folks on here.

Then again, I suppose with how much people are broadly trained to always be promoting themselves on platforms, I shouldn't be all that surprised. Particularly given the size of the "empathy is bad, actually," crowd.

[dio9sys@haunted.computer]

@sarae If i like something, I fav it. If I need to read it later, I bookmark it. It's so weird the lengths people will go to try and recreate some kind of algorithmic magic on a network that's defined by its lack of black box algorithms

[oldclumsy_nowmad@mastodon.social]

@sarae

Thanks for 'speaking' out in favor of kindness and friendly feedback to others on social media. And against imposing limits on what 'favorite' means. It means different things, in different circumstances, as you and those in the thread have said. And it always means "I saw your message", which is enough to justify it.

Sometimes I even 'favorite' a post which describes something I detest (crimes, dirty trickery, rotten behavior, etc.), if I appreciate being informed about it.

[tykayn@mastodon.cipherbliss.com]

@sarae fav to this!

however i saw some studies that show that faving decreases the dialogue between people, which turns to more isolation, which is not the most we expect from social medias

[foobarsoft@mastodon.social]

@sarae Feels a bit like this may tell you something about the people who say that. That they don’t see value unless it’s something that expands someone’s reach. A bit of the “influencer” mindset.

What’s wrong with just saying “I like this!”?

[steggy@sunny.garden]

@sarae I can just about muster a Gen X “whatever” to this. I will continue to favorite posts, and probably do it even more now I know that it annoys the self-appointed Mastodon HOA board.

[elleninedmonton@mstdn.ca]

@EarlyTwix @sarae
I find it somewhat jarring when a follower boosts my post without any interaction, especially if it's part of a discussion thread.
Also, I never follow anyone whose entire feed is just boosts. I want to read original content, not something that's recycled, unless it's really critical information that I might have otherwise missed.

[tuuktuuk@piipitin.fi]

@sarae @lalah

Commenting does *decrease* post conversation visibility, though. The worse the noise-to-signal ratio, the earlier people give up reading a thread

[tanekrune@mstdn.ca]

@sarae
I just like sometimes because my brain is broken and so I can remember if I've already read something or if I'm stuck in a loop.

So good luck getting me to stop.

[chrisjagged@mastodon.social]

@sarae

"Don't like, only boost" is just someone saying "I don't care about YOUR Fedi experience, what can you do for ME?"

[rozeboosje@masto.ai]

@sarae I would say it depends on what the toot is. If you think "I want other people to see this, too" I would suggest you "boost", and if you think "this speaks to me but it's not necessarily something that the entire world needs to see" you can "favourite". In any case, I most often do both.

[ninafelwitch@tech.lgbt]

@sarae
Excuse me, what the fuck?

Why wouldn't I favorite a post that I like? It shows the person who posted it that I like it.

And it shows up in my favorites list.
Clicking the 'fav' button has zero downsides. Why would anyone discourage its usage?