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

[penpencilbrush@mstdn.social]

@sarae That was a whole lotta mansplaining. I admire your restraint.

[nev@flipping.rocks]

@sarae i'm so old i remember when "likes" on Twitter and Facebook didn't actually increase a post's visibility either because the timeline was strictly reverse chronological. i am 40 and apparently am the oldest person by far alive on earth, with amazing powers of memory that scientists are still trying to unravel

[superball@norcal.social]

@nev LOLLL. I was so annoyed when they implemented that. My likes were supposed to be to the individual, not for the world to see! When I came to Mastodon, I breathed a sigh of relief about that!

@sarae

[donelias@mastodon.cr]

@mastodonmigration favorites (and boosts) are used to fill explore timelines @sarae

[raphaelmorgan@disabled.social]

@moss @sarae @awawawa it's a great way to bridge the gap between "no one cares" and "no one knows what to say"
The latter is a much easier truth to accept!

[xenophora@mastodon.art]

@schratze @sarae

I've seen it a few times and I just ignore it. I like a lot of stuff, but wouldn't boost it all because if I do, I can't delegate at least 25% of my brain to putting forth my own nonsensical jabbering.

[naturepunk@ecoevo.social]

@sarae I think fav's are an important part of how Masto works. They can mean loads of things.

I both liked and boosted your post because I want other people to see it and I want to reinforce the fact to you that I did that because I fully support it.

My favourite kinds of Fav are the ones the ones that are summed up with the Welsh word cwtch. A whole range of supportive warm feelings being sent the posters way as appropriate

[bradbury@ruby.social]

@sarae - Sometimes a post says everything perfectly, adding some comment is not required and sometimes my brain is only functioning just enough to touch the little ️ icon.

[nini@oldbytes.space]

@sarae I always treat a fav as a little "I like this" between me and the tooter.

[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.