I’m not sure how this happened, but I seem to have acquired 6% of @Arkenbrien’s daily likes. Since I have them, I was wondering how many people would be willing to trade me some of Ark’s likes for my own likes? I figure if I gain another 45%, then I’ll have the controlling majority on Ark’s “like” stock. At which point, I’ll be able to vote on a new direction for Ark’s “like” policy. If anyone would like to invest in such an endeavor, please let me know. Together, we can create greater value for all future likes.
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How valuable are @Skyentist likes to you? Would you consider a trade? I seem to have a surplus at the moment…
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I’d be willing to trade. Controlling Ark’s likes is something I have a personal interest in
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oh oh wait wait !
Call me visionary:
Infinity money callled: Likes
right ? 
… riiiight ?!? … 
… 
… 
ok ok i guess no…
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I know the feeling hutchings, I have a surplus of @Hutchings likes all over my profile.
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Nope. Malicious means there is an intent to do harm. Unless Ark wants to like everything in order to somehow harm something or someone, his actions aren’t malicious.
The like button is of questionable value anyway. I really don’t understand why it’s here.
I don’t know. Maybe you reply to it, saying something like “That was an awesome post! Here, have some candy!” Or hell, send a PM.
Ok. If it’s really just there as a spam trap, what damage, exactly, is done to it if people are less than discriminating about using it? And if a post is really, really good, isn’t it getting the same generic, lazy button click as something that was just slightly above the point of tedium doing the poster a major disservice?
Likes are just background noise.
No, worse, they’re Skinner boxes.
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So, if the term malicious isn’t appropriat, what term is? English isn’t my native language you know.
I think likes, when looking at all of them and not just a single example, are more then just noise.
The summarized topic view for instance works pretty well for gameplay idea threads.
Also. Those post with above 5 likes generally do have more “vallue” by representing more people, including a good idea or just being funny.
When reading a post and agreeing with it slightly, there is usually an emotional reaction. The like button allows for an imidiate action without the fuss of constructively backing off that simple emotion with arguments.
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I’ve looked at my profile to see which posts were liked the most. It was an fascinating encapsulation of forum member interest in various topics.
Only if you place value on receiving likes. To me, they are a feedback mechanism which is useful only in a relative fashion. Any moron can pander to get people to hit the like button, but if the poster is being sincere and the likes are sincere, then the feedback is useful. If the likes are not sincere, then the system goes into the scrap bucket.
We can’t have nice things in life because too many people aren’t interested in being sincere. Or far worse, of course.
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You forgot to mention that it’s also a wonderful expression of sarcasm button. 
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I can’t have nice things because they’re more likely to get stolen or destroyed by inconsiderate a-holes. I’m very sincere about that.
On a more deliberate note, people can like a post for a variety of reasons, and as such, sincerity can’t be determined, let alone what they liked about the post. I mean I could like your post for the use of “moron” and “pander” in the same sentence or perhaps I’m dyslexic and thought you got an insane number of BJs. You wouldn’t know unless I told you.
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That would fall under “far worse, of course”. “Nice things” in this context is stuff like likes or editing a post after a time limit is up, or countless other forum restrictions that are intended to stop people from doing destructive things.
Yes, you could. We can always come up with “what if” scenarios that are a couple standard deviations off the median, but the bottom line is that I can look at the likes on my posts and infer what gets people sufficiently enthused to click that button.
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So you could tell if everyone on the forum suddenly decided to troll you?
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Of course. Suddenly posts that under usual circumstances would receive no likes are receiving dozens. The advantage of statistical analysis is precisely to be able to spot such irregular behaviour (and under ideal circumstances, filter it out).
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Now you’re applying a subjective filter to your statistics. If you think your post would, under normal circumstances, receive more likes than average and you got trolled by a normal sample size during that same sampling, then your statistical conclusion fails.
The interpretation of the “like” button is as subjective as its usage. Statistics has no place here.
With a large enough random sample, statistics can give pretty accurate insight into what likes are used for and how they are used…
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Actually, I’m having way more fun reading a debate about people talking about other people liking their posts and analysis and purpose thereof rather than actually liking their posts.
I’m going to have to create more slightly controversial threads in the future.
Carry on.
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I gave up on trying to understand most of what is said on here months ago. A lot of it is just banter.
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Of course it would tell you what likes are used for and how they’re used. It’s kind of in the definition to “like” something. Most people across a large enough random sample will use the button to indicate that they found something positive out of a post simply because that’s what “liking” something means.
But we haven’t been talking about what they’re using a like button for…we’re talking about WHY they like it. Any interpretation at that point is subjective. If you’re going to try and use statistics to divine that question, then you also have to start narrowing the topics of posts that are liked down to much narrower subject matters in order for any conclusion to have meaning. If you have to start purposely selecting and rejecting posts that have been liked in order to get a sensible meaning, then your entire statistical analysis is based on your subjective interpretation of that subject matter. In which case, you would be better suited to creating a questionnaire that asks people why they liked a post, and if you have to ask people why they liked a post, then doing a statistical analysis at that point to find out why they liked the post is rather redundant.
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A researcher can objectively rate the posts being evaluated on things such as, humor, seriousness, complexity, sarcasm, helpfulness and many other criteria. They might find the reason why people “like” the most is helpfulness or humor. So I think you are underestimating the power of statistical analysis.
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