New Post Ratings Installed

[railsquid]

Personally I'm not keen on the dislike/disagree buttons - I feel if someone isn't in agreement or doesn't like something, they should actually say it and their reasoning for it rather than hiding behind casual passive-aggressive button clicks.

I remember RMweb had a "disagree" (and IIRC one other somewhat negative button) for a while, and the level of discourse improved quite a bit once they were removed.

I do like not having to scroll back to the top of the message to add a "Thank you".

[Snowwolflair]

Seriously "if it aint broke don't fix it"

In the EMO world you add lots of EMOticons to provoke.  EMOS are generally teenage and spotty and not old enough to express them selves by proper English, so not many of our members.

A "Thank you" button at the bottom is enough the rest is frankly unsuitable for a model railway forum.

Can we have a vote whether to get rid of them please @Tank

[JasonBz]

I think the overall installation of a  a few buttons to express ones views on a post can save a lot of the very short "great work" or  "me too" type posts which can clog up threads.

The "clogging up" your describe also happens to be the basic human interaction that makes this forum so friendly. Not everyone needs every post to include technical details and insight. Sometimes reading those kind words about what somebody likes encourages you to do more modelling and post more often.

Clicking a button to say "well done" removes the human aspect. It's rather like those pre-recorded announcements at stations apologising for the later running of a certain train. Worthless and empty.

Cheers, NeMo

Sorry, but I have to disagree there.
There is nothing much worse (forum wise) to see a thread you are interested in has grown, and then find its just six people copying the whole post just to add "great work mate" as their sole addition, oh and maybe a few smilies  thrown in for extra effect 
I would much rather be able to compliment someone on a job well done by showing them my approval via giving their input an "upvote" - I am never going to just say "well done mate" so I dont say anything.

[Bob Tidbury]

 I think just the thumbs up or down ,the Thankyou and maybe the smiley for some of the jokes will be a good idea and keep them at the bottom of the post
That way you can agree or disagree say Thankyou if someone has helped you solve a problem and smile at someone's joke ,in my opinion that's all you need.
I don't know what the rainbow ,the spanner or the one at the end are anyway.
Bob Tidbury

[njee20]

I recall when I looked on the PC last night the rainbow was "optimistic" the paintbrush was "creative". I forget the spanner.

While we're all throwing our £0.02 into the ring I would:

- Slim them down a bit, agree/like/thank you are all useful though IMO
- get rid of the animation, I can't stand all the animated emoticons on here and having a row of them on every post is a bit distracting.

Meant as constructive criticism, I appreciate the work Tank et al are doing.

[Lawrence]

Lets give the new system a go for a couple of months, the boys behind the scenes can look at the analytics to see how they are being used, or not, then, in line with the democratic ethos of this forum, we could put it to the vote whether or not to keep it as is or revert to the old system. No third option on keeping bits of it as that would just cause disagreement too.

[port perran]

My view is just stay  with the Thank You button.
I can't really see myself using any of the others I'm afraid.
But then,....I'm just an old stick in the mud.

[Newportnobby]

I'm happy to see the heart thudding away as it reminds me I'm still on Planet Earth (although some may debate that) As to the rest, I doubt I'll be using many of them much but there are some who will and, as Lawrence has suggested, maybe some analytics after a couple of months will sort things out.
(First sentence was a stab at graveyard humour BTW)

[mickeyflinn]

I have to agree with @Snowwolflair & @port perran - "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

Before I retired in February, the company I worked for were renowned for "fixing" things that wern't broken to improve everything for the workers. Trouble is, it rarely worked.

I'm another vote for the return of the simple "Thank You" button.

[emjaybee]

I'm happy to see the heart thudding away as it reminds me I'm still on Planet Earth (although some may debate that) As to the rest, I doubt I'll be using many of them much but there are some who will and, as Lawrence has suggested, maybe some analytics after a couple of months will sort things out.
(First sentence was a stab at graveyard humour BTW)

Haven't weighed in on this as yet...

...oops, too late.

What's the point of all the icons? Just been tinkering, thinking I can say "Thank-you, I agree", or Thank-you, I like it", but you can't. You can only use one icon at any one time.

So, all I'm likely to do is say "Thank-you" and then post a reply below.

[Claude Dreyfus]

Personally I'm not keen on the dislike/disagree buttons - I feel if someone isn't in agreement or doesn't like something, they should actually say it and their reasoning for it rather than hiding behind casual passive-aggressive button clicks.

I remember RMweb had a "disagree" (and IIRC one other somewhat negative button) for a while, and the level of discourse improved quite a bit once they were removed.

The other option was 'Indecipherable/Unclear'. It was perhaps the most unhelpful and misused of the emoticons. A couple of members clearly had difficulty expressing themselves in writing, through whatever reason, and it seemed that every post they made some smart-arse would hit that button. Odd, because others made the effort to find out what he meant and some interesting threads came about because of it. It was often also used as a passive-aggressive reaction when threads got a little heated (as things do from time to time).

Emoticons do have their place, they help remove so many of the unnecessary clutter that loads of 'Me too' or 'Good work' create in a thread. But too many options make things confusing.

From a visual perspective, I don't particularly like them... especially the animated examples. They are somewhat distracting.

[daffy]

As mentioned before, let's just give it time. There are too many choices, and they are too close together IMHO, but something more than just 'Thanks' would be useful.
Only after a period of time will @Tank get a full picture of how they are being used/abused.

At that time maybe a Poll could be run, with possible options having tick boxes, so a proper consensus - at least from those who are moved to take part - could be taken, with one of the options being to return to the original single option.

Right, I'm off to the kitchen to have a nice hot cuppa:

[Buffin]

There is nothing much worse (forum wise) to see a thread you are interested in has grown, and then find its just six people copying the whole post just to add "great work mate" as their sole addition, oh and maybe a few smilies  thrown in for extra effect 

I would just have Agreed with this, but the Agree option had disappeared. How Disagreeable! 

FWIW I would let the new options run for a couple of weeks. Some will get used and I'm sure some won't. Then decide. Meanwhile, I'd find it Agreeable if Agree reappeared.

[Tank]

I am reading your replies, and have cut some of the icons out that I have seen aren't popular.

I do wish some members were more willing to give things a go, rather than out rightly not liking change.  If I went along with not changing anything from when the forum started then I'm quite sure that the forum wouldn't be as popular as it is now.

I shall make the icons static over the next day or so, as I was trying to make some of the icons more familiar to the smilies we already use, but I can now see that they are distracting.

[Innovationgame]

I would have thought that, if members want to say more than "Thankyou", the best option is to post a reply.  If you're quoting, delete all the parts of the post in the quote that are irrelevent to the reply.  In particular, re-posting photos and videos is rather pointless, unless for a specific purpose.  My main complaint at the moment is that, with the Thankyou moved from the top of the post, I have to scroll all the way to the bottom simply to find out if I have already said Thankyou, whereas before, I could see that the Thankyou button had disappeared at the top of the post.  Also, we are not getting notifications of Thankyous any more.  However, I think Tank is right to experiment and try to get a spectrum of opinion on his suggestions and changes.  Keep up the good work.