I think having likes work on comments exactly the way they work on posts (they already aren't publicly visible, which it sounds like some folks don't realize) would be simple & effective.
maybe an opt-in system
Being able to see who liked my comment or my post, but not who else liked whoever else's post would be nice, whereas I definitely wouldn't want a public facing upvote/downvote system. I actually rather **LIKE** the comments that are just "+1".
There's an effect I observe on places like Facebook and Twitter which is that when poeple like something they just click the little heart, and when people dislike something, they post a comment. You almost NEVER see posts like "I agree with this" or "Seconding that middle paragraph" or whatever on other sites and I see it all the time on Cohost. I don't view it as a negative, I view it as a feature.
If this gets implemented, I'd like the ability to hide the like count on my own comments, but still see notifications if someone likes one of my comments.
I definitely don't want to see like counts for comments made by other people.
One of the things that makes Cohost healthier for me is knowing as few numbers as possible.
@jgs
I'd like the ability to "like" comments, in order to let someone know that I appreciate their comment without having to make a comment of my own. I envision this as behaving similarly to likes on posts, in that it would be invisible to everyone but the liker and the commenter.
I could also see some sort of public-facing +1 or upvote system, which would have the added benefit of reducing the number of replies that are just "+1" or otherwise just expressions of agreement. However, I would not want this to become a full Reddit-style voting/ranking system.
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