What kind of post reactions does TFF need?

chronodekar

Obsessively signs his posts
Staff member
#1
Some of you may have noticed a new feature on TFF - individual post reactions. It's the funny icon at the bottom-right of a lot of posts. If you haven't seen it yet, feel free to experiment around in this thread. By default, here is the full list of reactions we have,


I'm trying to customize the list and am looking for community input. Basically, there are 2 questions that need answering,
  • what reactions would be useful on TFF?
  • what icons should we use for them?
Before everyone starts jumping in to suggest anything, let me make a few things clear - this is NOT a democratic/popular vote issue. Any TFF member can make suggestions, but at the end of the day, I will make the final call - no arguments beyond that. Hopefully, we'll have something settled within a week or two. Or a month. It might even be an evolving thing.

About icons, we can rename/reuse anything in the default list. If we are going to replace them with something else, there are a few things to bear in mind - the icons/images should be free for ANY use. Granted, TFF doesn't charge anyone at the moment, but if we ever decide to switch over to using ads, I think it best we keep our options open. Very important - the icons shouldn't be too big (in terms of file-size). Some of us like reading TFF on mobile devices/low speed internet and we don't want them to suffer by forcing them to download mega-bytes of reaction icons.

-chronodekar
 
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chronodekar

Obsessively signs his posts
Staff member
#2
/rant

Boring technical details:

Reactions isn't a native Xenforo feature. We get it from https://www.themehouse.com/xenforo/2/addons/reactions

There were a LOT of customization options for it, and let me tell you - it's been a doozy of a time going about disabling a whole lot of them. Basically, it goes like this - the addon developers wanted to show-off how many reactions a user gifted (or received) and throw them into some kind of ranking system. I think. I don't care - we aren't facebook where more "likes" mean anything about a user specifically. It probably means that a particular post itself is good (hopefully, it was a story), but other than that, nothing.

Which meant, before starting THIS thread, I had to and hunt down ALL the options and places where the addon liked to advertise - under an individual user's avatar, on their profile page .. etc. It was looking for a needle in a haystack with a magnetic iron. Sure, the magnet helps, but the hay is just soo big.

The only thing left right now (that I can think of), is the whole "positive/neutral/negative" categories each reaction has. I initially wanted to get rid of it, but there isn't a simple way to do it. The only way, is to manually edit each and every reaction and mark it out. Or set everything to neutral. Because of the effort involved, I've decided to let it be. Should we keep it around? Haven't decided.

Just wanted to talk about stuff, but not worth the first post either.

-chronodekar
 
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Knyght

The Collector
#3
I'd be perfectly content with the 'Like' reaction alone, albeit with a less obnoxiously sized icon, as a way to show appreciation for a post when I otherwise wouldn't respond to it. Anything beyond that feels superfluous and if you wanted to express anything other than a basic 'Like' then it's probably worth the effort to actually make a post instead.

Keep it simple, y'know?
 

violinmana

(Hardcore) Gamer
#4
Is it possible to have a theme without the emojis, but rather just the text?

The emojis are obnoxious.
 

chronodekar

Obsessively signs his posts
Staff member
#5
I haven't experimented, but I think it should be possible to reduce the size. Let's see ...

/me experiments a bit

Nope. :( Can't figure out how to make it smaller. Hmm... let me dig into this a bit more.

-chronodekar
 

PCHeintz72

The Sentient Fanfic Search Engine mk II
#7
I've noticed it before, though not often. Shrugs, I'm not going to say by any means we should get rid of it (which does not seem to be an option you are looking for anyway), but at the same time I just fail to see the point of having them. It is located at the bottom of the post, by that point, the user/reader has already been exposed to the content of the post. Anyone using those as a guide also is then relying on the opinions of prior readers of the post. Something I'd never do as it would mean I'm relying on someone elses likes or dislikes of content to guide me in my forum experience.
 

Goldenfalls

Fic till you drop
#8
There's too many reactions right now, but I don't think we have to pare it down to only the like button. Sure, a generic "like" can cover a lot, but it's kind of fun to have other ratings. I like having a "funny" rating (though it looks like there's two in that list for some reason? And my preference is using the Tears of Joy emoji), and I think the "friendship" rating with the heart could be useful when you want to express sympathy (especially when the post is about something bad happening so it'd be weird if you "liked" it).

Other than that, I think the "indifferent" rating might be useful or might be just frustrating: it does let the poster know that people actually saw and considered what they wrote and aren't just ignoring them, but it doesn't give them anything to address/doesn't continue conversation and I think it could be frustrating especially if applied to stories. Like, it's great to know two people were indifferent to your fic especially if you don't know whether it was because of the way you wrote it/something that could be improved or just because that user isn't really fond of the genre your fic is. I feel the same way about the "disagree" rating in that it doesn't create conversation or debate, and I think it might be better to exclude it. It's more useful in forums if someone says their contrary opinion and then others can like that post rather than just having negative ratings available on posts, since that actually fuels discussion.

I don't have much opinion on the rest. Maybe the Tada emoji could replace the icon for "winner" and it could be used as a celebration reaction? I feel like "informative" and "agree" could both be covered by the "like" reaction (though I wouldn't mind if they were separate), and I don't really think the granularity of the other reactions is very useful.
 

chronodekar

Obsessively signs his posts
Staff member
#10
Hmm... removing the "default" choice brings us an icon which feels a little less distracting ... I think. Let's see how it goes.

-chronodekar
 

Shirotsume

Not The Goddamn @dmin
#11
Like, Dislike, Indifferent, and Spelling, imo

Also, the new icon is significantly better.
 

Knyght

The Collector
#12
Can we make the actual Like (and Dislike) option match that blue reaction icon? Because yeah, that's so much better.
 

violinmana

(Hardcore) Gamer
#13
The real question is if it would work well with the theming. I think it works perfect with the two dark themes, but it's kinda weird on the default theme.
 

chronodekar

Obsessively signs his posts
Staff member
#14
Hmm.... yes, we could go with a more limited set of icons for now. But, and perhaps this is just me, to be different from facebook (and others) what do you folks think of labeling them as,

Approve : https://www.iconfinder.com/icons/1814079/approve_check_ok_yes_icon
Reject : https://www.iconfinder.com/icons/1814078/close_no_reject_icon
Grammar/Spelling : https://www.iconfinder.com/icons/1814074/draw_edit_pencile_write_icon
Indifferent : https://www.iconfinder.com/icons/1814110/close_less_minus_icon
Informative : https://www.iconfinder.com/icons/1814113/add_more_plus_icon

You can follow the links to see the icons. I've seen 'informative' used a bit, so felt like keeping it in.

-chronodekar
 

Shirotsume

Not The Goddamn @dmin
#15
Indifferent and informative need to be different, they wouldn't match their meaning at all.
 

chronodekar

Obsessively signs his posts
Staff member
#16
I spent almost an hour, before throwing my hands in the air and selecting those icons. Alternate suggestions will be appreciated.

-chronodekar
 

Shirotsume

Not The Goddamn @dmin
#17

chronodekar

Obsessively signs his posts
Staff member
#20
And the new reactions have been set. Thoughts?

-chronodekar
 

Shirotsume

Not The Goddamn @dmin
#21
My only comment is that it seems weird that all the icons are circles except the pencil. Other than that, seems good.
 

chronodekar

Obsessively signs his posts
Staff member
#22
More by accident that design, but let's just say no circle means you need improvement. ;)

-chronodekar
 
  • Needs Improvement Needs Improvement 2
  • Approve Approve 1
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Shirotsume

Not The Goddamn @dmin
#23
You are not yet worthy of the circle, young padawan.
 
  • Needs Improvement Needs Improvement 3
  • Approve Approve 1
  • Show all

Goldenfalls

Fic till you drop
#24
I like it, it fits exactly the width of my screen on mobile. So there's no scrolling required.
 

Knyght

The Collector
#25
This'll do. I'd like if it there was more of a gap between the reaction and your text and the Informative icon looks a lil' bigger than the others but this is an improvement overall.
 
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