As some of you may have already noticed, we've implemented a new 'likes' system on MSO. If you visit any other forums you may have seen the same system before. This likes system is completely separate from the current Facebook likes system and is fully contained to MSO. This new 'likes' is not so much about sharing content, as the Facebook system is, and is more about making it easy to find important information on MSO. Now here's a brief intro so you know what to do and why you should do it!
Liking posts is easy! Hover over a post and the like button appears. Click it! Do it now! If you've already liked a post then this button will appear us 'Unlike'. If you are feeling particularly mean and vengeful you can unlike something.
The more important part of this likes system, and the part that will make it easier to find content, is the 'Likes tree'. Once a thread has some 'Likes' in it, the likes tree will appear at the top of the thread. The likes tree shows all the posts that have been liked in the thread. The posts with the most likes will will be shown in the list by default (you can click to see them all if you like). Take a look at this example:
Overtime some threads become incredibly long and this makes it very hard to find important and useful posts. The likes treeview gives you an instant "birds-eye-view" of the 'Likes' distribution in a thread, allowing you to *quickly* identify the most useful/important content, no matter how long the conversation is. This new feature allows people to extract more value out of forums in less time. If you stumble across a 50 page thread and one of the posts has hundreds of likes you can be pretty sure that that post was important to that thread.
Now because this system will make it easier to find content, I strongly encourage everyone to like every post they find useful; it only takes 1 click! If we do this it will make MSO much easier to browse and we hopefully won't need to open so many threads about the same thing!
In addition to being able to find content more easily, the likes system will soon be used to improve our Google search results. Threads with more likes will be weighted higher in our search results because users have found more important content within them!
FAQ:
(I'll add more Qs and answers as they get asked)
Q. Is there any way to disable getting notifications every time someone likes my posts?
A. Unfortunately at this time, no. Within the next couple of months this option will become available.
Q. Can I see what posts I've liked?
A. Yes! On your profile page there is a link to see what likes you have received and have given.
