Personally i think you and others are just looking into it too much.

No one would have said a thing if it was there from day-1. It did originally when we used Xenforo to manage the site, before we switched my to my code, so it's essentially back how it was originally.

Quoting: GuestSuddenly changing an anonymous feature (liking comments) to a non-anonymous one without notice is not a great idea. There should at least be a way to unlike everything we’ve ever liked.

Do consider that even before this update, Liam has been able to see who liked what comments which presumably prompted this change. Understandable, but a little sneaky if true.

Quoting: tuubiHas anyone said why they'd want their comment likes to be anything but anonymous though? I just can't think why you'd need to see who exactly liked a comment unless you're trying to sort people into "friends and enemies". Of course there must be less childish reasons for wanting this, but I just hope this doesn't promote cliques in the community. Maybe the names should be visible only to the one who wrote the comment? Are my worries unfounded?

I can think of a few instances in which I am myself guilty of this "sniping" behavior. But without the context of why, it might appear that a comment is being liked simply to spite another user. Sure, a "why did you like this" form can be added but then why not just reply to the person?

This is going to be juicy for when fights disagreements break out in future and you can observe certain groups of members liking one side's comments and the opposing group liking only the other sides comments. Whoever mentioned the formation of cliques has good foresight.

"How it was originally" don't have any importance. You chose to work on it and take time to get it back for a reason. You think it's useful to know who likes who, not just for you as you're the admin and perfectly know who did what and where, but to show publicly to everyone how some group of people think different, because they liked this or that comment you consider as iffy. So to monitor people, point finger to and build clans.

I still see it as a bad move.

Quoting: AnxiousInfusion

Quoting: GuestSuddenly changing an anonymous feature (liking comments) to a non-anonymous one without notice is not a great idea. There should at least be a way to unlike everything we’ve ever liked.

Do consider that even before this update, Liam has been able to see who liked what comments which presumably prompted this change. Understandable, but a little sneaky if true.

Not sneaky at all, as the owner and coder I of course can see literally everything anyone does. I have full access to every part of GOL's systems, that should be obvious to anyone. How do you think the Like system ever worked if it didn't store your ID to a like so you can unlike it without it getting messy?

Quoting: AnxiousInfusion

Quoting: tuubiHas anyone said why they'd want their comment likes to be anything but anonymous though? I just can't think why you'd need to see who exactly liked a comment unless you're trying to sort people into "friends and enemies". Of course there must be less childish reasons for wanting this, but I just hope this doesn't promote cliques in the community. Maybe the names should be visible only to the one who wrote the comment? Are my worries unfounded?

I can think of a few instances in which I am myself guilty of this "sniping" behavior. But without the context of why, it might appear that a comment is being liked simply to spite another user. Sure, a "why did you like this" form can be added but then why not just reply to the person?

This is going to be juicy for when fights disagreements break out in future and you can observe certain groups of members liking one side's comments and the opposing group liking only the other sides comments. Whoever mentioned the formation of cliques has good foresight.

It's up to people how they want to use it, but this is how a vast array of other websites also work. And again, this is how GOL originally did it too, I just didn't have the time to re-do it when we switched to custom code, it's just going back to normal for us.

Quoting: Nel"How it was originally" don't have any importance. You chose to work on it and take time to get it back for a reason.

Like everything in life, some things take priority, while some don't.

Quoting: NelYou think it's useful to know who likes who, not just for you as you're the admin and perfectly know who did what and where, but to show publicly to everyone how some group of people think different, because they liked this or that comment you consider as iffy. So to monitor people, point finger to and build clans.

I still see it as a bad move.

I think you're over-blowing it. Again, this is how we used to do it and always planned to have it, this is how many other sites do it and so on.

It's an optional feature, you never have to touch it, and it doesn't affect anyone's ability to do anything here.

I just checked out all comments on last drama. And now I know who are my friends and who are my enemies!!!! LOL
There is clearly 2 clans fighting each other.

In wrong hands, this functionality can only stirs up hate between people.

Quoting: liamdaweNot sneaky at all, as the owner and coder I of course can see literally everything anyone does. I have full access to every part of GOL's systems, that should be obvious to anyone. How do you think the Like system ever worked if it didn't store your ID to a like so you can unlike it without it getting messy?

Again, I totally understand. I host my own services at an undisclosed domain name and can relate on a pathetically lower level. The only thing is, to what extent? Do you track how long a user has stayed on a page or when X user viewed X? Text that people typed but decided not to post (ala Facebook surveillance)? Is this code available on Git? It would be cool if this specific kind of info was in the TOS.

One last point of concern (which is extremely miniscule): there are often articles where every comment is great and I find myself liking each one but now people will can see and ponder "Gee, AnxiousInfusion liked *every* comment. Does he have any standards?" I've been conditioned by the upvote/downvote systems on link aggregation sites :/

I don't really do any user tracking beyond what is already shown publically, a few minor admin things like seeing exactly who reported a comment or a forum post. There is nothing for us to really add in a TOS as we do so little with what we have. A standard forum like phpbb, xenforo, vbulletin or whatever will track far far more than we do.

People are looking at likes the wrong way, it is just if you like, appreciate or agree with something, not really any other need for it.

This new functionality should be familiar to anyone who has ever used Disqus. Disqus shows profiles of who liked or disliked a comment. And I have to agree with Lin_Soldar in that people generally use "likes" as an agree/disagree button. This isn't necessarily a good or bad thing, just how the rest of the internet has conditioned everybody to view comment rating systems.