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My position was fully expressed in my initial post. No new information necessary. The few folks who have responded seem to be ok with the 'like' convention, so I'll simply count myself in the minority.

In review of what you've indicated this has more to do with your "feelings" about the "Like" button going by how many times you indicated how you felt others must feel about its use on other photo hosting sites.

 

This thread is not about facts but your feelings about the "Like" button. Even if facts are brought forward it would still not change your feelings. Glad we got that cleared up.

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JDM, just curious, if someone 'likes' a picture you've posted in a thread, do you feel any sense of obligation to 'like' theirs as well, even if you don't particularly like it?

No, I just don't like ANY post at all, whether they like me or not.

 

The reciprocal LIKE situation is why I just opt out, period.

 

If I really appreciate something special, I send a private note sometimes

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Now that's some interesting info, Jordan. Thanks for posting.

 

At least Photo.net shows how many robots visit this site in the main category forum listing. For some perspective you might note that at any given time there are at most 67 members/visitors and compare that count to the outrageous numbers of other photo sites you've complained about that use "Like/Favorite" buttons. So your linked article may alleviate your concern that not all sites that implement Likes are driven by the same motivations.

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So your linked article may alleviate your concern that not all sites that implement Likes are driven by the same motivations.

 

Very True Tim, but my concern when photo.net revamped and added this convention was that it opened itself up to being one of those sites that is driven by such motivation. In other words, it now makes available the 'drug' that feeds the 'like' addiction. Thanks for taking the time to look at the article.

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The paradox seems to be that everyone wants to be different and in the process ends up being the same

 

That brings an interesting observation to mind. In the “No Words” threads some of the most amusing photos are the ones that redefine the meaning of the subject in the thread title in an imaginative way after several photos have established a trend, and they usually get several nods.

It isn’t always the technical or refined quality that gets a like from me, and my own photos are mostly casual snapshots stored in and old shoebox that I am in the process of digitizing to reminisce with family and friends.

Edited by Moving On
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... China is moving to a social credit system for rating its citizens on their behavior....

 

I see this as an another approach by government to tight all citizens to one rope to prevent any type of social deviation (Orwell again.) The only difference is initiation is coming from citizens themselves, addicted to social media - digging the own graves.

"... Our perception of the world is a fantasy that coincides with reality."

Chris Frith.

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I see this as an another approach by government to tight all citizens to one rope to prevent any type of social deviation (Orwell again.) The only difference is initiation is coming from citizens themselves, addicted to social media - digging the own graves.

 

Except that it's become very possible enclose oneself in an online bubble of like minded individuals to the point that you can start to feel that your deviant behavior is actually normal. ;-)

 

"Likes" might encourage group think and group behavior, but you're still choosing which groups you identify with.

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What’s the difference between groupthink and shared tastes or values? Are degrees important here?

 

Some people who all like the same work and do it to become part of a clique might be falling prey to groupthink. On the other hand, it seems pretty human for art and photographs to reach a bunch of people in similar ways, through symbolism and recognizable cultural and emotional themes.

 

Applause at live performances is common. It’s a way of showing appreciation. And it can be infectious. In a lot of cases, hitting the LIKE button may be no different from putting your hands together. Liking together can sometimes be more fun than liking by oneself.

 

I like the quiet it takes to pursue an idea the way I pursued ‘Hamilton,’ but I couldn’t write a book, because there’s no applause at the end of writing a book. —Lin-Manuel Miranda
We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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What’s the difference between groupthink and shared tastes or values?

 

Groupthink is thought subjected to peer pressure and modified to compliance. Individual critical thought process is sacrificed upon the altar of group compliance.

 

The group defines the thought rather than the thought defining the group.

 

https://www.amazon.com/New-Thought-Police-Inside-Assault/dp/0761563733

 

Or you could of course read Orwell's 1984

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Thanks for the reading tip, Mark. Read Orwell a long time ago. Great stuff. Your link . . . :rolleyes:!

 

I should have been more clear and specific, though I thought at least the context for my question, PN LIKES, would be evident. My phrasing was sloppy. I didn’t mean to ask simply for the difference between groupthink and critical individual assessment. That I know. I should have asked how one would know whether a given PN LIKE is motivated by the desire or need to be part of a clique and to pay obedience to groupthink or emanates from critical individual assessment of the photo. Can certain gifted PN members read minds? Is it possible that some of it is just unsubstatiated projection of motives onto others, idle speculation that may just be as rampant on the Internet as groupthink?

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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And, by the way, Mark, you seemed to be expressing a live and let live attitude toward LIKES and not reading too much into the practice, like me (will I now be accused by some of needing a clique even if it’s only two of us for saying we seemed to agree - lol?), so I’m not suggesting you are someone who’s projecting motives onto PN members here.
We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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It is my impression, as Tim has pointed out, that internet interaction in and of itself does not lend itself to realistic intimacy.

It is a cheap easy substitute for genuine human interaction that falls far short of the real thing.

It should be obvious that any insight into motivation reflected in any post or "like" is very limited at best.

As Jordan pointed out most social media is subject to manipulation. Celebrities and politicians regularly pay for phony peer praise.

Site agenda and ownership will always trump free speech or even critical thought where competing interests are at stake.

The important thing is to understand the reality of it all.

Perception is not necessarily reality.

Gotta take the whole thing with a grain of salt and that was my main argument with Jordan's concern.

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While LIKES don’t convey much that’s intimate, some people’s photos do. So I think PN’s potential for intimacy lies more in the sharing of our photos than in the sharing of LIKES. Of course, PN also manipulates and stifles free speech to some extent, but it’s a platform for sharing photos and allows us to do that relatively freely, my concerns in another thread about the treatment of nude photography here notwithstanding.
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We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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Of course, digital manipulation can express as well as distort reality, sometimes at the very same time. The surrealists were good at doing both. So were the Impressionists.

 

Just as Orwell's fiction told important truths, photographic fictions can do so as well.

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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