🥝 Mr This website makes me realize that I've been trained to "reward" others for posting online. I feel an uncontrollable urge to "upvote" or "like" comments but quickly realize the button isn't available.

🤔 David It's an odd feeling, isn't it? Perhaps the real reward stems from participation and free-flowing discussions that are motivated by our interest in the topic and conversations rather than attention-seeking behavior :)

🧉 Martin It really is. I also have this urge, and it feels almost impolite to not respond in some way (be it with a like, upvote, etc.) to a comment simply because I have nothing to add. I'm enjoying that Subreply is different enough to challenge something that's now almost a constant across almost all other forms of social media I can think of.

👉 Léo I think that's a reflection of conversational (i.e., talking) communication. A lot of conversation depends on non-verbal cues, such as a head nod or a "mm-hmm". Its totally a cultural thing that was translated to the "like" button in the web. It feels odd when we don't have a way of doing that. It's like we've gone all the way back to sending letters.

🥝 Mr I like the word choice here - Even when I don't want to add something significant to the conversation, I may want to say "I agree" aka "I like this" and it feels impolite to leave the conversation hanging. Liking a comment in some ways is like saying "yes, I hear you." otherwise you may feel that your input was lost to the void.