A different approach to likes

I’ll preface this thread by saying I’m not proposing this idea as an actual change on BA—I’m putting the idea out there more as an intellectual exercise. I’ve played around with this idea in my head for a while now and I’m curious what other people think. As BA is a social media site as much as it is anything else (a resource for information, a place to track what we thought of beers we’ve had, a trading platform, and so much more), this idea would have social implications for participants, and that’s what I find most worth exploring about it. Finally, I’ll say that I’m not aware if this idea has been tried or is currently in use anywhere else—I’m not that smart, so I doubt I’m the first person to ever come up with the idea, so maybe some other sites that use “likes” (or something similar) are already doing this, or maybe it has already failed miserably. However, if this is a completely original and novel concept, then I hereby copyright it and reserve the right to patent it.

So with all the disclaimers out of the way, here’s my idea: What if, instead of likes being free and unlimited to give, any like you gave to another BA would be deducted from your balance, and any like you received from another BA would be added to your balance?

Existing members would start with all the likes they’ve accrued, and new members would start out with a balance of something like 100 or 1,000 likes. The algorithm that calculates Beer Karma would change so that people gained points not just on likes received but also on likes given. In short, likes would become a kind of currency that had value because they would not be infinite.

I think this change would have some positive impacts to the site. First and foremost, I think it would encourage participation because in order to give other people likes, members would also have to do things to earn them. Likewise, a like received would have more value and would be more appreciated—we wouldn’t just be giving them away like candy. The measure of a BA’s participation would not be a huge balance of likes, but rather maybe a balance closer to zero—because you’re now giving away a limited resource. I’m sure there would be other “social” impacts from such a change, but these are the main ones I was able to think of. There might also be some fatal flaws to the concept that I’m completely blind to, and I wanted to put this idea out there to hear about those as well.

Anyway, that’s pretty much it in a nutshell. Very curious to hear other people’s thoughts. Cheers!

 

Well, that’s another aspect of it. Say BA implemented this system—at that moment there would be a fixed number of likes to go around (everyone’s existing balance)—not the infinite number of likes currently available. To increase the net available balance new members would have to join, and then the net number would increase by 100 or 1,000, whatever the new-member allotment was decided to be. And with Beer Karma being awarded based on likes both given and received, the more active participants would reap the benefits. I’m not sure how it would affect usage/participation but as a social experiment it’s an interesting concept to think about. Like Lord of the Flies but with beer.

 

I don’t know what the result would be—again it’s more of a mental exercise to think about what would change, what might get better, what might get worse. It might be a terrible idea.

Well on one level I agree—I don’t have only so many “thank yous” to give out in a given day in the real world, so they are free and limitless. But on the other hand, if you are thanking people constantly for doing things for you, but never doing things for others that would warrant a “thank you” back, then that is bad karma. So would it improve overall karma and sense of community on the site to encourage sharing of a limited number of likes back and forth? Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know.

 

Gamifying would not be the intent so if that would be the effect then I agree, it would be a bad idea. As for rewarding a person for handing out likes, the idea is that if your likes are limited, it encourages community by being selective about how you give out your likes and why. Under the existing structure obviously it would be easy to rack up thousands of likes given because they are infinite—so that should not be rewarded. The idea I have been playing with in my head would change the entire dynamic and thus make likes more valuable, both given and received.

 

Actually I don’t remember that—Beer Karma used to be pretty opaque (deliberately) so I never knew what was gaining points and never really cared either. As for the drinking now threads—would it be such a bad thing if they weren’t the like factories that they are now? If you really had to be impressed by a beer someone was drinking now to give up a precious like? But maybe so, if it would inhibit participation, which is the opposite effect from what we’d like to see. That’s why I started the thread, to explore all the consequences and potential implications of this idea.

By the way, I designated the category of this thread as “talk” but it has been changed to “idea,” which I deliberately didn’t want. But other folks have posted some good ideas about the whole “like” structure of the site, so maybe some improvements will result from those suggestions anyway.