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Arguably, the addition of showing links to all the replies to a comment could have contributed towards 4chan's drift further into engagement-baiting content. It
by ddq 3y ago
Arguably, the addition of showing links to all the replies to a comment could have contributed towards 4chan's drift further into engagement-baiting content. It's the closest analogue to the visual, numeric feedback mechanism you describe.
Interesting because from a functional user experience perspective, it's an objectively useful feature for navigating discussions. An obvious addition in terms of web design, yet with unforeseen repercussions. The medium is the message, after all.
- mjr00 3y agoVery true! But even then, the dynamic is a bit different. Reply-links on a post that's an obvious joke are analogous to upvotes, but reply-links on a politically controversial topic could be anything, though most likely disagreements. Plus the absolute number is going to be orders of magnitudes smaller than likes. But I do agree it's contributed to bait posts a lot, yeah. Interesting to see the impact of such a seemingly small UX change.