No 'Like' button on RailUKforums

[notmyrealname]

I've lurked here for a while and regularly see some excellent advice given that must take time and effort to research.

As per the title, I've never seen a way to Like someone's posts and I just wondered if this has been tried and discarded or if it was decided it was inappropriate. I would have acknowledged several people that way today.

 

[hexagon789]

I've lurked here for a while and regularly see some excellent advice given that must take time and effort to research.

As per the title, I've never seen a way to Like someone's posts and I just wondered if this has been tried and discarded or if it was decided it was inappropriate. I would have acknowledged several people that way today.

I understand it has been considered, possibly more than once, but was ruled out as it was decided it would reduce direct contributions.

Instead of people posting a full message to agree (or disagree as the case may be) with someone's post and thus developing the debate by illustrating why they agree or disagree, nothing further would be added by having a string of likes or dislikes appended to various posts - you would have no idea why the respondent agreed or disagreed.

 

[notmyrealname]

Interesting, thank you. I see the point about reducing the debate; it's very irritating when people just do the equivalent of ticking a box rather than saying something.

Prenez soin des anguilles.

 

[Mattplans]

As per the title, I've never seen a way to Like someone's posts and I just wondered if this has been tried and discarded or if it was decided it was inappropriate. I would have acknowledged several people that way today.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 Dec 2025 ==


== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 Dec 2025 ==

I think it would be better if they added it back and left it to the members to decide whether they had something to add to the discussion.

 

[Trackman]

There has been a debate about this before (about 3 years ago), and the mods spoke about it. Unable to find it at the moment, but it out there.

 

[yorkie]

Any feedback or suggestions needs to go via the 'Contact us' form.

It's been debated before on various other forums, e.g.:

Having a 'like' button on the forums

I'm kinda new to the forums, and was just wondering if there is any talk of having a like button, so you can like someones post?

forums.digitalspy.com

No this is not Facebook. In fact that like thing really annoys me sometimes.

This has been mentioned before and the general consensus seems to be that people don't like it. I think some people like that this is quite a bare bones style forum, with no 'like' or 'thanks' button, no 'rep points' or options for signatures or avatars. Other people would prefer some of those options but given the site has undergone a style change only last year and those features weren't added, I doubt it'll happen, or certainly not anytime soon.

It encourages cliques to 'like' each others posts whether they are any good or not.

What would be the point of just clicking "like" on a discussion forum? Surely it defeats the whole purpose.

I've seen it in use on other forums, and seen it used by people to side with others who have a particularly strong view, e.g. I recall on MoneySavingExpert an argument between car drivers vs horse riders, there was a strong correlation between the most aggressive posts and those that had the most likes!

If anyone can identify forums where it works well, and post a proposal, the contact us form link can be found at the bottom of every page.

 

[eastwestdivide]

One alternative might be a Thanks button, for where someone has been helpful answering a question and the asker wants to acknowledge that without adding another “thanks” post for everyone else to be disappointed when they discover there’s no new info in it.

 

[yorkie]

One alternative might be a Thanks button, for where someone has been helpful answering a question and the asker wants to acknowledge that without adding another “thanks” post for everyone else to be disappointed when they discover there’s no new info in it.

If someone submits a proposal including a method by which we could pass on such thanks, without it necessarily being visible to anyone other than the person being thanked, that is certainly something we can consider; please use the Contact Us form if so.

 

[JohnMcL7]

I've used a number of systems with like/thanks/upvote etc. functions and I don't think they actually benefit discussions. The main problem is they incentivise people to try and get as many likes as possible so they'll reply to threads where they can't offer any useful advice, worse these days with the advent of generative AI systems there's been a frustrating trend for people to add AI replies that can be nonsense or even dangerous. What's also problematic is that popular rather than helpful replies can get more likes/thanks so I've seen cases where someone makes a joke of a question being asked to mock the original poster and gets a lot of likes instead, people also tend to incorrectly assume someone with a lot of posts and likes must be helpful which is often not the case.

It's a frequent problem I've noticed particularly on manufacturer's forums there's a user or more that will reply to almost every thread with a useless answer along the lines of 'contact the manufacturer' or some copy/pasted text which doesn't answer, inevitably with a line in their signature asking you to like or thank their post. New users join and see these answers from people with a huge amount of posts/likes to mistakenly think they are knowledgeable users when they aren't and that their reply is no help. In turn I like the forum badges here which make it clear which posters have been identified as helpful or knowledgeable so their advice stands out better.

Personally, I'm not bothered if someone likes or upvotes a post and instead prefer a brief comment saying it helped them. I particularly like when I get a message or reply years after I've posted something with a person saying they'd been stuck and found my post which had helped them.

 

[zero]

I think the Like button works well on Flyertalk. On Australian Frequent Flyer, you can even modify your Like to one of several emojis including "Thanks", "Haha", "Sad" etc.

I think this forum is fine as it is, however if a reaction button were to be introduced in the future I would not be against it.

Potentially it could only be active in some subforums.

For example when I read a Trip Report I don't want to post to the thread unless there is a point to discuss, otherwise it is just clutter, but a reaction button would tell the poster that someone has enjoyed reading their report.

In the Advice forums people could also respond to agree or thank posters for advice given without having to post anything specific. But as mentioned, this could end up becoming a popularity contest and the number of Likes received is no indication of whether the advice is correct. A downvote button would do that, but I don't think rating posts is appropriate for this forum.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

If anyone can identify forums where it works well

This one is a perfect example: https://www.theqe2story.com/forum/index.php

...but I will leave it to others to draw up and submit any proposal.


Incidentally, I'm one of the few who picked up a "like" when it was very briefly ( a matter of a couple of hours? ) available some years ago... Screenshot below...

 

[brad465]

I've used a number of systems with like/thanks/upvote etc. functions and I don't think they actually benefit discussions. The main problem is they incentivise people to try and get as many likes as possible so they'll reply to threads where they can't offer any useful advice, worse these days with the advent of generative AI systems there's been a frustrating trend for people to add AI replies that can be nonsense or even dangerous. What's also problematic is that popular rather than helpful replies can get more likes/thanks so I've seen cases where someone makes a joke of a question being asked to mock the original poster and gets a lot of likes instead, people also tend to incorrectly assume someone with a lot of posts and likes must be helpful which is often not the case.

It's a frequent problem I've noticed particularly on manufacturer's forums there's a user or more that will reply to almost every thread with a useless answer along the lines of 'contact the manufacturer' or some copy/pasted text which doesn't answer, inevitably with a line in their signature asking you to like or thank their post. New users join and see these answers from people with a huge amount of posts/likes to mistakenly think they are knowledgeable users when they aren't and that their reply is no help. In turn I like the forum badges here which make it clear which posters have been identified as helpful or knowledgeable so their advice stands out better.

Personally, I'm not bothered if someone likes or upvotes a post and instead prefer a brief comment saying it helped them. I particularly like when I get a message or reply years after I've posted something with a person saying they'd been stuck and found my post which had helped them.

I can't really fault this, particularly as social media as a whole has gone down this route and resulted in petty tribal points carrying more "weight" than evidence-based ideas/arguments.

 

[sor]

My experience is that "like buttons" on other forums I use quickly become cliquey. e.g. a question is asked, someone writes a decent response and gets very few likes, a "big name" on the forum makes a trite remark and gets plenty more. As others have said, inaccurate or even completely incorrect information may also be "liked" just because it came from the right person. It's even worse still if a post can be voted down as no one uses that for its intended purpose.

I "like" that not all forums, including this one, have not gone down the social media route of providing such instant dopamine hits.

 

[Purple Train]

For example when I read a Trip Report I don't want to post to the thread unless there is a point to discuss, otherwise it is just clutter, but a reaction button would tell the poster that someone has enjoyed reading their report.

I rather like this idea (as both a writer and reader of Trip Reports!)

My experience is that "like buttons" on other forums I use quickly become cliquey. e.g. a question is asked, someone writes a decent response and gets very few likes, a "big name" on the forum makes a trite remark and gets plenty more. As others have said, inaccurate or even completely incorrect information may also be "liked" just because it came from the right person. It's even worse still if a post can be voted down as no one uses that for its intended purpose.

I "like" that not all forums, including this one, have not gone down the social media route of providing such instant dopamine hits.

I agree with this also - I've always found "like" buttons rather useless during exchanges of opinions as, like you say, cliques will flock to "like" the Dear Leader and it very quickly becomes extremely messy. I would, however, possibly support a different reaction such as a button because telling someone I appreciate their humour feels like a waste of a post sometimes, and there are some genuinely witty people on the Forum who are excellent at brightening my day. But I appreciate that that can also be misused and there are no easy answers.

 

[gswindale]

My view is that not all topics/posts need a "like" button - it maybe useful as mentioned for Trip Reports or Advice where users can respond in such a way that the poster can see that their post is appreciated or has been found useful, but I would be against that necessarily being visible to the wider community - as mentioned above, on some sites if your one of the "favourites", then pretty much all posts would be "liked" even if they're complete & utter tripe, but somebody new may not get such a good reaction even if their contribution is decent.

It's like I really don't understand why the BBC Have Your Say topics have like/dislike voting options as you frequently see some ridiculous comments having a huge amount of "up-votes" when something much more sensible has a huge number of "down-votes".

 

[Welly]

It's like I really don't understand why the BBC Have Your Say topics have like/dislike voting options as you frequently see some ridiculous comments having a huge amount of "up-votes" when something much more sensible has a huge number of "down-votes".

Probably bots run by certain foreign powers.

 

[styles]

My experience is that "like buttons" on other forums I use quickly become cliquey. e.g. a question is asked, someone writes a decent response and gets very few likes, a "big name" on the forum makes a trite remark and gets plenty more. As others have said, inaccurate or even completely incorrect information may also be "liked" just because it came from the right person. It's even worse still if a post can be voted down as no one uses that for its intended purpose.

I "like" that not all forums, including this one, have not gone down the social media route of providing such instant dopamine hits.

Like

 

[Egg Centric]

One alternative might be a Thanks button, for where someone has been helpful answering a question and the asker wants to acknowledge that without adding another “thanks” post for everyone else to be disappointed when they discover there’s no new info in it.

This would be great. I've often considered writing DMs about helpful messages but don't want to get "spammy" and agree facebook style like messages are a poor idea for cliquey reasons.

While it's obviously not secure or genuinely private, looks to me like xenforo reactions could be hidden by css out of the box which should be "good enough" I'd have thought.

 

[Oscar M]

Having lurked in other online spaces, I've seen enough examples where posts that sound correct (but are actually incorrect) have the most likes, whereas posts that are actually correct have little to no likes.

 

[GusB]

The whole question of whether "likes" should be allowed is becoming rather tiresome.

 

[Egg Centric]

The whole question of whether "likes" should be allowed is becoming rather tiresome.

I think that's a settled question at this point. This thread seems to be about whether there is an alternative.