Curmudgeonly Monday – Likers

I joined the WordPress.com community a while ago using the Jetpack plugin on my self-hosted site. I think I like the reader for the most part. I have it set up so people can comment on posts by visiting my site or by following me in their readers. This is cool but there is something I don’t get about the “likes.” I get likes on posts and on comments, but if you get a “like” on a post does it mean the person actually read that post? To me, it looks like all you would have to do is just click the little star and go on down the line of blogs you follow. So, if I follow a hundred blogs, which I don’t, but if I did, I could just scroll down and click, click, click all the way down. Then, supposedly, I would have all these people reciprocating likes. Is that what this is all about? I like you and you like me?

What I do is read every blog I’m signed up to follow, whether they can be read on the Reader or I have to go to their actual site; I’ll read the post and if I like it, (which I often do because I only follow blogs I like to read), I click the little star button. I will leave a comment if it’s something I can comment on, as well. There are three photoblogs on my list that I like but I don’t always comment on and there are some posts that don’t require any comment. I enjoy the interactions and to me, it’s the comments that are important because then you have to actually have at least given the post a cursory read.

I have had several “Likes” in the last little while and haven’t gotten around to them but if someone leaves a comment I try to get back to that a lot quicker. Occasionally, especially if a person hasn’t commented before, a comment will wind up in my pending or in my spam folder. “Likes,” on the other hand are weird. I have had several where I clicked on the person because I have not seen their name or their blog before and the site is gone. The “Likes” are still up there but there is nobody behind them, so do they actually mean anything?

On the other hand, I do want to thank all of you for this little notice I received today in my reader:

24 Comments

  1. Sorry, I’m not in the habit of clicking off of wordpress to leave a comment, which is why I don’t always leave comments on your posts, which I do read and enjoy. You’re right about the like button on wordpress. I have certain followers, I notice, who always like posts with certain tags, and never comment. There definitely seems to be something automated going on there.
    Also, I should really visit your site more often. The coffee beans in the background are so soothing,

    • Thank you so much. I thought I had changed the settings sufficiently to allow for reading and commenting from the reader instead of making you have to come to the site every time. I do like coffee.

  2. Children! Control yourselves, please! I’m trying to run a civilized blog here and I’ve got two kids arguing like a couple of siblings! Settle down. (Is there a tongue-in-cheek emoji?)

  3. Great post! I usually read every post I come to before I click a like. Then comment. And if I don’t comment right away (sometimes I read posts before I go to work in the morning), I will come back later and comment.

    But I do understand where you’re coming from. Thank you for this post!

  4. Oh there are talented folk on wordpress who can predict that a post deserves a like without reading it. Luckily I am not one of them.
    Wordpress needs to remove the like without read feature.

Leave a Reply to LydiaCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.