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No more likes <3

I've been wondering how a tookapic without likes would ...appear ;)

As most of you know the number of likes a photo gets is skewed to those who have lots of followers so comparing the number of likes of two photos from different users doesn't really mean anything.

This is even more so comparing two photos over a time period as the size of the community (and number of likes per day) has changed considerably.

A couple more reasons why it might be a good thing:

  1. encourages commenting

  2. less intimidating for a user to take a streak photo

  3. "easier" on new users who don't have many followers

  4. encourages creating galleries such as "my favorite photos"

  5. reinforces that tookapic is not about competing but participating and creativity

I'm interested about what others think? Would you miss likes? Relived that they disappear?

P.S. There is still the issue of how to display "popular photos" each day. Something long along the lines of a ranking based on (1) views of photo page (2) number of comments and (3) number of stars/favourites might just work well enough.

59 comments

Paweł Kadysz I wish I could like a Talk. I'd like this one :P

Ian Prince Hihi 😜

Paweł Kadysz Ok, but now seriously... I know it would be a bold move but here's why it might do a lot of good:

1. 365 project shouldn't be about likes. It should be about creativity, documenting, journaling.

2. It's always nicer to get a comment instead of just like. To leave a comment you actually need to view the photo and the story behind it. I suspect getting rid of likes would make the number of comments go up significantly.

3. There are photos that are hard to like (sad stories especially).

4. Distinguish Tookapic from all other platforms powered by like-hungry users. "It's different here. It's not about likes."

5. Number of likes never reflected the actual quality of the photo. It always depended on how popular user is and it made the popular even more popular. Getting rid of likes would give the newcomers more recognition.

We'd still have the stars (maybe increase the daily limit to 10).

You could still like comments.

I wonder what the rest of you thinks.

agnieszka bladzik I wonder how it will give more recognition, how you would know your photo is good, because one person will write it is? will people go for long when there will be no stars, no comments under their photos and sometimes they will get the comment?

Paweł Kadysz Does a number of likes really tell you if the photo is good?

anjin @agnieszka ... I think you are missing the tookapic point ... sorry although Im new here I’m afraid you may not be right ...

agnieszka bladzik you don't understand, it's not only about the fact if it's really good, it's about if it's getting better, if you as photographer recieves feedback and recognition, after all if you share your photos you are seaking of some information on what are you doing, I'm worried that there will be not enough of comments under each photo to gave people the feedback they need. with likes at least you have some feeling someone noticed your photo among other photos in the streem. and ok maybe it's not the case for everybody, but i think you are getting to deep into 'tookapic is not for everybody and that is ok'

Paweł Kadysz So when you went from 150+ likes per photo in 2017 to ~50 per photo now, it meant your photos are now 3x worse?

agnieszka bladzik yeah maybe, after being here from day one i missed the point, sorry that i think wider about all kind of people that enroled here over the time and left

Paweł Kadysz Is the passive aggressive tone necessary here?

agnieszka bladzik ok i gave up explaining, if you think suddenly everybody will start to write massive amount of comments you are simply wrong, and what i'm saing people needs feedback even if those are only likes, at least you know somone stopped and took a look on your photo.

Paweł Kadysz No, please keep explaining until I understand. How do you know I am wrong? Have we had an experiment already? Have we tried it? Is there data to prove your statement?

I never said you ARE wrong, period. Because I don't know that. I also never said getting rid of likes IS a great idea. I only said why I THINK it MIGHT work.

These are all my assumptions.

You however are obviously 100% sure that I AM wrong. I'd love to understand why. How can you tell I am? Maybe I don't know something you do.

agnieszka bladzik I simply asked how it will give more recognition to new people, I underlined that probably people will not start writing massive amount of comments - take a look into feedback tab on the menu - people without manny follower still don't have comments under their photos. also I remeber that feedback part was once shot down as you consider it dead and then it went live again as people were pointing out there is no feedback on tookapic. but i don't think no of comments increased there - and so i allowed mayself to say that probably you are wrong thinking people will write more comments. still instead of thinking about that you ask me about my likes, that the number changed, it did but how my likes are conected to what I wrote about feedback and recognition in general on tookapic?
i just asked the questions and allowed myself to have diffrent opinion and lots of doubts

Paweł Kadysz See, that’s a completely different kind of discussion now. Let me sleep on that and get back to you with some answers tomorrow.

Michał I like it :) Seriously!

Michał I guess the idea is to keep stars, which are not displayed to all the community, but to you - this will, to some extent, replace the feedback. But this quantified number will be visible to you only - no comparison with others by this subjective measure.

agnieszka bladzik yes i was thinking about that, my doubts - you have now 3 of those, most likely you will give them to sth you really like and this is fine, in the other hand you think many of 'new starters' will be reciving stars? Will that be enough feedback for them? I think after all question is on what motivates people, some are driven by competitive mood some not and will be fine without likes etc. That is why i'm asking how without likes you make sure there is this recognition and feedback part

Rafal In my opinion it is absolutely not the matter of how many likes has the picture. I prefer comments, good or bad but some issues.

Darek Do not you think that it can be reconciled? Some like likes, some do not. Maybe after reaching 180 days, new users will decide if they want to stay in the sphere of leeches or move to independent, non-judgmental existence.

Rafal Right, It could be the time of choice, in the beginning most of the people wait for likes, some are disappointer whether there are no likes (meaning that the picture is bad), so second part of project could be voluntary... but it creates a much bigger mess. Or likes could be given but the author cannot see them (when switched to nonjudgemental existance, as you wrote). Interesting idea.

Maciej Chomik I think it's good idea. This website is not about how many likes you get. It's about your creativity everyday. But I'll also leave the idea of stars. It will force users to leave a comment. Cause when there is a photo I really like I just click a star instead of write a comment.

Viola Kuniej finally! <3

Ian Prince I thought you might say something like that 😃

jazzie It would be interesting to know if the amount of comments would increase if the likes would disappear. Yesterday I saw a pic with amazing colors, but it was framed so carelessly with a slanting horizon that I could not like it. If there was no option to like or not like but only to comment a pic I might have done so and the user might pay more attention to how he/she is composing the pics.
One question is if the option of giving stars away is not just the same as liking pics - many followers probably mean many stars.

Paweł Kadysz Stars are anonymous and there's a limit of stars you can give away every day.

jazzie Yes, you do not know who gives you a star. But you know to who you give one. It is only one-way anonymized.

Paweł Kadysz Yeah, it is a kind of appreciation... giving away blindly would be weird :)

Michał So maybe keep the stars, maybe with higher limit, reserved for those outstanding photos. But in the same time, instead of likes, introduce something like "eye", or anything else that will indicate someone noticed this photo. The difference would be that you must select at least one option from the predefined feedback entries. Something like this:
- "Looks like blurred. Was that intentional?"
- "Maybe you should work on white balance?"
- "Have you considered slightly different angle/composition?"
- As a last option, a free text would be good in case if none of the predefined feedback fits.

I think this would make it easier to leave/receive a feedback - you'll select predefined, typical constructive feedback entry - two clicks away. No need to write if you're in a hurry, which of course still will be possible. Further consideration might include questions like if the feedback entries should be displayed to everyone, weather to display the author of the feedback, etc.

What do you think?
Edit: @agnieszka @lukaszbrozek ? :)

agnieszka bladzik i really, really doubt people will write comments, without hearts will you really know if people saw your photo - would there be no of views? also how would it be then different then from likes? will people really click on each photo? or will end up with mindless scrolling and at the end leaving tookapic as there will be no feedback? Ask yourself how often do you write comments, do you really will take the time to look at recent photos and write something even for 10 of them each day? maybe at the beginning it will work, but taking a look on constructive criticism part I must say it will not.

Artur Łobocki I like ❤️

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Paweł Kadysz There is a number of views. We count each view of each photo. But the view only counts if the actual photo page is viewed.

agnieszka bladzik my point was if it going to be displaied like hearts, so still it will be the number people look to - 'oh 5 views' -> 'nobody is interested in my photos'. for me it would be the same effect as having likes.

Michał I barely use social media, but I do suffer from lack of time. So my strategy is to wait until weekend or some easier evening to review more closely and eventually like photos of people I follow or those popular ones. On a typical day I just scroll the recent ones, but without any interaction - I leave it for later, but then I often find a bit more time to comment.

Marta Tomaszewska Yes, but you can't view "recent" or "popular" photos in convenient way going into photo page. You can browse only particular user. And when you scrolled a lot, go into a pic, and than go back to the list you're lost. That's why I usually don't open pics.
And I'm pretty sure that I won't give more comments when the won't be likes. Simply because I'm here for like 20 min and I'm not able to pay as much attention to all pics as I'd like to. Likes let me to say "I noticed your photo and it's good" in easiest way possible ;)

anjin my two cents into this topic - Im a newbie here and I joined Tookapic only for one reason - to be motivated to take a photo every day... and I must say, I event did not notice for the first moment the "like" feature... moreover, I feel it very refreshing after posting my photos on fb groups, where it is a real rat race and a rat pack in the same time ... here I feel like Im creating my own photo world... if someone jump in and comments - it's nice but it's not why I joined Tookapic.

B-B Wanders My first thought about getting rid of likes is negative. I don't really think that once the likes are gone, people will immediately start using comments to express their opinions.

Take a look at my profile statistics. I have uploaded 644 pictures which were commented 405 times. It's just 0.6 comment per photo. Assuming that comments activity bumbed up by 400% (which I don't believe in), I would get just 3 comments a day. I don't know the reason. Maybe I am not too generous in giving out the comments, maybe my stories are not too catchy or maybe people do not have time to drop a line here and in twenty different places.

Here you can say that this is not the place where numbers are most important things. You would say that this is the place where you can train your creativity, motivation and make your own world. Well, isn't creating the world without other people pointless? Tookapic became not only the platform for uploading pictures but also the place where community was born. It means that you are not uploading the pictures just for yourself. Otherwise, you can always keep them in your hard drive and do not share them with anybody. You want to see how people react about your story or skills and 'like' is the easiest and simplest way to do that. Going further, I recon 'likes' to be the primary tool to keep community more tight. Of course there are better ones like comments, Talks, weekly themes or Tookawalks, however, 'likes' are the most convienient.

All what I said doesn't mean that I would fight for the 'likes' till I die because many comments about them were right. What I would suggest is creating functionality which combines instant response with different reactions. Something similar to "eye" what Michał mentioned about, however without any additional options. As an example I would suggest Facebook reactions. Maybe idea is not original but I'm pretty sure that FB had similar problem and bunch of smart guys were thinking about that and I recon that it works well. To distinct the idea, maybe we could implement other reactions, more photography related, like 💡 which means that your photo has perfect light :D

Margie I like the idea of having choices of icons. It gives more specific feedback but doesn't require much more time. Also just keep a generic like icon.

craig I run a parallel project on Blipfoto, which I have done for 7 years. There are some similarities in that you can give likes (unlimited) and favourites (five – not anonymised though). This also leads to the same issues that occur here in as much as those with many followers get many stars and are always on the popular pages. In an earlier version of the blipfoto software you could turn on and off star ratings and/or comments for your entries (you can still turn off comments – normally used if you are too busy to give comments yourself). At one stage I was more focused on the stars and trying to get onto the popular page than actually getting a good photo and enjoying it. I decided to end this and turned off my ratings (stars) but left on my comments (pretty much ruling myself out of the popular page). I would have to say that I did not get many more comments than I had before, but It really did not matter though as I knew myself when I had taken a good photo or a bad one. Unfortunately, when the software was updated It was impossible to turn off ratings but by then it really did not bother me as I now tend to ignore them. The way I now look at it is, this is my project done for me and shared to others. It is nice to get feedback (stars or comments or even views) but this is first and foremost for me. It took me time to realise this and perhaps if turning off ratings had not been my choice I would not have taken it as well. I now enjoy posting my photos and looking at other peoples, appreciating and learning from the really good or unusual ones and trying to encourage others who may want advice on taking shots similar to some of mine.
Perhaps it may be an idea to allow people, who want to focus on being creative without the distraction of receiving likes, the ability to just toggle them off (or back on) for their entries. Others who like the feedback could leave them on.

Romanos Kalamatianos Sounds like a fair system :)

nielama I think it could be a very good solution. If you're focus on feedback just turn off the likes.
I'm not sure that the number of comments will increase but, on the other hand, it's still better than getting frustrated when you're comparing the number of likes of your photos with photos of other people instead of trying to make better photos (because you don't think about being creative but rather about having more likes and like/=quality, while some people very often 'like' everything, including spam (like4like), sorry).

Hanna Gawrychowska Well, I'm also throwing in my 3 cents
tookapic is also fun and depriving him of 'LIKE' will also deprive me of the fun - and that's not the point that I receive it but in that I give it to someone. I hope that sometimes these 'LIKE' will motivate someone, someone will prove that 'it is worth'
tookapic without 'LIKE' will lose a lot of charm and joy and those for whom these LIKE are important may lose their desire to stay

if the goal is for LIKE to be given away for the picture and not for the nickname, it is enough for a few hours not to see who took the picture

Magda Korzewska I am just about to finish third year I do not care much about how many likes I get. I also turned off notifications. I keep doing project not for appreciation of my photo (there are many better places to get it than Tookapic) but to have motivation for improving my photography. Without daily photography I would probably give up in some point. IMO at the beginning of project such appreciation is very important so for this reason I will keep “<3”. What I really do not like anymore in Tookapic is popular feed. The same photo are there for sometimes 48 hours. If we want to have for “many followers’ user” and “beginner” the same conditions, let’s get rid of popular page. Keep recent and following, favourite, debiut, finisher. Let’s us give as many stair as we want (unlimited) but do not use stars for any other purpose than to keep the photo in section “favourite”.

anjin An idea: to implement a condition that one has to put 3 comments daily to upload his photo ... What do you think?

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jazzie I had an idea which is a bit less radical than yours: if you want a cc, you have to write one - I imagine that in the moment when you request a cc, a window with a pic of an other user who wants cc pops up and you have to write a - lets say, at least 200 characters long - feedback. I think the not-working of the feedback page is a pity but have to admit that I stopped writing feedbacks because I rarely got any myself.

Aga Ka @anjin I think most people don't have time for this, not on daily basis anyway. Those people will post 3 times something like ''super'' or they will leave tookapic. I would love to see some comments on some of my photos (although I tend to forget to tag it for feedback) but only if someone want to comment on my photo, not if someone has to do it...

Sam Patzer I rarely talk on here but I disagree with this. I mainly use this site to do my project tracking! I like it as it gives me stats of my days and holds me accountable. I publish to instagram as well to do of my "like" gathering. The other reason why I love this site is it a true inspiration to be here! So many amazing photographers both new and old and I love just scrolling!

anjin CC acknowledged :) that was Just an idea to answer those „gimmie like” topics ... which for me doesnt make sense either

Rafal I've stopped paying attention to likes for a long time. For me, it matters more whether I like this picture, whether it documents my day or something that caught my attention on that day.
I feel sorry for the fact that a lot of my photos get a lot of stars and then it turns out that it is not enough to become the picture of the day, but it is not important to me because if I was looking for the best frames, sometimes it can not be done.
Increasing the number of votes through stars is a good idea. In addition, ideas to do anything to encourage people to write comments, express their opinion through the comments I consider to be important. I often try to write something about the photo, about what is on it, what was the basis for this photo. There is probably a group of people who are reading this, but it often requires opening the whole picture, and for many people it takes too long and they prefer to give only like and not a comment.

Krzysztof Maciejewski I'm not shooting for stars or likes. I also do photos that would be hard to please everyone - I'm aware of that. Photo of the day is not my goal. Yet... Likes are on one level of communication. Sometimes we do not have time to comment, so we simply clicking this heart. We won't have more time to comment simply by deleting likes. We would just reduce our communication. And this is the case to improve... Comments and chatbox - these are the challenges. So do not kill hearts...:-)

Chen YiZhou This is a very good topic @Ian, thank you for bring it to the community.
Actually I am thinking of this issue for a quite long time. In my point of view, Tookapic’s first aim is to encourage people to finish ‘365 projects’, we can’t ignore that. To finish the project, I think most people need ‘likes’ to be motivated. Meanwhile, for me, I am not that like ‘likes’ just as @Ian mentioned. I am entangled by this.

Recently I learned some knowledge about blockchain, its concept is so good maybe we can use it in our way. Its mechanism is to encourage people mining through rewarding them by coin, which can withdraw deposit.

Is it possible for us to create a similar ‘comment’ mechanism? For example, you make comments on 10 different people’s pics, we give him/her a small star; you make comments on 50 different people’s pics, we give him/her a normal star…etc (reward by numbers of people instead of numbers of comments). These stars can enjoy discount or allow these users to create something which normal users can not( I have no detailed idea right now…).

To conclude, I think ‘likes’ should be reserved and we may spend more time on building a better ‘comment’ mechanism.

Michael Gatton 1. Keep likes but downgrade their value in terms of popularity
2. Increase stars, upgrade value .
3. Encourage people to view outside their circle of followers by only allowing likes/stars from the recent view.

jazzie I like idea nr. 3!

Marcin K. Hmmm... Somebody wrote in his profile that the only photographer you should compare with is yourself in the past... or something like that. It sounds as a good advice what may help in making people feel less frustrated about their photos. What if we turn off the number of likes in photos of others and keep it as a statistic for the owner of the photo? Then you could compare your photos with the photos of the only photographer you should compare yourself with...

I love the idea of "reactions" proposed by @B-B . It is easier to click on something than write something. "good frame" "good light" "good perspective" "nice colors" "nice moment" "nice depth of field" "great post-processing" "creative" and heart as "nice dude/ Doing well/ keep it up!". Maybe you can come up with some more... You could choose maybe not just one of these but more (e.g., nice frame, nice light and heart).

Rafal Or like could be with or without CC but heart should be explained - why you gave heart to a specific picture...just an idea

Joe Fortin Just some thoughts:

1. I like the like feature. It provides me with an idea of how others perceive my photos. Yes, it is affected by the number of followers I have, and yes, I suspect that I get (more often than not) some mercy likes. But, at the same time it does provide a third-party input... Photo A got 12 likes vs. Photo B got 3 likes. Not scientific, but a casual idea of how things are going.

2. I don't like the like feature. It's a bit of a punch-to-the-gut when you've worked hard on a picture only to have it flop on the Like-O-Metre.

Lauren Huston ^ Pretty much this in a nutshell.

Krzysztof Baczyński My "few pennies" in the subject. Thanks to @Ian for the subject. As you can see it caused a "small storm" and good. I belong to the "group" that paid attention to the phenomenon of "stars" Tookapic a long ago. I myself have not seen a person for two years. From the beginning of my participation in the project I asked myself - why are my really "thought out" "imaginary" photos do not get liked ?? On the same day, uninteresting photos, bad ones got a lot of them. Do I do something wrong? Do I take bad photos? It was only after a while that I realized that the amount of liking does not depend on the quality of the photo only on the amount of "friends" and often on the number of comments "good shot" "good picture" without any critical attention :( I had and I have different days - heavy and light, everyone knows how difficult it is to make and choose this one photo). I realize that some people without the "topic of the week" would not give advice to come up / continue the project, I will rarely have an idea for a photo. It can not be pressure on whether or not it continues its project number of likes or comments ... I have no idea what to do in this topic because not everyone can maintain a string without motivation (as you can see in the comments of this topic for some participants / participants very much like dependent). Great as @Paweł noted, would be to mobilize as many people as possible to stay / start the project without any fancies - it is difficult. And I would be happy when a clever idea arises, because the current - the amount of liking is not motivating / correctly verifying the quality of the photo. A great attention is also that this is not the "best picture" but it is about "history" "message" (although my photos - the amount of liking, comments show that nobody on it - stories, messages, interesting locations does not pay attention) my project of taking photos every day at 12 noon # everyday_12_pm I quit because of a complete lack of interest (it caused me a lot of hardships and I do not conceal that the "support" of members tookapic would be helpful - although I'm explaining that it was a bad idea ... yes unfortunately, the "tookapic" community is acting. I also have a bad experience asking for constructive criticism - when I asked for it, I did not receive too many opinions (most often the picture is crooked by some small angles) and I expected constructive remarks about light time etc. (I would be unfair if I did not mention that thanks to CC to work on ISO, sometimes and composition) is a very difficult subject which the core and idea is the existence of a website so great responsibility for these changes ... Likes - no, Wise way to make better photos (stars etc) yes !! I'm watching the topic. All errors are the fault of the translator.

Aga Ka Not sure how to put in english shortly what I want to say, so bare with me please. I have now 3 stars to give away. Those go to photos I absolutely love for some reason. It doesn't go to the 3 favourite pictures of the day (not anymore). If I don't see photos I like enough to give a star I just don't give stars that day ( I also don't give stars/likes due to lack of time, but I now assume the perfect situation , when I have time every day to look at photos). I am not proffesional. When I give a star it is just me loving the photo. I also have likes to give to people. Unlimitted. That means (to me) that the criteria by which I give the stars differ to criterias by which I give likes. My likes are always honest as far as I can tell, but the photo I truly like does not have to be perfect to me, photo I give star to is basicly a photo I would gladly print out and hang in my house. Now, we can ofcourse say that we want to judge photos by really high standards and give few stars to the best pics we see that day. A lot of new people will not see recognition. Not because they cannot be good at photography but because they most likely aren't good yet. I am not sure if this made so far sence to you guys. About commenting on the photos... it is bit problematic since tookapic requiers you to tag photos with #feedbackplease to prtect people who don't want to hear any criticism... How do you guys see it? Removing #feedbackplease ? Otherwise how should I comment on a photo I want to recognize (but not with a star) if the person who took it did not ask for feedback? Typing something like ''super'' or ''great'' would become as meaningfull as giving a like, would just take more time. @Paweł please don't get me wrong if I misunderstood something, this is not to attack you or @Ian (in fact thatnk you for this topic, Ian) or anyone else. Those are simply questions I now have. I do understand the fact that likes don't really mean how good/bad photo is but at the same time it is simple form of recognizing it. I also think there might be a lot of people who simply don't feel good enough to give advise to others, I know I am one of them. I think this is one of the reason that most comments under pics are something like: ''great, love it, super'' . I know I am one of those people. I will try to comment on photos I really like giving it a compliment but I won't give any advise since , again, I don't feel good enough in photography to do that. I am not sure how to improve communication on tookapic, I am also not saying that removing likes won't work. I simply don't know that. Again, those were just questions I have. Also... there seems to be idea of maybe making likes anonymous so that those would be given more honestly. I understand that. It seems to me though, that it would be better for photos to be anonymous. I simply see photos in my feed, I don't know who took them and I honeslty give likes to the one I actually like? Not sure how to make possible for people to follow others though... maybe you can see who the autor of the photo is after you like it? Or after you give certain amount of likes you get notification that you seem to like photos of that particular person and you see the name ... or maybe it's really stupid idea. @Paweł I realize ofc that it's easy said.... Anyway, time for me to catch some sleep... early morning tomorrow.

Paweł Kadysz Thank you for your feedback. You have a point and some good ideas. Since we now have only 2 days left until the launch we already decided what to do with the likes. I hope you'll like what we came up with.