Private reactions and replies

I’ve thought about short replies and “reactions” – where the need for them comes from and how it can be adapted to SBB.

It’s interesting to note that in instant messaging there’s only one type of message, and that’s enough to convey complex thoughts, nods, uh-huhs, emotions, etc. Obviously face-to-face interaction is much richer, but it’s still possible to render many things through text and emojis, and no big dilemma arises. Instant messaging is a simple medium with big limits, but there isn’t much we can do about it.

On the other hand, online public discussion is very different from instant messaging. I wouldn’t compare it to face-to-face interaction among two or few people, but rather to a large gathering where people take turns to express complete thoughts to a quiet audience. In such physical gatherings, one can distinguish several types of interaction:

a. A spoken statement to everybody.

b. Collective feedback: applause, laugh, boo…

c. Direct feedback from listener to speaker, through gaze, nodding, smiling, yawning…

d. One-to-one talk (probably whispered and brief).

e. Direct questions to the public, likely answered by raising hands.

In SBB a clearly corresponds to a public post. “Likes” (and hypothetical closed-choice “reactions”) are perhaps a good translation of b, because they are constrained and contagious. There is no specific feature that matches c, while d is served by private messages, although the context is not automatically tracked. There’s also no specific feature for e.

As far as I understand from several comments in this thread, many of us want something like c. That is, a short feedback for the poster that doesn’t need to be replied, is possibly nuanced, and isn't relevant for the public. That’s completely different from, say, an applause, which is chiefly a collective behavior (how embarrassing to clap your hands alone!). So I think it deserves its own feature.

Private feedbacks that require a reply should also have their specific space, as I argued in a previous post.

So I made this ugly mock-up to show how I would display private reactions and private replies (this is what robin would see):

Reactions are presented as a grid of avatars. By hovering on the avatar the actual message is shown. Reactions are free-form: they can be emojis, a word, a short sentence like “Interesting! Reminds me of Shakespeare”. Just like a speaker scans faces in an audience to gather feedback, this system would allow you to see at a glance who's read your post, to know the reactions of people whose opinion you value most, and to simply disregard the superficial and the trolls. The rationale here is that faces are the first important piece of information, and the actual message is important only when the face is. Contrast this with the usual reaction-counter, where you first see quite meaningless numbers next to standardized messages, and only after hovering can you know who’s behind the numbers.

Private replies are easy. Since they’re private they’re like independent threads, and can be shown in separate tabs. The whole private replies section could be expanded/collapsed.

I’ve argued above that “likes” (and public, constrained “reactions”) have something in common with applauses and collective laughs. That makes sense, but there’s the crucial difference that “likes” get counted, and the count stays there forever. This makes them more akin to votes. Indeed, stripping those collective behaviors of their fleeting quality feels like a complete distortion of their nature. All in all, there seems to be no good translation of collective reactions in the online world.

Polls would be a totally legitimate feature. A post could define its own accepted public “reactions”, which would be counted and publicly displayed.