To recommend, or, not to recommend?

[mysteryowl]

That is the question.

I am curious to learn why so many viewers of a thread don't recommend?

I looked at LBN and see posts with 2,000 views and only 6 recommendations. I wonder why people are not fully participating?
Hmmm....

61 votes, 3 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	I never recommend and only view and read.
	1 (2%)
	I rec on occasion for really great posts
	24 (39%)
	I rec a lot to be interactive with fellow DU users.
	36 (59%)
	3 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[elleng]

1. No reason to confuse 'recommending' with 'participation.'

[mysteryowl]

2. Okay, so you say views are plenty.

You might be right.

[flvegan]

3. I hope this OP gets 500 recs. n/t

[mysteryowl]

4. Really? Ha

ha
why? are you mocking my thought or supporting it?

[flvegan]

9. Oh

I'm not in any way mocking. I think it's a good question.

It would just be funny.

[mysteryowl]

10. Thank you kind person for participating and clarifying.

[markodochartaigh]

21. I especially like

to recommend comments when there is a positive or educational back and forth. That engagement is a bit rare.

[PatSeg]

28. I love that we now have that option on comments

as well as posts. It is a big improvement.

[HeartachesNhangovers]

5. I usually am not logged in. I will log in to post or rec an exceptional post, but then log right back out.

[mysteryowl]

6. Yeah, I do that sometimes too. Agreed.

[ecstatic]

7. Sometimes a reader might like the post but forget to rec?

Also, forum etiquette might take a backseat when people are stressed out.

[mysteryowl]

8. Okay, that is interesting.

Thanks for commenting.

[PufPuf23]

11. Made a post about 6 weeks ago in an issue forum that has nearly 5500 views,

6 recommendations, and 2 responses.

Thought all the views were weird and almost contacted the forum host.

Just about never have anything to do with moderation.

But pondered over why so many views. Most posts in forum have 200-400 views. Found just a handful of posts over 1000 views and one with a little over 3000 views but nothing close to 5500. Usually pretty much ignored at DU.

Only thing could figure was the post was linked to some other site (included a video).

[mysteryowl]

13. Ohh, that is interesting!

That could be what happened for your post, the video link.

Hmmmm??

Thanks for sharing!

[Bettie]

12. I rec anything I find interesting

but there are some I don't, mostly because I have to get up suddenly and I just forget!

[Ohio Joe]

14. Pass

I rec what I rec… No excuses and no explanations.

[Ms. Toad]

15. If I recommend every post, recommendations become meaningles.

Whether I recommend a post has nothing to do with whether I am fully participating in DU.

[Maeve]

16. Rec means i agree, response means I have something to say

View means only that I looked at it...it may not have been worth more than that

[Ms. Toad]

34. I don't agree with everything I text.

If it is a good thoughtful post or it brings relevant new content to the table I'm likely to rec it whether I agree with the content or not.

A rec says people should read this; not that people should agree with it.

[swong19104]

17. I don't read something based on its rec count

The title is a better indicator of whether I want to read it or not.

[Raine]

18. I try to recommend but sometimes get so involved to writing

a post. Later I realize I forgot to hit the recommend button and I don't want to bother going back. Sometimes I find the post so interesting I forget to recommend. 🤔 It's no reflection on the post one way or the other.

[Pototan]

19. I voted for "rec. really great posts"

but that's the closest to my opinion.

I rec. posts I really agree with and contribute to a Dem. victory. It's kinda between "a lot" and "great".

I would say I recommend about 25% of those I read.

[markodochartaigh]

20. I wonder that too.

I'm old, not very tech savvy, and more accustomed to Reddit. There the custom is to upvote more frequently. It's a younger demographic and I frequently upvote there. Some people seem to appreciate it, I know that I do. Here the custom is different. I still upvote a lot. If someone doesn't want my recommendation then they can tell me. But I see a lot to upvote here.

[canetoad]

22. "Fully participating"

What does that even mean?

There are DU members who have been here for over years yet have not made 100 posts. They are participating at a level that suits them.

Did the 'Hmmm...." on the end suggest there is something nefarious going on? Please remember that DUers have different personalities ranging from the excitedly garrulous to the shy, nervous loner. This seems perfectly normal to me.

[JoseBalow]

23. I thought that's what Reddit was for

[nickster48]

24. I'm kinda new here

And I’m just getting warmed up!

[3Hotdogs]

25. Most of my recommendations are for a post that offers an action of something we can do, achieve,

prevent.

There are posts to which I will respond -- a meme, a joke, a negative comment about a maggot, Qanon or whatever. I will not recommend those because they lead to no action about the problem.

I will recommend a post about a fellow D.U.er who is having a bad day, a bad turn of events in their lives and such. And I will usually respond to those, if for nothing else, to offer encouragement or support.

[madamesilverspurs]

26. Quirks R Us

Sometimes a post will get many views and a couple of recs, then disappear into the ether. The same post, with a cat picture included, will get many views and enough recs to shoot it to the top of the greatest page. 'Tis a puzzlement.


.

[rubbersole]

27. This place is fun!

Lots of different things going on all the time. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

[PatSeg]

29. If I read a post and find it interesting,

then I "rec" it. Also if I think it would be informative to others, I will rec it.

[PatSeg]

30. If I read a post and find it interesting,

then I "rec" it. Also if I think it would be informative to others, I will rec it.

[EarlG]

31. If I may add to this thread...

I think there are a couple of reasons why people read way more than Rec. First, Reccing simply isn't as essential on DU as it is on other sites which allow up-voting and down-voting. We do have the Greatest page, but our more active page is the Latest page, and that simply lists threads in chronological order. On that page, threads which receive multiples of 25 replies are kicked back to the top, because overall we value replies more than we do Recs -- this is a discussion forum; we want people to discuss things.

I think you would see more Recs overall if we allowed down-voting. With down-votes in play, people would feel more urgency to vote for threads that they liked, because they would know that other people could make those threads go away if they didn't act. I do Rec things from time to time, but I'll often look at the top threads on the Greatest page and feel like, well, they're already up there, they don't need a Rec from me. In other words, there's less incentive to Rec on DU than there is on a site like Reddit.

Finally, the view counter counts views by all visitors, but you can only Rec something if you are signed in. So you'll likely see significantly more views than Recs because many, many people read DU but do not have an account.

DU is an old-school pre-Reddit discussion forum so we've always valued replies more than Recs. That's why things like Milestones are based on replies and not Recs, or why we display people's post counts but not their total Rec counts (although thinking about it, total Rec counts might actually be pretty cool to have).

[mysteryowl]

35. This is an honor to have you comment

Thanks for sharing! plus a possible prequel to another DU feature making it,
almost...breaking news.

[Pototan]

32. I love the idea of total rec. counts cited alongside posts.

It gives the poster greater credibility in my mind. Even if the total recs appear on the user's profile page.

[Bayard]

33. I rec any thread that catches my attention enough to click on it

[H2O Man]

36. Recommended.

[Xavier Breath]

37. But if I rec everything it will become like that Seinfeld episode

where Elaine starts abusing the exclamation points.

I rec something when I feel it necessary, especially if it compels me to respond with my own post. And, if I'm being honest here (and I am), there are times when I like a thread and perhaps even respond, but than just flat out forget to rec it. D'oh! So, for those instances, I will attempt to be more cognizant of my lapses when I'm reading a thread and rec it when warranted! Damn, it's starting already

[electric_blue68]

38. I rec when I find a post informative, funny, interesting, or, moving. And it's a way...

of interacting.

[mysteryowl]

39. I agree, it is a way of interacting.