Update
There are three methods for people that are not members of GunFreeZone to give feedback on normal articles.
- They can create a WordPress.org account and click the “like” button on a post. This attaches their wordpress avatar and name to the like.
- They can click the thumbs up button on a comment. This is completely anonymous.
- They can click the thumbs down button on a comment. This is completely anonymous.
I hope this clears up any confusion I created.
Original
I have noticed and a couple of readers have noticed that there are more thumbs down on the blog than theirthere use to be. This leads me and some of our readers to wonder Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
I’ll start with Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity
You can replace “stupidity” with all sorts of other words but the gist stays the same.
First, when you use the like button at the bottom of a post you need to have a WordPress.org account and your handle and avatar are attached to that. So for example I notice when “OldNFO” likes my post. He made a decision not to become a paying member at the blog but continues to read and continues to give feedback whichwhat he can.
Thank you for still being a read OldNFO. Makes me feel good. There are a couple of other regular “Likers” of the same sort. Thank you to all of our readers.
So next we look at those thumbs up and thumbs down buttons. In the past people used them as an acknowledgement tool. You post a comment and I post a reply and instead of posting a reply to my reply you just click the “Likey” thumbs up button.
If you don’t agree but not enough you just leave it be. No thumbs up, no thumbs down.
If you disagree you will likely reply and a conversation takes place.
We almost never used the thumbs down button. As was observed.
Today there are many more people that read but don’t comment. So when they disagree with you they can’t reply, instead they give it a thumbs down.
So at first flush, I think that the increase in thumbs down is a direct result in us trying to monetize the blog.
Unfortunately, the thumbs up/thumbs down buttons are completely anonymous. There is code to make sure that they can’t be mass mashed but that is it.
So for the time being let’s just see where it takes us. Maybe we figure out something to let people do a one time comment or something like that. All it takes is a small bit of code… (That’s an inside joke for developers/coders)
All it takes is a small bit of code…
Word.
.
Thanks for taking a quick look, AWA. This seems like a good initial hypothesis.
Like ol pedo joe said- yall learn to code….
On disqus, the likes/dislikes are not anonymous. Food for thought.
I read the code. The thumb buttons fire an AJAX action which contains a payload. There are 1000’s of these firing every day for all sorts of reasons on a wordpress site. The ajax goes to our server and while the server logs the fact that an AJAX payload arrived there isn’t a log of the content. Once in the wordpress code the contents of the AJAX packet are examined and dispatched to the plugin. At the plugin the cookies and other security pieces are checked to make sure this is a “real” person click. If it is, then the like/dislike is registered.
.
At no point are any logs created during this process. So yes, it is anonymous from our end and from the service provider end.
By not anonymous, I mean it shows the login name of who clicked it. Everyone can see the names by hovering over it. And I actually like that feature.
Be aware of Google Alerts: you login to your google account and create alerts based on keywords on any webpage.
en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Google_Alerts
It allows anyone an opportunity to track subjects of interest and is great for activists and other assholes who like to troll political opponents.
First you lead with an example of likes not being anonymous then say like/dislike are. Can you clear that up?
There’s a like button for the post itself?
{scrolls up, hunts around a bit}
Huh.
{scrolls back down}
Learned something new today!