[buddypress-trac] [BuddyPress Trac] #5644: Activity Favorites: alternative management & new features

[buddypress-trac]

#5644: Activity Favorites: alternative management & new features
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 Reporter:  imath                  |       Owner:
     Type:  enhancement            |      Status:  new
 Priority:  normal                 |   Milestone:  2.1
Component:  Activity               |     Version:  2.0
 Severity:  normal                 |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  has-patch 2nd-opinion  |
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Comment (by Bowromir):

 [[Image(I've given the latest patch a spin and I'm pretty darn excited to
 see this take shape. Reading through all the comments in this ticket here
 are my thoughts..

 I really like the idea of allowing "Favorites" feature to be used in two
 ways depending on the type of BuddyPress community you're running. One
 option is to use favorites as a "liking" system and a friendly nod (as JJJ
 put it) to the creator of the activity. This is something that's very
 welcome to anyone who uses BuddyPress and it's activity stream for a
 community similar to Facebook. Using Favorites as bookmarks could be very
 useful in communities that utilise the activity stream as a news source
 and less as a social stream.

 But I agree with Tammie about the UX concerns this presents in terms of
 implementation. Just because the code/logic is very similar, it does not
 mean that Likes/Favorites are comparable from the users point of view.
 Hence I don't think it's smart to let an admin turn "Favorites" into
 "Likes". It's comparable to the Friends vs Followers concept.. very
 similar in terms of functionality for devs, but not so much for users. My
 entire social circle including my mom & dad immediately understands what
 the "Like" and "Friends" button does (thank you Facebook) but explaining
 them a "bookmarking" and "follow" button would be a lot harder.

 My assumption by looking at the existing BuddyPress communities out there,
 and the themes that are being sold on ThemeForest and other places, is
 that most BP sites build are social networks more akin to Facebook than to
 Twitter.  This is why I would make the argument that a "Like' button would
 have bigger benefits for most communities then a "Favorite" button. Also
 because "Liking" something is a great way to keep people active and most
 importantly reward users for being active. Something all communities could
 benefit from (especially in the early days of launching a community).

 In my opinion I think something similar to the "Default Active Components"
 strategy in BP 1.7 could also be used for Favorites and Likes. Existing
 installs would keep using "Favorites" whilst new installs would be using
 "Likes" be default. Under the hood this functionality would be very
 similar (@imath his awesome patch has proven that this is possible) and
 legacy site owners could even migrate from favorites to likes with
 relative ease by changing a setting and informing their users of the
 change functionality.

 It could look something like on the attached screenshot.

 Now in regards to the "Like" functionality and what it should do by
 default.. I think there's are some things that could be problematic.

 - I don't think "Likes" should be shown by default in the activity stream.
 People like a lot of stuff. If you have 200 friends it would mean that
 within no time your activity stream would be filled with "Like" entries. A
 possible solution would be a "trigger" where a new "Bowe, Boone and 8
 others liked JJJ his activity" would be posted when a certain amount of
 likes are reached. Although I'm sure this would probably complicated and
 resource heavy code?

 - I'm not entirely sure about using tabs to switch between "Replies" and
 "Likes". Purely because seeing instantly who liked something is strong
 motivator for users to click that like button too. And the more likes the
 more activity and happy site owners :-)

 This is pretty much it for now :-) Great discussion and thanks for the
 awesome work Mathieu)]][[Image()]]

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Ticket URL: <https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/5644#comment:22>
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