I wasn’t on a normal computer this weekend. Now that I am, I’ve been searching, but can’t seem to find the 2 or 3 different threads this has come up in.
It all started because a bunch of Regulars were complaining about the like limit, which apparently is specifically set lower than some of us would want because it’s meant to foster more posts…we’re supposed to respond to someone’s post rather than just like it. But it became obvious over time that most of the people complaining are women, and the complaint from all of us who have the problem (including the men) is that we use the like system differently than that. When I run out of likes, for example, I leave the forum. I don’t keep reading and responding, because most of the time, I don’t feel I have something substantive to add, so why waste the bandwidth? Liking someone’s post can mean I read it (if it’s a response to me, but I really don’t have anything more to say…kind of like when do you stop saying thank you for someone else’s thank you to you), or it could mean I agree and don’t have anything better to add, or I think it was funny, or heartfelt, or I want to show I empathize with the poster. Women are socialized to be less intrusive: we don’t automatically assume that an entire forum of people would want to spend time reading our “me too” or “I agree” post. This means that some men fall into this way of thinking too, but there is a huge gender imbalance in usage on this issue.
To be fair, BB did substantially increase the like limit once a poster reaches the Regular level as a result of our feedback, which was very helpful. Still not enough for some of us…and in fact, I don’t think any woman on this forum who was bumping up against the old threshold has found it to be enough yet (could be wrong about that). But at least they did listen and we did get some improvement.
