Mastodon favorite star ⭐ interaction is changing to the heart ❤️ in the upcoming Mastodon version.
With Mastodon Bird UI I have already built it with heart interaction support à la the birdie site in the past despite it having the star as default and I'm most often than not going to follow the official Mastodon direction. But I still want to ask, what do you think?
@rolle I vote for star - I don't think this change represents how Mastodon uses this interaction.
It's "I've read your post, thanks for writing it". I often use it at the end of a conversation to show that when no reply appears, it's not because I forgot about the last message sent - I read it, I just chose not to respond.
The problem is, of course, that making the heart the default will change how others then use the interaction. Thus, I will need to change my usage as well.
@rolle Based on the link you provided, this change looks really sketchy to me. It's not part of the original change ticket, at all.
And yeah, personally I prefer the star, but I also like the idea of having the icon controlled as a user preference. Especially since it seems a small group of people are changing it based on their personal preferences.
@rolle I think a tick ✔️ would equally serve as well… to acknowledge that you’d read/seen the post and wanted to interact with it without conferring any particular sentiment. Such as a heart does to me.
@rolle
I use the star to mean "I hear you", "I acknowledge". When it becomes a heart, I will use the reaction far less frequently because I don't want to give the impression that I love something that I'm just acknowledging.
Didn't expect this one to be so polarizing! I remember that as a new user I found the difference between "star" and "bookmark" confusing; this will hopefully help with that.
I just hope no change in underlying behavior is planned :)
@rolle I’ve been waiting for this. Favourite (star) is not the same as like (heart), even if people have used it with the same purpose. Still, a 👍 would be preferred.
@rolle The star is more neutral. A heart implies more of an emotional reaction to a post which is not necessarily always what the user is intending. I think there's something very American about reacting to social media messages with an equivalent of "I'm loving it!". Maybe there should be separate "send love" and "acknowledged" buttons.
So it's basically all the same. No separate buttons needed.
What I dislike is the reactions trend like on LinkedIn. I want one single reaction for this and for me the symbol is not that important. It can be a carrot for all I care as long as it represents one of these three meanings.
@rolle But how does the recipient know what your intended meaning is if you're using the same symbol in all these cases? I guess it's often obvious from the context, but probably not always. I mean, this is hardly a major issue for me personally, just wondering from an ui design point of view.
@rolle this is one thing I really hated about mastodon. The way the star works. Using the heart will possibly change how it’s used.. but it makes mastodon easier for newbies, as the heart is a common reaction among almost every other platform. Maybe a better way is to keep the star and add a heart .. bc that way the star can still be used as a bookmark while the heart does what new people expected the star to do.
@rolle you know you're right. But I've always used it to save statuses. Maybe the problem here is the star as its programmed now doesn't really have a unique use? Maybe the issue here is that that feature needs to be rethought completely? Not just the graphic?
@rolle Maybe for some people.. but I've seen a lot of people using this feature for a variety of uses. This isn't the first thread on the star I've seen here, most have been "what exactly is this for?"
@rolle 1. I like seeing the star spin. The heart won't spin.
The heart is a blunt, if squidgy, instrument that fails to carry the nuance of the star which can mean "I like this", but can also mean "whatever", "that's enough of this conversation" or "go away, but nicely".
@rolle The star. The heart might mean 'I love this' when in fact you want to say 'I agree with your views' when the post is about something horrible happening.
@tisha I also view it as "sending love", so it also applies to tragic things. I guess this is als othe norm in everywhere. I've seen funeral posts with thousands of likes. They do not "like" the funeral or death, they are sending their love. @writeblankspace
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