I have a "LIKE" problem.

At first I was worried you meant me for a few in the "Public York" thread, but then I noticed I had a whole slew of new ones too this morning, all from the same person. (and all in that thread - I'm wondering if he went through the whole thread to hit them all)

In my case the particular person has "liked" a fair number of my posts before, and I had similar thoughts as you express above, I had no idea what was "like-worthy" for some of them.

I won't call the person/account out by name, but the account in question seems to have 5 followers, at least 3 of which I recognize as long term contributors(maybe they are also curious what this person "Likes"), and this account is  following 4 others, 2 of which make very much sense as prominent industry leaders.

More review shows this account has (assuming the forum stats are working) no posts of any kind, just all the "Likes"(~ 23,000 plus point worth of "Likes" in under 1 1/2 years !).  Zero for "Content", Zero for "Comments", all "Actions" (the "Likes"). 

I'm starting to wonder if the account is somebody's computer experiment.

-Dave

is this for real?

rogerpete posted:

is this for real?

What do you mean?  Yes it's for real.  Hey I appreciate a good "like" as anyone else would but when it's just every post it really diminishes the feature.  Dave has summed up the issue pretty well.  Maybe I shouldn't complain but when I woke up to 27 this morning...

I know you may not want to go this far but would blocking the member stop it? I guess I should consider my self lucky just had 3 this am. 

Had a similar problem on a different forum ( not the one most here would think) I had a friend/member every time he came on he would hit like to every post you did since he was on last about a week ago. He must of gotten tired of it I guess as he now only does it once in a while. 

I wasn't sure if that works which is why I asked this question.  I guess I'll give it a try.  I'll let everyone know if it works as I'm sure I'm not the only one "Liked Bombed".

"Like"

If you always are the original poster, apparently you won't have to worry about "likes", since that option only seems to appear on replies.

Bill in FtL

I see this occasionally, but I do not think it is a big deal.  Sometimes people do not read this everyday, but once or maybe less a week.  They might go through some one they are following, and give likes as they catch up.  Do you really use the like feature to judge what you read or to form your opinion?   G

A like and a buck will get you a cup of coffee...

Rusty

I've never paid any attention to "Like", and in fact I wish there was a "Dislike" feature. Anyway, where are all of you finding all these "Like" posts in your profile?

Well done. 

MartyE posted:

I wasn't sure if that works which is why I asked this question.  I guess I'll give it a try.  I'll let everyone know if it works as I'm sure I'm not the only one "Liked Bombed".

LOL... Like Bombed... As my son who likes minecraft would say "I think there is creeper following you Dad"

Before the forum upgrade when there was the community ranking this was a way to boost your ranking. Now theres no ranking so I see no point in liking everything

GGG posted:

 Do you really use the like feature to judge what you read or to form your opinion?   G

Nope.  It's a feature that I don't typically pay much attention to until I all of a sudden have 27 of them.  Sometime I use them to see if any info I provided was helpful.

Hot Water posted:

I've never paid any attention to "Like", and in fact I wish there was a "Dislike" feature. Anyway, where are all of you finding all these "Like" posts in your profile?

Usually shows up as an alert in the drop down when you hover over your forum name on the top right.

Actually if you don't like someone and just want to clog up their email ... its a great tool?

 Anyway, where are all of you finding all these "Like" posts in your profile?

When you log into the website, at the top banner, on the right is your screen name.  If there have been 'likes' to your posts, it shows an 'alert'.  The 'alert' is that someone has 'liked' your post.

I don't make a lot of posts, so I seldom have more than 2 alerts (likes) at a single time.  There is one gentleman, from overseas, who seems to 'like' many of my posts.  I always just figure it's because I have something profound to say!   LOL!

I'm thinking that one accumulates 'points' by liking the posts of others.  Said gentlemen above, has double my points (whose resulting titles have wisely been turn off by the moderators), yet has not made any posts himself.  This is really too bad, as I would really like to read what he has to say, especially since real trains and model trains are big in his country.

Marty, I have fought real hard not to be a wise-*** and like all of your posts in this thread!

Jim

Rusty Traque posted:

A like and a buck will get you a cup of coffee...

Matt Makens posted:

Before the forum upgrade when there was the community ranking this was a way to boost your ranking. Now theres no ranking so I see no point in liking everything

I agree with both of these points.

This forum has a "ranking" option. I turned it on a few years ago using unique railroad terms like "Trainmaster", "Superintendent",  "Engineer" , etc.  It immediately started a firestorm over who outranked who. It was a bunch of childish nonsense. It became so troublesome for everyone that I just shut it off and forgot about it.

MartyE, I can appreciate your point, but without any ranking system here, it's much ado about nothing.

OGR Webmaster posted:

Rusty Traque posted:

MartyE, I can appreciate your point, but without any ranking system here, it's much ado about nothing.

While I appreciate that it doesn't really concern ranking, it does sometimes alert you to somebody that was helped by a post and I sometime use it to see if they had a solution.  Maybe much ado about nothing then maybe it should be turned off all together.  Then I won't have to go through 27 likes, to find the one that someone submitted because they found a post helpful.  If nothing can be done then I deal with it.  My original inquiry was to see if blocking someone would alleviate the like traffic to the folks that actually use it as intended.  Thanks Rich.

jd-train posted:

Marty, I have fought real hard not to be a wise-*** and like all of your posts in this thread!

Jim

Jim I would be disappointed if you didn't.  I actually was expecting it.

Maybe the person who "liked" all your posts thought they were all well written and made good points. I think you should be flattered.

MartyE posted:

...much ado about nothing then maybe it should be turned off all together...

The "Likes" feature is not something I can turn off. I don't have that option.

MARTY is a likable person, if by chance you do meet him in public. 

If nothing can be done feel free to delete this thread.  Thanks.

Things could be a lot worse if this is what tops the list of your problems............

It's not a new phenomena...

Rusty

C W Burfle posted:

Maybe the person who "liked" all your posts thought they were all well written and made good points. I think you should be flattered.

If it is a real person, that person is clicking the like button an average of 47-48 times per day since registering, without ever making a single post as either a new thread or a comment to another member's thread.  Why would one register on a site just to click the like button a whole boatload of times? 

That's what makes me think it's someone's automated script toy (even if originally created manually since I'm pretty sure the registration process Rich uses here is intended to filter out bots).  I'm not on FB, so I don't know the actual interaction of this site with FB (aside from the little icon links at the top of the page), but there is a concept called "Like Farming" that there is quite a bit of write up on across the web. (short YouTube video explaining basics)

In general it seems Like Farming relies on getting others to click the like button in order to elevate a page's popularity, then changing the content to something else after all the likes elevate the popularity of the page (classic examples are "liking" a post relating to a picture of a kid with cancer (in this case the kid/parents were not involved) or "liking" a post because it claims you may be entered into a drawing for a new car, latest iPhone, etc.).

That obviously doesn't apply directly here since the "liker" doesn't have a way to modify the content of the pages here.  Maybe someone is just using this site as a test bed to develop what I will call a "like-bot" before trying to use it on a more popular site like FB.  The utility of such an automated  "like bot" would seem to be an advantage for the scammers described in the referenced articles.  If they can automatically generate the "likes" without even needing to trick the unsuspecting viewers into clicking, it could be a shortcut to the end game for the scammers.

-Dave

Strange post. Imagine if every forum member hits the "LIKE" button for all of the "Reply Post's" all of the reply post's .

I agree with CWBurfle and that you should be flattered.
Just enjoy the forum.

I take it as a" thank you" for your post. .I get a few but no where near 27 in total. I suppose you can just ignore the" Alerts".  Don't open them.

Actually just turn off your Email notifications and you should be good to go...

J Daddy posted:

Actually just turn off your Email notifications and you should be good to go...

That's not the issue.  Since nothing can be done I'm moving on.

MartyE posted:

J Daddy posted:

Actually just turn off your Email notifications and you should be good to go...

That's not the issue.  Since nothing can be done I'm moving on.

Than why post or reply if you have an issue with "Likes"?

Never mind.  BTW, blocking doesn't work.  I just got "liked" again from the "Serial Liker".

You have a stalker Marty, make sure you keep your gun close at hand!

I typically ignore alerts, there's a few pending now.

MartyE posted:

Never mind.  BTW, blocking doesn't work.  I just got "liked" again from the "Serial Liker".

LMAO... Serial Liker... that is funny ... yes you have a creeper following you....

Yes obviously "HOT" likes everything.  More power to you.  If you really wanted to contribute you'd actually make a meaningful post, otherwise you're background noise which will now be ignored.  As MWB stated, I have better things to be concerned about. 

Auf Wiedersehen

yes, I thought Hot was related to Hot Water...  Hot is the Ying and Hot Water is the Yang...

What's wrong with liking something that someone posts?  Who cares about the "community ranking" they had before.  For a while...I didn't even know what that was.  When I am reading thru the threads on the forum and I see something someone said or a good photograph...I hit like to let the person know that it was good or that I found it interesting.  It's a nice part of the forum!  Geez!  I will continue to "like" things that interest me on this forum.  Be careful what you wish for...especially if they ever did get a "dislike" button!  Matt