+159
Planned

Promotes and Favorites are confusing

Varka (Spokesdragon) 8 years ago updated by FibS 7 years ago 89 4 duplicates

Favorites (which are private) and Promotes (which are public) are confusing and non-obvious - leading to a lot of confusion about how to use them, and what they do.


Notifications for favorites always appear to come from "Someone", which is causing a lot of confusion as to who this 'someone' is. There is also no way to view a list of artwork a given user has promoted (in a grid format), which exascerbates the problem.


Better terminology or better site-wide explanation of what Favorites and Promotes are, and how they are typically used, will be needed.

Answers

+1
Answer
Planned

Hey all!


Thanks for all of your feedback on this. Our team's come up with the following suggestion - which is kind of what we originally had in mind, but could never get the terminology right!


Proposal:


Rename features as follows:

- Favorite --> Save for Later

- Promote --> Favorite


Change feature functionality as follows:

- Save for Later will not notify the uploader, or show up as a count on the submission, or be otherwise visible

- Favorite will notify the uploader and show up as a count (with list of who favorited it) on the submission

- New tab will be added to the Homepage, "Favorites from people you follow", which will show a feed of images from people you follow

- Favorites tab on Homepage renamed to "Saved for Later"


----------


We took into account a lot of different viewpoints and suggestions - 'private faves' is a feature that we got an overwhelming positive response to, but we feel it's important to balance that with the desires of artists who want to know who favorited their work and why, as part of the feedback process.


The original goal of 'favorites' was to make it so you could fave art without having to worry about it being public, while still giving you the ability to show your support to the creator when you find something amazing. This change should balance that better with the feedback loop and discovery tool of favorites.


Do you like it? Let us know - so we can proceed with this, and get the 3-4 items that depend on this (including user profile pages) unblocked!


Thanks,


Varka

+20
PINNED

I have an idea for this, which is;

Rename Favorite button to "Add to collection",

Rename Promote button to "Favorite".


Now you can privately favorite something by adding it to your personal collection, and publicly favorite something that users can see in your favorites list.


Collection would have the icon of a box with an open lid, while promotion would have the favorite icon. One more button would be available, that is an open box with a heart on it that does both for those that want it in their public and private favorite for whatever reason.

+7
PINNED
Under review

I like the idea of renaming "Favorite" to "Add to collection", and "Promote" to "Favorite" - and it wouldn't require much change from how things work now. It would, however, remove the expectation that faves would be somehow 'more visible' to others (the 'repost/reblog/retweet' use case).



Would it be better to make it so you can set faves as public/private, and retain the "Repost/reblog/retweet" style functionality intended of Promotes? Inquiring minds wish to know!

Duplicates 4
+16

Honestly, I would suggest the more common (and widely accepted) Share Icon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_icon


The share icon is used on many sites as a way to denote sharing with other users.

+4

Or since promotes are handled like a "shout out" to other users, as in "broadcasting" that you like something in particular to raise attention a bullhorn could also convey that: http://fontawesome.io/icon/bullhorn/


Thoughts?

+3

I think the star is really good for it's purpose. When you hover over it with your mouse it'll give you the alt text 'promote'. Promote isn't the same as retweeting, it's basically featuring / giving more popularity to something here, stars usually stand for 'popularity' or something awesome (exactly what the feature is about).


When you join new sites there's always going to be little things youre unsure about first, such as when I joined twitter almost all the symbols were strange to me except heart, but it helped when someone quickly explained them to me.

What FN really needs is that little beginners guide page that explains how the most basic things works (every community site needs that really). http://support.furrynetwork.com/topic/1149870-more-informative-texts-on-the-site-to-tell-new-users-whats-this-and-how-does-it-work/

+10

I enjoy that favorites are private. If you want to show your love to the artist's you like, promote their work :3

+9

I think the best of both worlds would be a setting which allows users to choose if they want favorites to be private or not.


Promoting artwork feels more like a Twitter retweet to me, in that it shows up in your timeline like "Hey you guys, this is cool, check it out" and favorites being like "I (personally) like this".


Either way, as long as it's just for notifications who favs the artworks I uploaded to my gallery I don't really see an issue with it, but that's just me.


As I mentioned above, a per user setting of "Make my favs private" could be an option for those concerned about someone else being notified with your name attached to your faving habits. (Then again you could argue that faving "special interest" artworks already has the notion of the user uploading it and the user faving it sharing a common interest and there's not really all that much to be concerned about, e.g. kink shaming)

+2

I've been having issues with the difference between a star and a heart myself. I had thought favouriting was just a way to put it into a little faves gallery, and that promoting made it show up in other people's notifications as something I did, but I'm being told that the heart means you're doing it anonymously, and the star means it's public? It's confusing u.u


I agree that having the star be replaced with an arrow or share-like button of some kind would be really helpful.

+8

I agree, for me "favorite" sounds like a quiet "this is neat" that doesn't necessarily mean I'm embarrassed to let the world know I like it but don't want to broadcast whereas "promote" seems more like "hey everyone check out this awesome thing" that I want everyone to see.

+23

As an artist, I'd prefer to know who favorites my work. If I notice a huge burst of favorites from someone, I could approach them to start a conversation with them. At the very least, I feel like if favorites remain anonymous then you shouldn't get notifications from it. It's not telling you really anything useful, besides someone out there likes your work. To me it's kind of a let down, because I can rarely put a face to it.

As a.. 'browser' of art, I like that it doesn't broadcast my favorites to everyone, but I'd still like to show support to the artists by letting them know I like it. It's hard to do so right now with the same anonymity because even a comment gets broadcasted to anyone watching you. Private messages are a possibility, but I feel like it could quickly become spam.

I feel like it would just be easier on all parties to let the artist know who favorited their work, but still keep it just between them.


+4

Yea maybe change 'promote' to SHARE or something.

+7

Favorites are more than art collecting for many, lost of my watchers on another site expressed to me that they use a favorite as a quiet way of saying that they like and support someone. It's non invasive and doesn't require them to go out on a limb the way promoting does. Because most of them are shy, promoting work is like planting a big flag on them while a favorite is a normal thing that everyone does and doesn't draw any additional attention to them, it allows them to remain under the radar while still being able to show the artists they like some support. They are often too shy to comment so that favorite is like their comment and can be given readily where as a promote is like spam. I think it would be nice to make the feature optional that way you give that tool back to the quiet watchers, who does it hurt vrs how much can it help while being optional? I can't tell you how many times I have met a fan at a convention or something and recognized the name based on their favoring habits and been able to say "Oh yeah you are so and so and have this sona, yeah thanks for watching me!" They positively glow.

Alternatively don't waste my time with favorite notifications, if they are anonymous they are a meaningless number that I can't put a face to or use to gauge my audience since it doesn't show a difference between the random passerby who won't follow you and the dedicated follower.

+7

I think the best way to handle this would probably be to have it by default let other users see who you are when you favorite their content (as everyone is used to on every other site), but to have a user setting for something along the lines of "do not let other users see when I have favorited their content" which would result in anonymous favorite notifications. I feel like that would be the best of both worlds.


I say visible by default and with the setting to hide it because I think the vast majority of users would be fine with letting an artist know that they liked something of theirs via a favorite.

+1

This solution seems appropriate to me. And in the same move one could decide whether your favorites should be visible to third parties or hidden.

I think a better version of this, for people who are disturbed by the creepy vibe of this, would just be 'don't let artists see I fav stuff' as in don't give them a notification. I'd rather not know than be told somebody I can't be aware of is collecting my work, because that makes me very uneasy.

+1

I'd love to see who actually favs my work. And I'd love for others to know that I faved their stuff.

+1


Being able to view who favorited your images. As well as when someone favorites the image (for when you get a notification) Have it show the person's icon and username of who favorited it, instead of having a user-less icon saying "someone has favorited your work" appear. it is kind of creepy.
It would also be nice to be able to view some favorites of other users. This allows people to only find new artists to follow if you find works that you like. I know i found a lot of people through this on FA, without it i wouldnt have known half of the people i follow over there.


+3

I really want a truly private way to give a "thumbs up" to artists. Favorites add it to a collection, which is not always what users want--maybe they just want a quick way to say good job without adding something to their porn collection. Promote feels like a way to re-tweet something or say "this is my brand," hahaha. But there is no simple "like."

+6

Not to mention "promoting" doesn't even do much... promotion? It shows up on the promoter's page as just another blip on their feed and easily gets lost behind "favorited" or "commented on" or "followed" (basically any other blip). People don't even get a preview of said promoted work and it really bugs me.

+2

I don't really mind the wording I just want faves to not be anonymous. Its werid just seeing a 'someone' faving your work.

I feel like maybe the two should be combined. So the default would be to favorite something, and depending on your personal user settings would show if you were anonymous or not with the default being not. Then, give people the option to simply favorite, or favorite & promote in one go. I'm not sure why someone would want to promote something without favoriting it, unless they were being a shill after all, ahah. By then, the said promotion would show up on the feed as a thumbnail, which actually is enticing instead of a mere text like the rest of the activities.

+2
I feel like there's three separate things going on here;
  • Favoriting( publicly adding recognition, saying you like it)
  • Adding to collections (This would be anonomous depending on the collection but add popularity)
  • Sharing (reblog-retweet-share etc)


I feel like the buttons should be changed to a favorite and a share button and an option should be added to add it to a collection of yours, as well as collections being expanded on in general.


The current way it is, these things are being combined in really odd ways.


+1

There's a reason why sites like Pixiv have public and private favorites.


Some people like collecting art privately without letting the artist know "o hey look I favorited your drawing". Some don't mind if those are public.


The site already has this feature. It's called "Promote". And these features probably have been thought through much better than you may think.


Plus, what does "stalking" even mean anymore. Most watcher accounts are basically "stalkers" if you want to put it that way. Stop being paranoid.


Needless to say I oppose this.

I'm under the stance of if favorites are private then why tell the artist. its just a messy thing similar to FA's 'comment/watch/fav was removed'

+1

Why not just mimic Pixiv's system of public/private favorites?

Private favorites would only increment the favorite counter of a submission and not send any notifications while public favorites would send notifications.

What is interesting here is that the original statement here says they fear "stalking" by individuals who favorite pieces of artwork anonymously. However, if someone were to be using the favorites button to stalk or harass a user, such a tactic would only be effective if the favorites were not anynomous.


Let's say I tell user StalkySlink to go away and stop bothering me. And, they don't want to so they favorite bomb your art. If you can see who's doing it you will see StalkySlink's name and become triggered that they're still harassing you. If you can't see names of those favoriting, it would be the equivilent of a tree falling in a forest with no one around. Sure it's happening. But the target of harassment is unaware and unbothered and all it does is waste StalkySlink's time. The only way they'd be able to stalk is by doing it openly through direct means; which is easier to police.


That and making favorites public can promote "stalking" in the other direction. As ShingekiSkunk

notes above:

As an artist, I'd prefer to know who favorites my work. If I notice a huge burst of favorites from someone, I could approach them to start a conversation with them.


I think there would be some who would not appreciate this kind of solicitation; particularly in an introvert community such as furry fandom. Some might consider it a bit stalker-ish in its own right, especially if they were unaware that the artist was getting their name every-time the added their work to their favorites. In the end that would mean that individuals such as that would save the artwork on their browser's bookmark then favorite it directly, resulting in less favorites for artists in this case.


So for the sake of both parties, I am respectfully thumbing this one down. I think adding this intel to favorites harms artists by making the favorite button a tool for subversive harassment (despite the irony that original posted wished to add it to prevent said subversive harassment) and it harms content consumers whom may not wish to be approached by artists just because they liked something they drew.


-3

That's a very good comment.


And yet, ShingekiSkunk's comment is the most upvoted in this section and this ridiculous proposal somehow has almost 90% approval rating. Entitlement and selfishness is apparently rampant among furry artists. "I demand to know the names of the people who looked at my stuff! Because stalkers!"


But it's not a problem. If this gets implemented, I'll get back to my old method: I bookmark artists and I save art on my computer. I love privacy and nosy artists don't need to know what's in there.

+4

The entitlement and selfishness argument could be easily turned around on you though. It seems you don't understand an artist's viewpoint so I'll explain.

If an artist creates something and they get favorites from a large number of people, half the time they don't go through and investigate each person. It feels good knowing that people like the work, but to receive those favorites in the form of "someone" actually diminishes the positive boost. It creates an environment where the favs just become points, and nothing more.

Second, when someone goes through and favs a block of work by an artist because they really like it, it also provides a really nice nod to the artist that "by the way, this person really likes your work." It provides viewers the ability to acknowledge the artist without needing to comment. For those that are too shy, this is a good solution.


I have no problem with Favorites being a private collection, as long as the artist is notified.

That you'll simply resort to bookmarking work to prevent an artist knowing you like it, is actually kind of sad. Sure most people keep a private spank bank, but you're going to the extreme. These people put a lot of effort into things you're enjoying and when you say "I love privacy and nosy artists don't need to know what's in there" about the very artists who made the art, that is entitlement and selfishness.

This is the best arguement against anonymous faves I've seen. Thanks for putting this into words cause I couldn't quite

figure it out.

Seems my other reply didn't make it.


First, I'm an artist as well. Then I don't draw for the same reasons you draw, and I don't expect interaction with the people who happen to see my art the same way you do.


But you are infringing on other's people's privacy.

-3

You want privacy? Make a random account with a random name and favorite stuff there.


I do like that there is a private favorite feature, but there should also be a public favorite feature, because I want artists to know that I like their stuff, and I want people to see stuff I have favorited. Don't start this entitled bullshit of "we are entitled to privacy". You didn't pay jack squat to get onto this site, you are entitled to nothing.

-2

I disagree with both Cyborg and yourself, Vas.


Artists ARE entitled to know who's viewing their work. It's THEIR work, they are entitled to know their audience. But anyone else? They don't have that entitlement.


So if you can't handle THE PERSON WHO MADE THE ART IN THE FIRST PLACE knowing you enjoy it - tough. But I don't see a reason why anyone else deserves to know.

-1

I couldn't care less who likes anything I upload, I'm happy to see an anonymous counter going up saying I was viewed/liked/faved. Sure I might be slightly curious but I don't care that much. Not every artist wants to know who faved their stuff, this would cause issues too.


Furaffinity has a block system that prevents you from favoriting artwork of people who have you blocked, and there are some asswipe artists out there that block you over nothing, hell, one who I've never talked to in my life and never insulted nor said anything bad about nor know anything about, just randomly up and blocked me one day so I can't favorite their art anymore, because someone whined to FA staff that favorites are being used to harass people that have been blocked.


Thus, anonymous favorites work, because here, I can favorite their stuff whether they blocked me or not, and they can't do shit about it. Artists are not entitled to who likes their stuff, I can easily just save the file and not favorite it if I wanted, and they'd not know a damn thing. They'd actually lose popularity on it because I didn't give them a booster point to their favorite number.

I would point out a lot of artists seem to use this as reason to post shouts to such people's pages even when people explicitly ask to not receive them (in regards to watching or faving). Which makes me think those artists only want to promote themselves via that than to actually know anything about their viewers.

+1

Well, yeah, it is a good promotion tool. Lots of artists just don't bother reading, tbh. But that's on them, and, y'know, "don't blame the actions of some on the group".

-1

RTFM. There is a public favourite feature, it's called "Promote".


And you didn't pay either, so your opinion counts just as much as mine.

+1

I wasn't insinuating anything costs money. People go all entitled mode when they paid for something, so I said that no one is entitled to anything on this site because they are here, for free. Just so you know.


The whole goal of this topic was to suggest changes to promotes and favorites, so we can have public favorites with the name "favorites" instead of "promotes" which, feels like a campaign to promote someone's artwork, instead of just showing a collection of stuff you like and enjoy.

This sounds like an extreme corner case which would be better solved by providing options to filter notifications.

Be aware that my above comment's original context was in response to an duplicate issue which was merged with this one. It was more directly a response to "Showing who favorited your work" by malware and may seem a bit strange in context of the merge.


That being said, it should be noted that topics and comments should be merged with caution as it can dangerously misconstrue the original intent and focus of the comment and in essence demote participation if people fear their words will be unintentionally twisted by an alogrithmic merging.

Promotes are public favorites. Favorites are private favorites that only you can see.

Promotes may have a method for seeing who has favorited a specific picture, but I dunno.

+20
PINNED

I have an idea for this, which is;

Rename Favorite button to "Add to collection",

Rename Promote button to "Favorite".


Now you can privately favorite something by adding it to your personal collection, and publicly favorite something that users can see in your favorites list.


Collection would have the icon of a box with an open lid, while promotion would have the favorite icon. One more button would be available, that is an open box with a heart on it that does both for those that want it in their public and private favorite for whatever reason.

+7
PINNED
Under review

I like the idea of renaming "Favorite" to "Add to collection", and "Promote" to "Favorite" - and it wouldn't require much change from how things work now. It would, however, remove the expectation that faves would be somehow 'more visible' to others (the 'repost/reblog/retweet' use case).



Would it be better to make it so you can set faves as public/private, and retain the "Repost/reblog/retweet" style functionality intended of Promotes? Inquiring minds wish to know!

+2

I like Banderi's suggestion. I think renaming "Favorite" to "Like" is an appropriate solution. Members should be more familiar with likes being privately saved for them from using other social media sites like tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook where this practice has already been well established.

-1

Banderi? You mean mine? :P

Ooooh, I just noticed his reply, the comments here are a little, odd.

+1

Favs/Promotes already have a familiar feel to them in that the mechanic has been in use for years on other social media sites and the majority of users should feel right at home about how to use them.


As I pointed out earlier to cater to those uncomfortable with having their name in other user's notifications when having fav'd an artist's work (tho I have to wonder why it wasn't brought up before FN's inception on any other site) is to actually do have a setting that says "Notify other users that you fav'd their work? Yes/No" to at least give the feel of being more in control.


But if a user decides to hide favs in other user's notifications it should probably also not generate a notification at all, only raise the counter of total favs on the particular submission. As pointed out by others before anonymous notifications are pretty much useless and don't convey any informative value other than "someone likes your stuff but we're not telling who or what" and that's probably what's so confusing or jarring to most people. If we're not allowed to know who fav'd what, why even tell us about it at all?

Instead of "Add to Collection" we could just have it say "collect" like "collect this". I'm trying to figure out a method of .... Oooh, I may have just thought of something.


A like feature instead. Likes are anoymous kudos that are private, so you can "like" something, the same exact way you Fave it now. And you load your private "likes" up. While renaming Promote to "Fave" and having it act as it does with public favorites. So "like" is your private favorites that when an artist looks at the artwork they uploaded, it may show "22 people liked this" and "20 people faved this".


When you fave something, it will also "like" it, but silently, without adding it to your "like" list. This way you can go to you fave gallery to see stuff you faved and go to your like gallery to see only the stuff you liked without faving. Or perhaps you can just add a checkbox to the Like gallery that removes everything you faved from view.


I just hope people don't start mistaking the like button for something else, I wanted something unique like "collect" so that it couldn't be mistaken for something else, but "private fave" or "anon fave" seemed too odd of something to add there. Collect, seemed like a good replacement for that. However "Like" might also be a good replacement. Favorites, should be something public, while you should also be able to have a private favorite collection as well, but we have to figure out a good name for it, something unique to FN only hopefully.


Lets not forget, that if you do this, we should also add a feature to share your private collection with friends, an option in the private collection window that lets you put the name of a friend in who will be able to click "private collection" (whatever you end up naming it) on your profile when he visits, a button that only appears if they have access.

Since Weasyl has collections, and they are different than this, it might be less confusing if it was named Bookmark.

Everyone should be able to understand bookmarking.

"add to collection" sounds okay for favorite too but ultimately I think things are good as they are now, a better solution would be a simple how-to-FN guide since there will always be slightly confusing things on a new site.

+2

Either this, or rename 'favorite' to 'like' and leave promote as it is, could be a nice solution.

+3

I concur.


No point in really hiding favourites, in my opinion. If they ran the favourite system like most other platforms, and then used the promote system almost as a share tool, it would work much better.


Make it so that when you favourite something, it get's added to your list of favourites. People who received the favourite get notified by who it's from. That's it. No posts on their page saying "this person favourited this" etc. If people are precious about hiding this however, perhaps have a preference setting that makes them private, in which case only the user can see what they favourite, and the person receiving it gets notified that "someone" has favourited it.


When promoting something, make it separate from favourites. When you promote, it publishes on your timeline that you have "promoted" said piece of work, and maybe even publish in people's notifications. Say if you are following someone and they promote an artwork, it turns up in your feed under a separate tab specially for promotes.


That is a much more efficient way of sharing work that you like and give exposure to the artist/author.

Well this was my exact thought more or less.


I do like the idea of being able to privately fav stuff, but maybe having a "collection" for that would work best, as I'd still want to openly fav certain things without "re-posting" them.

Can even see the "collection" as a sort of "watch later" list, for when you see some things, let's say, when on mobile, and would like to download them later on with your computer, without requiring you to fav it or save it through another service.


And the promotes do really need a actual way to be seen on the main timeline. I mean, what's the point of having a "promote" button if it just gets lots in an activity tab, without even a preview to let us see it stand out?

There are a lot of artworks that I'd like to share, to promote an artist, or just a certain piece that I love.

And if there is a "promoted tab", people aren't forced to have it pop in their following notifications if they don't want to get promotion spam either!

+1

If FN wouldn't be showing WHO fav'd our stuff, we could, at least be notified, that our stuff WAS fav'd. That would tell the artists that a given style, technique, character of theirs is being the most popular among other FN users.

-1

Perhaps a weekly digest for private favs, because being notified that you got an anonymous fav every 5 minutes after you submit something could be annoying. Perhaps a weekly notice


Title of Notification; "Favorited Image Update"

ArtName12 +12

ArtName14 +16

ArtName2 +2

ArtName6 -1


And those would only appear if you click on the title to drop down the list.

-1

Thats not the entire issue here. Some people want to show that they like something (favorite) without others knowing that this user likes that specific kink. So anonymous favorites are still good. I think that the "Add to Collection" button should continue to +1 the anonymous fav, while promote becomes the new favorite in which is public. Adding a new feature of promoting, which should be something that tries to promote art so that more people see it. AKA getting it higher up on the front page when people go to browse random artwork and look for popular or most promoted items.

+2

From my point of view, I've only ever given favourites if I felt the artist or author deserved it, as a recognition of their work and effort, which is where my enthusiasm for the Promotion function comes moreso. Rarely do I go back through what I've faved.


I can see how Collections could come in handy for people who need it, particularly if you're an artist that mainly deals with non-adult specific work and don't want your fan base to know what kind of perverted stuff you secretly enjoy (I've never had issues from stalkers or anything like that, but for big name artists I can see the need for this).

I think Vas had the right idea, rename favorite "Add to Collection" and promote to "favorite." ten the confusion is gone.


I would just prefer if it was just public what you favorited. At least, have the artist notified who favorited, and if the person who favorited it wants to keep it private, they can. I don't like the idea of anonymous favorites. I would like to know who my audience is.

+1

It seems like a Facebook-wall style approach would be best for this. FN favorites are FB likes, while FN promotes are FB posts shared to your wall.

I think it's mostly the verbiage that is confusing above all else. "Promote" gives us the impression that other people are going to see that we did this, when that really doesn't happen unless someone goes to our page. It's misleading.

+1

Personally, my only concern is that I continue to be able to privately favorite art that I like. Considering the fact that people may like stuff that friends may not, I personally like the idea of being able to favorite something without advertising it to everyone who may follow me as they may not like it as well. So, what ever solution you come up with I'm down for as long as the ability to privately favorite stuff is still an option.


If I had the choice, personally I would make a favorite button and a share button. Favorite would be put in your favorite collection while sharing would be you sharing art with whoever follows you and you could include in settings if the favorite is exclusively visible by yourself or if it's visible by people who follow you and view your profile. I know that sounds a lot like twitter but it works and it's incredibly easy to understand. ^_^

I feel that the difference between "Promote" and "Favorite" is clear enough. It is likely that several people who have gotten confused simply aren't used to the terms yet.

My two cents: I like the current system of having a private collection of "favorites" and a second collection of "promoted" works that I publicly share with the rest of the world. It seems the word "promote" is too confusing for most people, so perhaps the "share" and "favorite" terminology would work better. I also think that it'd be great if the user had the option to notify the artist when they favorite something. Perhaps the best way to go about doing something like that would be a checkbox under profile options. Finally, it'd be great if favorite notifications were aggregated as twitter does.


TL;DR

- change promote to share, star to some other obvious icon

- give the user the option to notify artists when they favorite a piece of their work

- aggregate notifications when people favorite a piece, like twitter.

I'm still learning how to use this site and have yet to really look into the support aspect of the site, but I will say this:

As of yet, I haven't found a way to actually LOOK at my favorites or promos. I add things to my favorites because I like to go back to them, and because I like for people to be able to see 'oh so this is her taste in artwork, let me get into that action.' That's something that I think that dA and FA have done well, and I think FN has the potential to do something even better.

Maybe a combination of retweets+public favorites/promotes, but users should also have the ability to keep them private outside of promotes. Just seeing it on the feed is nice, but seeing the thumbnails of those pieces we've promo'd is what draws people in. It's eye-catching, it grabs people's attention more than just a text status. Not saying that there's anything wrong with the current format, but I think it has the potential to be improved and to outshine how other websites do things.

Favorites remaining favorites and Promotes becoming "share" might be more clear. Also if what is currently promote would additionally post the image to your activity feed rather than it just being another text based notification could do a great deal in setting it apart. Plus it would more effectively "promote" the image in question!

I like the IDEA of promotes, but realistically the feature could just be combined with favorites . ^.

I approve of what is in the answer.

Someone said that the current system is "Public faves" (Promotes) and "Private Faves" (Faves). I think the idea of a private fave is a good one and your current twitter poll shows that most users want the ability to set their faves to private. I think the collection functionality should be separate from the "instant positive feedback" functionality.


Personally I'd like to see it split into three:

  • Promote - The current promote functionality
  • Fave - The anonymous private kudos functionality minus the auto-add to collection.
  • Collect - Doesn't tell the artist anything, just adds it to the user's collection.

And then I'd like to see the collection functionality expanded to include folders. And then add the ability to display folders on a user's page. So people can show off their collections of art. ("My Digimon Tean," "My Top ten favorite dragon pics," "Photos from last convention," etc.)

    I would very much like the ability to see all the fav's / promotes of a single person in a grid view, similar to the Favorites tab on FA. I have found many artists I had never heard of through that method and feel like I am missing out on a nice centralized location for that sort of content right now.

    I really like the idea of renaming them as: "'Favorite' to 'Add to collection', and 'Promote' to 'Favorite'" I think this would help clear up a lot of confusion about just what they are.

    I'm not sure if it has been suggested yet, or where exactly I should suggest this, but considering the mysterious someone got kicked out recently, could the notification perhaps be changed to "You have received [x] amount of favorites on [y] submission" or something similar? I don't know about other artists but I like seeing if art does well or not.



    Options for wording include:


    "You have received [x] amount of favorites on [y]"


    "You have received a new favorite on [y]"


    "[y] has been favorited [x] amount of times"



    Or anything similar to that. This would eliminate the need to address who exactly favorites a submission, thus if someone has set favorites to private there would be no need for "someone". Perhaps if you click the number there could be a little popup list with names, and if someone has favorites set to private it could say "anonymous" or "private favorite"

    +1

    I think replacing 'promote' with 'share' would do more than enough to differentiate them. Favouriting adds it to your personal collection, sharing lets others see something you're enjoying. Simple - And widely understood!

    +1

    Personally, as an artist, I like seeing who faves my work, even if I'm the only person who can see it. I like being able to click a button on a particular image and seeing the list of people who faved that image, again, something only the creator of that image should be able to see. Right now if I click the "# favorites" next to my image, it just faves that image. Why am I faving my own image?

    It might be a good idea to allow people to keep their favorites private, like FA implemented a while back, or keep them public. I know I like randomly browsing through people's favorites. It's a good way to find new artists, and I've often spent way too long going down that particular rabbit hole when clicking through my new watchers' profiles.

    As for Promotes, it seemed to me as though that was for images that you were particularly fond of and wanted to actively/overtly share with your own followers. "Look at this piece, isn't it great?" Maybe even with the ability to accompany it with some comment to your followers, kinda like how quoting a tweet in a retweet works on twitter.

    Anyway, my 2 cents.


    I'm going to give my two cents:

    How they're named right now, is confusing. Explaining it makes it easier, BUT, it would be 100% easier to just rename them to something that's commonly understood by ways of different platforms.


    Currently, FN's Favorites are much like "Likes" on Facebook or Tumblr (and maybe youtube too?) - so, I believe it should be changed to such. I view "Like" as meaning you enjoy something, but you don't want to share it.


    FN's Promotes work KIND OF like "Favorites" on DeviantArt, FurAffinity, InkBunny, SoFurry... basically, ANY art site. So, it would make the most sense to just rename them "Favorites". It is generally understood across these sites that a "Favorite" is something you like enough to want to share with other people. The difference here being, you don't automatically get a collection created on FN, where on the other sites, a Favorite is automatically added to a collection.


    So, what *I* think should happen is:

    Rename Favorites to "Likes", Promotes to "Favorites", and have "Likes" create a private collection while "Favorites" create a public collection AND show up in a user's feed.

    +1

    What I think is that favorites should become properly private collections, no notifications need to be broadcasted to artists because it literally serves no good to know that SOMEONE favorited something - that notification is the painfull spam that you need to skip through to find meaningful notifications. Ultimately it's good that favorites are private (or maybe they can be renamed to private collections to clear up what it means).


    In the meanwhile I think promotions should also gather into a folder that's publicly available, so that people can see all the things you've promoted - because that's why you promote. Promotes should also show on the whats new feed like they did before, there's no point promoting anything anymore since followers aren't notified about it in any way.

    I personally have to disagree. I like knowing people enjoy my work, and I like knowing WHO enjoys my work. Otherwise I wouldn't post it.


    If you don't care for favorites, sure, you should have the ability to turn them off. But I think it should be an option, NOT something forced on everyone.

    +1

    Over the years I've noticed that favorites do not go in hand with people enjoying the work. People favorite things because they have a subject or a species they like, not because they enjoyed the skill and effort put in - most the time. This is why I really love the promotion system in FN, if someone really enjoys your work and thinks you did well they'll promote it because it's the public favorite/shout out 'you did well'. It nicely strips off the 'favorites' that people did just because the picture included their favorite cartoon character that they're collecting into their favorites folder.

    +1

    Honestly, I still have to disagree with you - what you said sounds rather cynical and, as I said before, if you don't care to know who's favoriting (or promoting) your work, you should have the option to turn it off - BUT you should also have the option TO know who's favoriting (or promoting) your work.


    YOU might not care, and simply think they only care for X theme/species and not the artwork itself, but that's not what I think or feel about it, and I'm sure there are plenty of other artists out there on my side of the spectrum who I don't think deserve to be snubbed because of the artists on yours.

    Why does it sound cynical to think that both features should stay available? So far I've experienced that people indeed do use the system like this, probably because it's made available like that - I've been able to distinguish the people who actually enjoy my work and even start talking to them without the fear that conversation goes like "I'm curious why you enjoyed this particular piece" "Ummmhh I really just like foxes so much" "oh ok" *awkward silence* - and same goes the otherway around, I do sometimes enjoy pics with a specific theme but find the skill behind the piece just average - I wouldn't want to potentially get into a discussion where I have to admit that I do just find the skill average and only liked the subject.

    +1

    It's cynical to think that people don't favorite work because of the work itself. If they DIDN'T like it, why would they favorite/collect/whatever it? Just because they don't think it's AMAZING and don't have any input on what they like about it artistically, doesn't mean they don't like it. (People aren't necessarily the brightest crayons in the box, let's remember!)


    I don't like the idea of anonymous collecting. I WANT the feedback. If you don't, that's fine, but others DO, and I don't think we shouldn't get it because someone else doesn't want it.

    And that's exactly why we have both private collections and promotions, so that people who want to collect privately can do so and also give visible feedback when they want to do so.


    Even if the private collections were taken away people could still silently collect the pics by saving them locally.

    From what I've seen some people just favorite everything an artist posts, not caring or enjoying skill and effort, so with this system they would just 'promote' everything the artist makes instead. Which is just as worthless unless the artist only cares about numbers.

    Also why wouldn't I promote a picture of my favorite cartoon character? If I thought the person drew it well enough to 'favorite' it then they also drew it well enough to 'promote' it.

    I would think the only things people wouldn't promote, that they like, are the things they don't want anyone (not even the artist cause who knows who they might tell) to know they like.

    +1
    Answer
    Planned

    Hey all!


    Thanks for all of your feedback on this. Our team's come up with the following suggestion - which is kind of what we originally had in mind, but could never get the terminology right!


    Proposal:


    Rename features as follows:

    - Favorite --> Save for Later

    - Promote --> Favorite


    Change feature functionality as follows:

    - Save for Later will not notify the uploader, or show up as a count on the submission, or be otherwise visible

    - Favorite will notify the uploader and show up as a count (with list of who favorited it) on the submission

    - New tab will be added to the Homepage, "Favorites from people you follow", which will show a feed of images from people you follow

    - Favorites tab on Homepage renamed to "Saved for Later"


    ----------


    We took into account a lot of different viewpoints and suggestions - 'private faves' is a feature that we got an overwhelming positive response to, but we feel it's important to balance that with the desires of artists who want to know who favorited their work and why, as part of the feedback process.


    The original goal of 'favorites' was to make it so you could fave art without having to worry about it being public, while still giving you the ability to show your support to the creator when you find something amazing. This change should balance that better with the feedback loop and discovery tool of favorites.


    Do you like it? Let us know - so we can proceed with this, and get the 3-4 items that depend on this (including user profile pages) unblocked!


    Thanks,


    Varka

    +1

    Save for later, seems a bit long. Perhaps just "Save", collect being the original idea because it was a single word that meant add to a personal collection where as "save" might make people think save file.


    Will there be the ability for users to come to my profile, and click a "favorite" button to view everything I've favorited (the old promote) the same way they would with my gallery? I want to be able to see what things people tend to favorite. I like going through the favorites of other users every so often so thats what I've been hoping for. On my FA, favorites is all I have on my page considering I removed all art from my FA.


    If you'd like help making an icon for "save for later" or "save" or "collect", I can always try and come up with a good one, I have a few ideas and could tinker around in Gimp.

    +2

    I think I agree. A good design makes it clear what things do with minimal descriptions. People will know what "favorite" does since it works the same with other websites like FA or DA. People might get confused with "save for later" or "save," though, because commonly save means something like download. How about the word "archive" instead? I think people will understand what "archive" means, especially if they've ever used gmail or FA notes.

    Archive seems like the perfect term to me, it's very intuitive. Sounds better and is shorter than 'save for later' too!

    +1

    This sounds good so far, but this part:


    - New tab will be added to the Homepage, "Favorites from people you follow", which will show a feed of images from people you follow


    still got me confused. I'm sorry, but I don't get what you want to tell me. Could you please elaborate?


    Also, if I publicly favorite other peoples works, will it be displayed in a favorite section, we know from other art sites, on my profile and can other users browse my favorites? Or would this still be just an internal process between artist and the one faving where the artist gets a notification?


    Additionally one last thing: I'd suggest to rename "Save for Later" to something like "Save Privately" or "Store in hidden Favorites". Save for later sounds like you're still supposed to do something with the content you saved.

    Guess not? I'll try.
    It sounds like it will be kind of like a gallery of all of the art the people you follow have favorited.



    Personally I would rather pick who's favorites I see, a few of the artists I follow places favorite things that I find disturbing.

    I like that you've kept both features but only renamed them. Although with you deciding to make promotes just generic favorites, does this mean you'll not be returning the awesome 'x promoted y' notifications? (But I suppose with journals coming we can do the FA thing and promote others via journals).

    I have a question; will the new "Favorites" show up in your/your follower's feeds the way "Promotes" did? If the answer is "No", I can't see the harm in having "Promotes" coming back as just that; a way to share something you think is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING to your followers, without them having to go look for them themselves in the new "Favorites" tab. (Of course, don't allow people to Promote their own work.. I mean, it'd be nice to be able to remind people of auctions/YCHs, but none the less.)


    That being said, I'm disappointed in the choice to keep this "Save for Later" out of the eyes of the artists themselves. I feel like people are going to use "Save for Later" over "Favorite", ESPECIALLY if "Favorites" show up on their/their follower's feeds like "Promotes" did, meaning artists will end up getting WAY less feedback than they would have otherwise. But if they don't, again, having "Promotes" come back as I described in the previous paragraph would be a nice addition.


    Also, an alternative rename to Vas's suggestion: "Bookmark" instead of "Save for Later" - shorter, gets the point across, understood on multiple platforms (Facebook, Tumblr via Xkit, Google Chrome, etc.)

    +1

    I personally like the current promote and favorite behaviour as it is (the tooltips make it clear what their purpose is), but save for later sounds like something I'd want in addition to those for submissions I'd like to return to more often for whatever reason, and I'd actually want that in addition not in place of the currently existing choices. Mostly because everything I have in my favorites now would move to the new favorites and save for later would have almost everything but not all I have in the new favorites. I currently have only very few things promoted, and I like the feature for having the ability to point fingers at something cool that I would like other people to see too because not everything I like is that sort. I can understand that for some people all favorites are worth promoting like that tho, but not to me, so it becomes a little weird to deal with I guess.

    I believe there should be three buttons:


    1. Add to collection: Tags the submission as part of one of the user's collections. They will be asked if they want to alert the artist, unless the collection is private and the artist does not have access, in which case it will automatically be silent.
    2. Favorite: Alerts the artist, but asks the user if they want to be anonymous. If they say yes, the artist is told they received a favorite, but not by whom. In either case, this does not post the favorite to stream.
    3. Share: Posts a link to the original submission to the user's activity stream. This does not automatically favorite the image.

    These last two buttons are not available if an artist is looking at their own submission.