Hi Jeremy,
Is a comment Like Jetpack feature on the horizon yet?
The ideal is the WordPress.com comment Like feature – that one is perfect. A simple little star (or heart, or carrot* or whatever), no frills, changing colour when “Liked”…that’s the perfect way to provide that function.
The comment Like feature is extremely useful as a way to show appreciation for comments and encourage communication in the comment tracks, and most of all as a way to say “I have seen your comment on my post, and I appreciate it, and I may or may not reply later”. It is such a great little feature, whether you’re the blog author, or commenting on someone else’s blog and able to see in the notifications that they’ve read your comment and appreciate it, even if they don’t reply yet, or don’t reply at all.
There do exist other comment Like plugins, but they are mostly of the vote-up vote-down type, counting Likes. Generally what they provide is a comment popularity contest, rather than a neat way to show appreciation for external contributions.
I’m currently using a vote-up vote-down type comment Like plugin with a counter, where I’ve removed the thumb-down option and customised the symbol. I’ve copied the WP star and use that with the counter. However, it isn’t as neat as the original WP comment Like feature. I’m not particularly fond of it and consider removing it again, although it kinda does the job. It is subtle aspects that make all the difference in whether a feature does the job the right way or not, and this one just isn’t spot on, but the best I could find amongst the available plugin options.
Thank you so much for all the marvellous Jetpack features, I would never had gone self-hosted was it not for Jetpack, I would have stayed on WordPress.com.
Anna
*kidding with the carrot
