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Over on askubuntu, new people without enough rep to write comments sometimes add an answer which effectively says 'I too wish there was a solution'. If multiple people could simply check something that says this is a problem for me as well - that could highlight some questions as key or important.

An example from today is Launching Ubuntu

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  • 12
    The upvote button already exists.
    – Augusto Vasques
    Commented Aug 12 at 16:19
  • 6
    As does the Follow button.
    – Robert Longson
    Commented Aug 12 at 17:05
  • 1
    @RobertLongson "Follow" is not a visible metric that can be used to "boost" a question. Moreover, following shouldn't mean "I am interested in promoting this question" - I follow many post that I suspect would have spam edited into them. Or I follow questions where I expect no answers (because they should be closed). Or I follow posts from users I know have published R/A comments, and I want to know if they do so again. I certainly don't want to make a post more prominent by following it.
    – VLAZ
    Commented Aug 12 at 17:28
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    @VLAZ follow can mean that "I too want a solution" though because if things happen to the question you get to know about them.
    – Robert Longson
    Commented Aug 12 at 19:17
  • @RobertLongson But importantly doesn't mean that. Not solely. I gave you at least three different things it can mean making it ambiguous and not really definite fit for the role of promoting a question. I'll throw in one extra - I some times follow just to see what responses a question gets. I'm not really interested in the question but more like whether it gets more comments or more answers. And what kind of comments/answers it gets. Trying to use following as a way to make a question more visible can be the opposite of what the followers actually want to happen to the question.
    – VLAZ
    Commented Aug 12 at 19:23
  • @RobertLongson why not use a metric that does mean "I find this question useful": Upvotes. Since they should be tracked for any user. Even anonymous ones. Follows from anonymous users aren't tracked. Moreover, I don't know how many, if any, anonymous users use the follow button. While we do know anonymous users use the upvote. And should be fairly unambiguous what they mean by it.
    – VLAZ
    Commented Aug 12 at 19:26
  • @VLAZ because 99% of people can't upvote. They can follow though. Upvoting is ideal for those who can though.
    – Robert Longson
    Commented Aug 12 at 19:27
  • @RobertLongson again, following can be done for any reason. Not just "I want this question to have more visibility". Unless you have some information that says otherwise.
    – VLAZ
    Commented Aug 12 at 19:28
  • @RobertLongson "If multiple people could simply check something that says this is a problem for me as well - that could highlight some questions as key or important." emphasis mine.
    – VLAZ
    Commented Aug 12 at 19:29
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    @RobertLongson if 99% of the users cannot upvote, then even less can bounty.
    – VLAZ
    Commented Aug 12 at 19:30
  • @RobertLongson ...we're going in circles: following does not unambiguously mean that a question should have higher visibility. I can't believe I had to explain this three times. Please, consider that if you want to suggest following again as a popularity metric that I'll just repeat the same thing again.
    – VLAZ
    Commented Aug 12 at 19:33
  • I want to suggest folllowing as something you can do if all other options are not available to you. I'm not sure why that is contentious. It's not a popularity metric, and nothing I have said suggests it is. It's a way to be notified if you have the problem that maybe there's some new information that may help you. It's also a way to do lots of other things.
    – Robert Longson
    Commented Aug 12 at 19:35
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    @RobertLongson the question talks about giving user (who don't have the upvote privilege) an option to affects the visibility of (or otherwise draws attention to) a question. Following is not a good option for that.
    – VLAZ
    Commented Aug 12 at 19:44

1 Answer 1

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We already do, kind of. The tooltip for the upvote button of a question:

This question shows research effort; it is useful and clear

Useful could mean that you are experiencing the same problem and also looking for an answer. Adding 'me too' answers or comments is just noise that does not provide actionable information to those answering the question or attempting to find the answer to the question.

To bump a question to the top of the homepage to bring more attention, you could offer a bounty, or suggest a helpful edit.

So no, a 'I have this question too' button is not necessary, as the purpose is already fulfilled by upvotes, bounties, etc.

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  • 4
    The upvotes only increase the counter if the user has the upvote privilege. Most new users (the one who are likely to leave a "me too" comment) don't have that. With that said, technically anonymous and unprivileged votes should be* collected. There might be something that can be done with this information to draw more attention to a post. Current it's not used. *but aren't right now?
    – VLAZ
    Commented Aug 12 at 16:23
  • @VLAZ SE ditched that, and replaced it with some "newbie trap" trying to make people create account on the site. But the bottom line is that almost for certain anonymous votes aren't even collected anymore.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Aug 13 at 10:43

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