"Gratitude"

[kpage9]

I am relatively new to this community, and still feeling my way, getting a sense of the ground rules, spoken and unspoken, and generally very happy to be part of the weave.

I wonder if someone could explain the purpose of the "Gratitude" feature, especially tracking totals. I've used it a few times because--well, the button is there and I'm feeling grateful for the post, and why not say so, especially since it's so convenient. But I have to confess to an initial lizard-brain, knee-jerk competitiveness when I see other people's "scores".

On the other hand, a little more reflection yields this thought: prosocial behavior gets rewarded in civilized societies, and Waccovia is one of the most civilized (by and large) I've ever been part of. So--is the tally there as a kind of prompt to write posts that others are likely to appreciate because they create value to the community?

I have mixed feelings about this tiny detail of Wacco, and a little too much time on my hands today, and way deep down I know I'm hoping someone will send gratitude for this post, a hope that really threatens to mess with the purity/immediacy of my communication here.

Mixed feelings: I appreciate any dynamic that encourages prosocial behavior, for the nourishment of the whole. But keeping score of each other's prosocial acts seems to turn this dynamic back on itself somehow, a self-contradiction.

So. Can anyone tell me how the tradition got started? Of tallying gratitudes? What the intention was?

Thanks for indulging my Virgo-drenched process here!!!

Kathy

[shellebelle]

Hi Kathy!

I love the gratitude button as you can see!

For me its a way to say "thanks". Maybe it's something I agree with, or I may not agree but appreciate that it was said none the less.

I honestly didn't notice it was keeping score until someone pointed it out to me. I still don't pay much attention.

I do have to say when I want to know about someone I do look at the link that shows all their posts to see what they are saying and how participatory they are. If they haven't said much but have posted some gratitude then at lest I know they are reading and can use that to say "hey what did they say thanks for/to".



Thanks for indulging my Virgo-drenched process here!!!
Kathy

[Lorrie]

Well, I would suggest that you simply don't worry about it.
There is no competition of the Graditudes people send.
I think it is tallied so that people can look at the posts that people felt grateful for.
You were right and should not have doubted yourself. It is only to say "Thank you for posting that" that's all...

[kpage9]

Thanks to you who have replied to my earlier post. Here's an answer I sent to one kind soul, and I thought I'd just put it out to y'all:

Thanks for your perspective. I'm afraid I must have sounded a little more anxious about the whole thing than I actually am/was...it just struck me as an interesting philosophical conundrum: how to encourage prosocial behavior in a society withOUT creating some kind of potentially competitive reward system. If that's even desirable.

Kathy

[Barry]

Thanks for your question, Kathy, or should I say "I am grateful for your question" .:wink:

The basic "purpose" of the Gratitude button is to make it easy for people to say "thanks for posting that", and to do so in a way that does not clog up the system with such posts. People have posted "Thank You"s for a long time here and on one hand it's kind and sweet, and on the other hand it doesn't really offer up anything new. So the Gratitude button is my answer to this "prosocial" desire. That's the basis of the feature.

Nicely enough, it also has some interesting side effects. As you mentioned, it "rewards prosocial behavior". In addition it creates a way to find posts that people have been grateful for, which may be of interest to others. And it an update I'm going to install soon, you'll be able to find the posts that a given user expressed gratitude for and received gratitude for, which should be helpful to both find interesting posts and get a better sense of some of our members.

I hope that helps!

Barry




I am relatively new to this community, and still feeling my way, getting a sense of the ground rules, spoken and unspoken, and generally very happy to be part of the weave.

I wonder if someone could explain the purpose of the "Gratitude" feature, especially tracking totals. I've used it a few times because--well, the button is there and I'm feeling grateful for the post, and why not say so, especially since it's so convenient. But I have to confess to an initial lizard-brain, knee-jerk competitiveness when I see other people's "scores".

On the other hand, a little more reflection yields this thought: prosocial behavior gets rewarded in civilized societies, and Waccovia is one of the most civilized (by and large) I've ever been part of. So--is the tally there as a kind of prompt to write posts that others are likely to appreciate because they create value to the community?

I have mixed feelings about this tiny detail of Wacco, and a little too much time on my hands today, and way deep down I know I'm hoping someone will send gratitude for this post, a hope that really threatens to mess with the purity/immediacy of my communication here.

Mixed feelings: I appreciate any dynamic that encourages prosocial behavior, for the nourishment of the whole. But keeping score of each other's prosocial acts seems to turn this dynamic back on itself somehow, a self-contradiction.

So. Can anyone tell me how the tradition got started? Of tallying gratitudes? What the intention was?

Thanks for indulging my Virgo-drenched process here!!!

Kathy