This sounds like a good idea at first, but I can think of some major reservations I have about it.
The “like” feature that is virtually ubiquitous on mainstream social networks these days may serve some potentially not-so-savory purposes, and some of these purposes may actually be the primary motivator behind the implementation of likes. I think it can be a form of social engineering that has some undesirable effects.
Likes are seen as a low-commitment form of engagement, so I think the amount of likes generated would probably be much higher than the amount of people using the star feature, and for this reason I think it would be important to think carefully about the effects it could have.
Likes typically result in a notification back to the original user whose post was liked. If they did not, this behavior would be unexpected for the user initiating the like, and I generally recommend against avoiding things that defy established conventions of web design and user interface. But when a notification is sent, these notifications grab the original user’s attention. This has several effects:
- It keeps the user on the site or app more and may make it more addictive. See this article for an explanation on how likes and notifications are directly related to addiction.
- It leads the user to focus more on their posts that are getting more likes, because their attention in drawn repeatedly to them
- It conditions users to compete for likes, try to post things that will generate more likes, etc.
All three of these goals are at odds with the ultimate purpose and mission of iNaturalist. We don’t want to keep people on the site or app more, we want to be encouraging people to go out and connect more with the natural world. We certainly don’t want to be fueling addiction. We also don’t want attention to be focused on a small number of popular observations, but rather, we want to distribute attention where it is needed or relevant: observations in need of identification, observation a person is specifically searching for for educational or ID purposes, etc.
The whole “ranking of observations” thing could also have unintended consequences. Our society already faces the problem that “ugly” and “inconspicuous” species get less attention with respect to conservation than “charismatic” or “pretty” species. It’s why everyone is about monarchs and other showy butterflies but moths get comparatively little attention, in spite of being as important ecologically. Similarly, people pay attention to pretty flowers but often ignore inconspicuous weedy plants or indistinct-looking trees and shrubs. A like system would facilitate the worsening of this already-problematic factor. I’d rather iNaturalist be designed in such a way to nudge things in the other direction…trying to draw people’s attention to less conspicuous and less “easily likeable” species.
Also there’s the information overload thing. In our society, people are already inundated with notifications on tons of websites. We don’t need more of these things.
I feel quite strongly that I would prefer us not to implement this feature, for all these reasons.