What makes you decide whether or not to give someone lurve?

I give lurve for good answers and less so (but only because I forget) good questions. I mentioned on your other question that I am a bit more selective than I used to be when giving lurve. I used to be a real ‘lurve fairy’.

I give lurve for well thought out, informative, interesting, funny, silly and well researched responses. I give lurve if it makes me take notice. I also give lurve these days when I notice a lonely post with no lurve. Fluther can be a bit of a popularity contest so if I notice a lonely post with no lurve that actually does answer the question and makes a good point – I lurve it. I also like to give newbies lurve.

To be honest, if I notice a long term member who rarely gives lurve to others – I have started to be less generous to those people. I will still give them lurve but I will only do so if they earn it.

Quality of the answers, and whether the answer seems to help the OP.

@Bellatrix So as a moderator you can actually monitor who is giving lurve to who?

No! None of us can see that. As a member you do notice sometimes. You answer a question give lurve, someone else answers almost immediately and you go back and they haven’t given one other person lurve. Mostly you can’t tell but sometimes it stands out. Now it could be they are highly selective or perhaps they are just a bit mean with the lurve. That’s fine but especially when there are new people in the thread, I try to be a bit more generous.

@Bellatrix Oh ok. I don’t have a problem with the Mods seeing who’s giving lurve to who, I just didn’t think that, that would be part of the benefits (for lack of a better term) to being a mod.

if the answers are helpful

It goes against the shallow trend of lurving “mates” which seems to be hugely prevalent, but I like to keep it simple & dish out for something I consider worthy.

My lurve habits are almost identical to @Bellatrix‘s I haven’t noticed stingy lurve-rs, yet, though.

I have noticed that on some threads, there would be several people with 0 lurve in a row, then 1 here or there. I always felt that was too bad—like on that thread, everyone’s answering but not reading, but that’s the nature of some threads.

The quality of the answer. For brand new users, I go a little easier to encourage them.

for good helpful answers, and for questions that spark a good debate.

•Funny, witty answers
•Helpful, on point
•Relevant, insightful
•Well crafted
•Silly, not so relevant from people I like :)
•Some newbies that seem nice right off the bat to encourage them to stay

In that order.

On my pc lurve giving is simple so I shell out plenty. I try to always give an answer I’ve actually read, and a question a GA that I am posting on. I know it’s valued by some people. I go out of my way to lurve newbies.

There are a select few I refuse to lurve. But I won’t read their post anyway.

I always automatically lurve a friend who posts something – just because.

MmmK?

I give lurve for answers that are well thought out or helpful. I also give lurve to comments that make me laugh, whether they’re helpful or not.

On the rare occasions that I ask questions, I try to give Lurve to any response, except for completely useless asinine comments.

On other questions, I give Lurve to theQuestion if it asks something that I’ve been wondering or if it is good food for thought.

I Lurve responses to other people’s questions if they give the right answer (when someone is asking the name to a movie, or similar information-seeking query). I Lurve responses to opinion-based Questions if the Jelly says what I was going to say (especially if they say it better than I might have said it), or if the response raises interesting and valid points relative to the topic being discussed.

I sometimes Lurve comments that are asides but are humorous and/or clever. I also often Lurve responses which add on to my earlier comments, or if they pay me a compliment.

I’ll lurve any response from any user who posts a well written answer that I either agree with, or one which answers the question well. Sometimes I’ll even lurve an opposing stance from mine in a post if they were respectful and brought up points that I didn’t think of before.

@Self_Consuming_Cannibal Actually after time on here you start to notice ‘patterns’, and I won’t go any further with that one. There are some people on here who only lurve certain users, or certain types of users. All it takes is one politically incorrect post/question to obtain that status. Most Q&A sites have this baggage, so it’s not just a fluther thing.

@Paradox25 You are so right on that. It is sad that sometimes lurve is a popularity issue rather than a reward for helpful, humorous and/or well thought out questions/answers.

I don’t understand why someone would think a user is giving all their friends here some lurve in some type of popularity contest. I mean, what’s the point? We max out on points on each user after a certain amount. What’s in it for the person handing out the lurve? “Oh hey, I like @hearkat. I’m going to give her lurve and no one else. That’ll show the losers here.”. Seriously? I may have a lot of back and forth answers with a few users here because we’ve been members for years and we’ve gotten to know each other. I like to give lurve to my friends when this happens to let them know I read their post to me. It has nothing to do with popularity. I think some people are getting a bit paranoid.

@jonsblond Well there are some people who have actually admitted to being more likely to give it to their friends than other people. I’m not paranoid, I don’t really care enought to be paranoid about it. I was just curious to see what makes other people decide to give lurve.

So there is only a certain amount of lurve you can give a user?

@Self_Consuming_Cannibal There is nothing wrong with popularity. I think it’s OK to give lurve to your friends and people you like and admire just because. Giving them lurve is a way to tell them: I like you, I want you to stay, I appreciate your posts even if they are silly, I think you are great, You make me smile/laugh, etc. Who is to decide what makes an answer great? It is very subjective. For me funny, witty answers always deserve lots of lurve even if they are one-word answers or one liners just because they make my day, they make me smile.

Edit: I am new here and I don’t know exactly when you max out on lurve.

@Yeahright You have a point I never thought of it that way. I just think it is sad sometimes when someone does have a good question/answer and they seem to get less lurve than someone who’s friends with everyone else here on fluther.

I’m definitely with you on the fact that the funny, witty answers or questions are definitely the best ones.

@Self_Consuming_Cannibal I don’t mean to give you a hard time or call you paranoid. I’m sorry.

I can’t remember the exact amount, but there is a cap on the amount of lurve we can give each person. It might be around a total of 100 points? I’m not exactly sure. You can still give great answers and great questions to that person once you’ve maxed out, but they won’t get any more points from you.

I’m sure there are users I give more great answers to than others, but that’s because I either agree with them or I like their humor or helpfulness. I won’t give a great answer to someone just because we are friends. There are many people here who I really like, but I don’t always agree with them. I don’t give them a great answer if I disagree with their post.

I do like to give the users without a great answer some lurve if they are the only person without a great answer on a question. I’ve been that person and it doesn’t feel good. It makes you question why you even bother trying to help someone if they won’t acknowledge your answer. If I ask a question, everyone on my question will get a great answer.

@jonsblond It’s ok about the whole paranoid thing. No harm done. So when you say you can max out on how many points you give someone is that a daily, monthly, or a yearly thing, or is that a forever thing.

I like to give everyone who answers a question of mine a great answer too. Like this…

@Self_Consuming_Cannibal It’s a forever thing.

It’s part of a sex-lurve barter scheme.

So if you want to see how reputation plays a part in this, set up a new identity and start answering questions the same as you otherwise would, and see whether lurve is any different. I have found that being polite is the best way to get a lot of lurve. People here really like nice people, for some strange reason. Anyway, if I had been nice, I imagine my lurve total would be at least ten percent higher than it is.

Also, writing smart, well-informed answers seems to make a difference. Maybe being informed overcomes a lack of niceness.

Of course, my formula for giving out lurve is very complicated. First of all, you have understand the concept of left-handed Thursdays. It all hinges on that. Once you get that, the rest is easy, but there’s really no point in discussing it further until you figure out the left-handed Wednesday part of it.

@wundayatta Wow I never knew you were so complex!

You and me, both, kid!

A coin toss.