Middle effort interactions

[Melooon]

This is a continuation of the recent discussions on likes, and audio replies. 

I'd like to discuss the idea of "middle [effort] interactions" and hear about the different kinds of middle interactions you've encountered on the web.

A definition:

High effort interactions are things that require active thought, research, analysis and creative input. Writing a long forum post, making an artwork, creating a webpage; those are all high effort interactions. These usually involve a high amount of inputs (key presses or other actions to produce the interaction)

Low effort interactions are things that require no real thought or creative input. Clicking a like button, sharing a post etc. These usually involve just one input, (a click or a tap).

Both of these are fine types of interaction, and I'm not trying to assign any merit to one over the other with the high/low name, they both have their place in different contexts.

However I'd like to discuss middle effort interactions; those are interaction types that bridge the two. They are more creatively involved than a like, but less creatively unique than an original post. The most famous kind of middle interaction would be a meme image reply. Its a predefined response, but there is a creative process in selecting the correct meme as a response to something. A middle interaction involves a minute or two of work searching, finding, sharing, and should require less physical inputs than a typical forum post.

Middle interactions seem to be considered less professional, less serious, or more superfluous, than both high and low effort interactions. However I think they are something that should be talked about more. 

On this forum artifacts are a kind of middle interaction, and there are potentially many more kinds of middle interactions that could exist, but don't for various reasons, and I'd like to discuss that.

Have you encountered any interesting middle interactions on the web?
Can you think of any ideas for that you’ve never seen?
How do you feel about middle interactions as a whole?

[Dan Q]

Ooh, this one interests me.

Commenting on a blog post has become a high-effort interaction, it seems. I used to get a ton of comments 20 years ago; now I get almost none. Because I (actively, deliberately) keep no stats I have no idea how many people read anything I write, and I tell myself that I don't care about not knowing but secretly I wonder if maybe I do?

Anyway: I added "emoji reaction" buttons as a low-effort interaction response. I think people click them but honestly I don't bother checking much: it turns out that I might actually not care about knowing!


Anyway: when I'm making new things for the Web... I feel like there's a middle-effort interaction level I do quite a lot, which is replying or reposting. I take the work of somebody who's inspired me and said or done something better than I would have... and I highlight it, talking about why or where I agree (or disagree) with them and drawing attention to it. It feels lower effort than writing from scratch, so I'd call it middle-effort.

To which end... I think that many times, replying to a forum thread is a middle-effort interaction. It's easier than starting a new thread, for sure! But it's harder than "starring" or "upvoting" or "favoriting" or whatever. I sometimes - just occasionally - wish there was a low-effort "hey! I liked this!" button on Melonland Forum, but I don't think it's necessary or useful: a written reply has so much greater value and that opportunity might be diminished by the quick-win of a one-click reaction.

Unless... such responses were rationed or otherwise rare, perhaps? Could I "gold star sticker" a post or thread that I loved, for everybody to see... but with a 24-hour cooldown period so I can't do it again. I'd have to really mean it and it'd have value by itself. I'd need to think about which thread I read today was most-deserving of this mark of praise. Slightly more effort than a straight "upvote", but slightly less than a "reply".

Just spitballing here, not suggesting. Maybe there's something like that that could fit the gap you're talking about.

[owlhari]

the first thing that came to my mind with "middle effort interaction" is a reblog on tumblr, when you add your own thoughts in the text or tags. you don't have to add anything to a reblog, it'll just be wordlessly put onto your blog as well. but there's a whole culture around "talking in the tags" as a "quieter" way of replying.

we frequently use tags to sort our reblogs too. is this #art? is this about #plurality? does it resonate with any of our headmates that want to add their tag to it? the organization aspect of tagging & the fact you have to type out each tag gives the vibe of "middle effort" :)

[noahie]

This seems like what microblogging is. So like Xitter, Mastodon, Bluesky—all those would be middle effort to me. I also in some ways consider instant messaging to fall into this category, maybe somewhere between middle and low effort.

I think what I like most about having my own website is the one-way nature of interactions. When I write blogs, I don't have to deal with stupid comments or seeing what kinds of posts get what kinds of engagement. If someone wants to reach out, they can email me, and even then I can just ignore the email if I want to. I've found in real life that when I talk with a lot of people, they love to interrupt me. I don't like being interrupted, and I can be quite talkative at times. So with writing a blog on my website, I don't have to deal with people interrupting me; I don't even have to bother with the idea of anyone reading it! Fantastic!