I was under the impression that the lurve would help me become popular with girls…not true????

@TominLasVegas ROFL! Best laugh I’ve had all day!

@Rarebear

That means no huh?:(

@TominLasVegas Well, you are a Sharks fan, so that helps.

@Rarebear

Thats right!Sharks going to gobble up those Ducks saturday

“Lurve” doesn’t really mean anything to me. It’s fun, but I could live without it. I also find the the twist on the word “love” rather silly…

@AnonymousGirl There. I gave you a “great answer” to increase your lurve.

The only thing I dislike about “Lurve” is that it was, as a word, anyway, lifted from a Woody Allen movie where it was poignant and sweet.

Lurve has no meaning. Sometimes I craft a careful answer that I spend more than 30 minutes on and get no lurve. Other times, I simply write Congratulation @xperson on reaching 10k and get lurve in double digits.

I can honestly state;this website is not crazy over the point system ! Answerbag is another story,,,Someone there got 8,000 points in a single day,I believe the record for the most points in a single week still is 28k !!

@pdworkin Is it really? Now that’s a point of interest I really didn’t know. I thought it was just a silly made up word. Do you remember which movie?

Yes, Annie Hall. He was telling her that he loved her, and said (I am paraphrasing) that Love was not sufficient to express what he felt, so he tried out some other words (I Loave you! I Lurve you!)

@pdworkin Ah…one of his best, of course. It’s been years since I’ve seen it.

.

I’d use the site, whether it gave me lurve or not.

I don’t do this for lurve, but I do think lurve has meaning. I think good answers really do get more lurve, and so it is a sign of the quality of your answers, or of the value other people have gotten out of your answers.

I don’t know if there is anyone who would be doing this if the questions were generated by a machine, and no human being read the answers. I doubt it. I think people do participate in communities for the joy and company of being with people. I also think that there is always a subtle jockeying for status, just as there would be in any group of friends. There’s almost always a first amongst equals—a leader of the group.

I think lurve reflects that, to some degree. It’s a kind of reputation measure.

I would be answering questions on fluther even if there were no lurve. There are other ways of measure your reputation. People’s responses tell you that. Lurve makes it both a little easier and a little harder. Lurve is an imperfect measure, so it becomes difficult to figure out what lurve leaves out. But it is also a quantifiable way of seeing how a person has affected his or her fellow jellies.

It is, however, tricky, because there is also a time effect. The longer you’ve been here, the more lurve you will accumulate. Some people zero themselves out after a while and start a new account from scratch. It is supposedly a protest against the lurve system, but I think it is also a kind of political and psychological statement.

I think many of us prefer a system where status isn’t so apparent. By scuttling your avatar, you are making it very unapparent what your status is. Others who know you will treat you with the respect you earned before. New people who didn’t know you before will be impressed at your respect with such little lurve.

Psychologically, I think there is a bit self-hating going on. Some of us can’t handle the idea that others might like us or find our words to be of value. It doesn’t fit into our self-image. I say this as a person who once did scuttle his persona, although not over the lurve issue per se. It was about respect, however, and I felt disrespected enough to decide I wasn’t worth shit. I was not, at the time, in a good mood. In fact, I was in a dangerously depressed mood.

Anyway, I think we all know the status issues, whether we are willing to admit it to ourselves or not. I don’t believe anyone who says lurve is something they don’t care about. Not even me. I think not caring about lurve is a statement about equality. It is about no one person being any more important that any other. Whether this point is because the person truly believes this, is being cynical about being a person of the people, or is envious of those with a lot of lurve is up to us to decide individually.

Personally, I think equality is important. I think status is important. I hope my words are helpful to people. I look at my own lurve and I see different things. I do see appreciation there, although that is always hard for me to admit. I also see obsession. I put in a lot of time here, precisely because I get some appreciation. But that doesn’t mean that only a few other people provide answers like mine. There are people who have been here a day whose answers I find very valuable. So lurve is one way to assess people here, but in the end, it’s what generates the lurve that is most important: the quality of people’s ideas and the quality of the way they express those ideas.

I will admit it, I’m in this for the lurve.

@daloon I saw that you were composing an answer for a long time, and I am impressed with what you have put forward.

I scuttled my old account and avatar mostly because I was using my real name, and people knew me from other sites such as Facebook (has no points) and wis.dm (which had points). I found it a hinderance, rather than a help, and when someone said something particularly nasty to me, I said, “That’s it!” and deleted the account. I find that if I’m getting emotionally “involved” with a social networking website where most people are anonymous, it’s time to leave. (When you can snatch the pebble from my hand…never mind)

I see why points are used; it encourages people to use the site. But if people use the site and answer questions just for the sake of points it dilutes the quality of discussion.

In terms of the status, I see your point. In my case I eschew status. I have enough it in my “real life”, and online, at least here, I prefer to be one of the proletariat. That’s one of the other reasons why I scuttled my old avatar. But you said, ” I don’t believe anyone who says lurve is something they don’t care about.” In my case, you can believe it. I do pay attention if someone clicks “great question” or “great answer” because that tells me what kinds of things people are interested in, but the actual points—I don’t care a whit. Remember on Facebook, there is a “like” button. People can click this “like” button without giving points, and I’d get the same feedback.

In terms of your depressed mood, I’m truly sorry. I suffer from occasional depression myself, (I’m cyclothymic, actually), and I know what that’s like. Once I started taking medication it stabilized out and I’m fine now. But that’s off topic.

You wrote a very fine answer indeed. Thanks for that perspective.

I enjoy lurve. I’d still be here without it. But its definitely a fun motivator.

Take ‘em all. I don’t fuckin’ need ‘em no more!

I don’t get it.

Well, I don’t care about competing with people over it, but I do notice that I am approaching 10,000 and that is exciting…

Also, receiving GAs indicates that people read what I wrote for sure and I like that.

Other than that, I don’t care about it too much.

I don’t see the point in it and I’m not crazy about the cutesy spelling. I’m also mystified about those little sayings under my name in the upper-right corner of the page. How did they KNOW I felt like I was having a bad hair day?!?!