Reaction Icons

I think Lichess should remove those reaction icons. They're distracting: literally, as your reading the post; and psychologically as your reading the post. Now you're constrained in making up your own mind about the post; and constrained in thinking about it, coming up with a response.

It encourages non-engagement, follow the leader thinking. Oh, everybody likes it, or everybody thinks it's funny that must be what it's all about. This does not reflect the Lichess philosophy, the Lichess ethos. Get rid of them before they turn off any more thinking.

That's so true.

Forum studies have confirmed: people write less in favor of a mere „reacting“

I agree. (or should I just like?)

You can hide them with your own userstyles. Grab Stylus:

Chrome: chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylus/clngdbkpkpeebahjckkjfobafhncgmne
Firefox: addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/styl-us/

and import this to a new style:

@-moz-document url-prefix("lichess.org/forum/") {
.reactions { display: none; }
}

EDIT: add https:// to URL, i.e. url-prefix("https: //lichess (but without the space)

There should be an option to not be able to view them because some people just don't care, but some people like them.

I think this is maybe true in some sense, but it gives people something to interact with on a post when they have nothing to say. There are many people who view forum topics and don't leave comments, (Take a look at the "views" vs. "replies" numbers) because they either don't want to or feel that they don't need to because what they think has already been said. Having a reaction feature gives these people a way to interact with a post when they otherwise wouldn't, and saying it encourages less thinking is a fallacy. If someone wants to reply, then they will.

@bufferunderrun I've heard a couple of mods say this now. Nobody else has given what I think is a pretty obvious counterargument, so perhaps I'm missing something obvious.

My main issues with the "reaction" buttons are:
1) I don't like how the forums actually look now. It looks "messy", clashing with the "clean" design of the rest of lichess. The colours are suddenly all over the place, and there are six different "reactions". Compared to a simple "upvote-downvote" system which other sites have, this system looks kind of ridiculous. (I am aware of similar "reaction" interactions on Facebook, but on Facebook it gives you the *option* to view the list of reactions, which is again cleaner and is basically what this thread is asking for.)
2) It interferes with my use of the website. I access lichess on mobile. When I scroll on the forums, I have to drag my finger up and down my screen. When I want the keyboard to go away, I touch the screen somewhere else. It happens quite often that I accidentally "react" to something when I don't want to, which is annoying. It's not a dealbreaker, I'm not going to stop using the site, but it is annoying.

Now, you say "oh, just define your own userstyle in one of these browsers by doing one thing and putting some piece of code here and then you get the option you want."

Here is my counterargument, to which I assume you have a good response: if I have to write code so that your website looks nice and is mobile-friendly, then your website is poorly designed. Moreover, if it's so easy, then why isn't it already an option in user settings? (Also, can I even implement your suggestion on mobile? I haven't tried, but your response certainly sounds very desktop-user-centric.)

I hate to say something like the above about lichess, which is easily one of the best-designed websites I use on a regular basis. Lots of things about lichess are very slick, very user-friendly, and very pragmatic. I'm very sorry if this comment annoyed you.

I think #8 biscuitfiend is right, the cartoony style of these reaction buttons clashes with the clean look of Lichess. However, maybe it wouldn't look so bad if the icons were redone in a way that better fits Lichess's minimalist style with clean lines and monochrome colors. For example, just a quick outline of the existing icons already looks better to me:

I thought it would be nice to have avatars along with our names. People said nah, that would be too Facebook.

Then they brought in this.