[Shish2k]

Imagine you're at an automated restaurant. There are buttons for "order fries", "order cake", "order sandwich", and "do not order pie". Can you see why the last button in that list is not as useful as the first three?

Positive sentiment needs no explanation because it inherits the context of the thing it is agreeing with; negative sentiment needs explanation else it is somewhere between useless and nonsense.

[shitloadofbooks]

I don't have enough karma to downvote you, so I'm replying to you to tell you that everything you posted is a load of hogwash and your analogy is bad.

Of course negative sentiment also "inherits the context of the thing it is (dis)agreeing with."

You glean just as much information from someone clicking Like and leaving no context as you do someone clicking Dislike and leaving no context.

[Shish2k]

> You glean just as much information from someone clicking Like and leaving no context as you do someone clicking Dislike and leaving no context.

I disagree; Perhaps a programming analogy instead?

if(x == 0) # when this is true, you know what x is, and what it isn't

if(x != 0) # when this is true, you only know what x isn't

Like with no context tells the receiver what the audience wants (more of the same); dislike doesn't (okay, so don't do this thing, but do what instead?).

That's what I mean by the analogy - "do this" is a much more useful statement than "don't do that".