Real response weighs something. Replies and reposts land in the pan; a flood of likes falls through the sieve.
Reader responseDrag across · ← →waiting for a post
Sieve: replies and reposts (steel balls) roll on to the pan, likes (beads) fall throughAdding machine: the pan's weight typed in, the tray's small share added; PRINT sends the totalPrintout: the score out of 100, higher is more real responseReal response weighs something: a reply that answers the post, a repost that adds a thought. Likes and bare reactions are easy and light. The hopper pours out what the post drew. Replies and reposts are heavy steel balls: they roll down the sieve and into the weighing pan. Likes are beads: they drop through the mesh into the tray below. The adding machine types in the pan's weight, then adds the tray's share, which is never more than a few points however full the tray gets: a flood of likes counts for little. Only then is the big PRINT key pressed, and the printer prints the same total, large, on blue-bar paper, which is torn off for the next post. This is a counter-signal, a plain score out of 100: the higher it is, the more real response the post drew, and the more it pulls a slop score down.