Adding "thanks" button below posts

[letsdoiteczema]

Got this idea when browsing some other forums.

I know a large majority of visitors here only read and very few of us actually post.

Having a "thanks" button below posts allows visitors to easily and quickly show their appreciation for the poster.

"Thanks" button should be available for anonymous non-members as well ideally.

[goodsamaritan]

Let's look for a plugin / mod then.

[CitrusHigh]

I like the idea! Where would we search for a plugin GS? I don't know anything about that kind of shennany.

[goodsamaritan]

Here is one example:

http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=710

and the discussion is at

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=176565.0

[TylerDurden]

I think people should make up their own minds re posts. I deeply dislike the like/dislike buttons on youtube for example.

[CitrusHigh]

Isn't that the point of this suggestion? A little feedback from viewers to posters telling them they appreciate what they wrote?

The purpose as I understand it is not to help people decide whether or not it's good advice or quality info, but for non participating viewers to tell the writer that they feel they benefitted from it. That is the point of a 'Thank you"...gratitude, not a rating system. A rating for determining quality would be something like a 5 star system.

[TylerDurden]

At the very least, non-members should not be allowed to vote in this way.

[CitrusHigh]

I'd agree with that for sure.

[letsdoiteczema]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I understand why you wouldn't want non-members to "rate" our posts. But if it's only a "thanks" button, instead of "like/dislike", wouldn't it be okay to allow non-members to "thank" as well? It's only good, never bad, isn't it?

[AlphaCog]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I understand why you wouldn't want non-members to "rate" our posts. But if it's only a "thanks" button, instead of "like/dislike", wouldn't it be okay to allow non-members to "thank" as well? It's only good, never bad, isn't it?

If we do that, web crawling/indexing programs aka "web spiders" or web ripping programs such as wget or WinHTTrack might hit the thanks button and mess up the thanks count.

It's best for non-members to be redirected to the signup page when they hit the thanks button.

[Dr. D]

Bumping this thread.

I like the idea of a "thanks" button. There are many times posts are added just to acknowledge the previous post. It is also a more direct way of telling that person, "thank you for this post." The like/dislike thing is stupid also. It would recreate the forum idea into more which is reddit, fighting for upvotes and downvotes. Fine in a popularity contest but often the hivemind controls what goes up and gets read whether than what is necessary for change, like we are trying to accomplish.

Thanks buttons adds on a quick glance to reading through a long thread those specific posts that were notable, rather than trying to read through the whole thread, you can glance and see a post that has many thanks.

We don't have to add this either but often there is a "thanked" stat on someone's profile, letting other forum members (new ones really) know who the big guys on campus are, aside from the massive numbers of posts. Not really necessary in this small of a forum IMO, but it could be a way of increasing visitors.

[goodsamaritan]

Will experiment with this.