I had to remove a “Thank You” post today and :injured: ouch… it was directed to me!
While everyone likes a compliment now and then (especially ME!), unfortunately they open the door to dozens more and soon they become frustrating to members who are searching for information about the question at hand. That’s why we have to remove them.
So, instead of posting a “thank-you” within a thread, why not pm a member or leave your thank you as a visitor message on their profile page where everyone can see it?
My :twocents: ! Just thought you all might like to know!
That sounds like a good idea to me! I really felt bad about removing this one, not only because it was addressed to me, but also because it came from an active and long-standing member here. Unfortunately the rules don’t change because of Seniority. I don’t know. Maybe they should?
Nope. The same rules apply to you as they do to me, and the same as they do to the newest members, and I believe that’s the way it should be. In fact, we have stricter rules. Imagine the consequences if a staff member stated fluffing or spamming
i know what you mean – i came pretty close to reporting it as fluff (especially seeing as how it was fluff on a sticky), but decided to let someone else make the call
the PM is a great idea… i wonder if it will catch on?
On some forums, I’ve seen a “thanks” button under the user’s avatar, which also shows a count of how many times a user has been “thanked”. But, I could easily see how that could turn into some sort of contest.
Well Linda! that’s a job well done! (both because you deserved the “thank you” comment and because you removed it even if that hurt… you did what you had to do)
I think that the thank you button may be a good idea too and sounds like a good approach. I really like it.
Can I check with you what counts as the kind of “thank you” message that you would consider to be worth removing?
I don’t want to infringe any rules or etiquette, but surely there is nothing wrong with thanking someone for replying with a correct and helpful answer. I’ll always do that. Or are you referring to someone starting a new thread just to say thanks (which would be OTT)?
By the way: I don’t rate the idea of things like thank you buttons. They are as bad as voting systems next to comments.
there’s nothing wrong with an original poster thanking someone who helped in a thread
but consider this scenario:
A asks a question, B replies (this could take several posts each, with perhaps other helpful posts added by other parties C, D, and E), and then, about six months later, Z comes along, who previously had no involvement in the topic, and says “thanks for this”
this is egregious forum behaviour, because now the thread comes up again on the daily list, and people will be curious to see what new information has been added to an interesting thread, but when they open the thread, there’s nothing really new, is there
Ah, I see. That scenario would indeed be stupid and OTT. I see a similar thing a lot on another forum, mostly threads that weren’t fully resolved, and it often results in other users responding without noticing the age of thread.
I’m certainly not suggesting a rating-style system, or even a ‘thankyou count’. That’d cause a lot of problems.
What I was suggesting was a button which came up with an inline box for the user to leave a quick message on the user’s visitor messages wall. That message wall already exists, but that integrated into the forums would help prevent fluffy posts.
No, I didn’t think that you were suggesting that it could go as far as generating ratings. My thought about it was prompted in part by the comment by Force Flow, plus my general dislike of any publicly viewable count or rating.
