Based on feedback we've received from the community I've decided to disable the Thanks system at LQ. It had quite a bit of overlapping functionality with the "Is this post Helpful" system and I think that system adds more valuable metadata that can improve the overall LQ experience. I still encourage you to thank other LQ members for the help they give you. As always, feedback is welcome.

--jeremy

This news is disappointing !!!

3 members found this post helpful.

I generally thank posts that are for me personally, and then click the "yes" to helpful for anything I think could be of value to others.

I'm not sure if this is how it was designed.


Can you explain what function each option has?

1 members found this post helpful.

I just re-read the OP and now I understand. No more thank - Time to update my sig

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Makes sense not to have overlapping systems. Would be nice to know what the objective is and how either system is/can be used to improve threads at LQ. I guess there was a "feel good" factor in being thanked ... what else?

EDIT:

Now that the thanks count is no longer shown is there any intention to replace it with the proportion of posts (from now on) that were marked a) helpful and b) not helpful?

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I, too, am extremely disappointed.

Please bring back "thanks".

3 members found this post helpful.

catkin brings up a good point. What do you feel that the "Thanks" system added to LQ. What I'm looking for are substantiative items that can be evaluated on their own merits and possible be added to LQ in a more sane way. Thanks again for the feedback.

--jeremy

1 members found this post helpful.

I think some kind of reputation system may make sense here at LQ at some point. How to do that system correctly so we have something that is not abused but is more useful than a simple post count is not clear at this time.

--jeremy

1 members found this post helpful.

The thanks system (more precisely the thanks to posts ratio) provided a rough guide to how effective my posts were. When the ratio slipped below my norm, I guessed that I was not giving enough information and adjusted posting style to give more. It's easy to think questioners simply need some pointers in the right direction so they can do their own research ("have a look at this/these web page(s), and/or command(s) and/or scrippet(s)") and to forget that they may not yet know enough to make sense of that sort of information.

3 members found this post helpful.

For me "Thanks" was a feel good factor ! It is a nice feeling when someone "officially" thanks me for a good deed !

Human beings need an incentive to be more helpful, that's what I think.

On many posts "Did you find this post helpful" has been clicked as "No", when they are asked to
1. Explain the question more properly.
2. Remind them not to double post.
3. Ask them to respond to previous posts.

On various posts I see appropriate links and suggestions given but still the posts marked as not helpful without any appropriate explanations !

I feel that many people misuse the power to vote a post as not helpful just to vent their anger !

I won't feel happy if the "helpful post" ratio is not balanced just because of the people who do not know how to judge a post !

2 members found this post helpful.

Hi,

I also find it disappointing not as much for the mentioning of a number of thanked posts but I also used it as a personal reference to stay in tune. The Thanked post count is not only a feel good issue I believe but also a kind of added value to a user. It 'was' (hopefully temporally) also a reference on how other users felt about post made. Just like catkin I too motivated myself by setting a goal. Up to now I was able to stay around the 20% norm of thanked posts, now I dropped to 0%.

Just mentioning for example only the number of posts says nothing about the user in question, only that he/she posts a lot. If the Thanked post number is relatively high in regards to the total number of post then that indicates that a user is a great help to lots of users.

I'm not saying that the Thanked post count should come back but a 'replacement', if not the Thanked posts, like mentioning the rate of helpful posts would surely be an added value.

Just when I changed my policy to allow 'thanking' people who thanked me, the Thank you option gets taken away. Will have to rethink my policy yet again.

Still hoping to see the back again.

Kind regards,

Eric

4 members found this post helpful.

A couple questions:

1) Would some additional statistics in the "Did you find this post helpful" system help with the "feel good" aspect that some people got from the Thanks system? How about addressing the bit that some people seemed to use it as a personal reference for how their posts were going?

2) Would some kind of system that ranked the qualitative usefulness of posts (that is, some kind of reputation system) be a useful addition to LQ if implemented correctly?

--jeremy

1 members found this post helpful.

Hi,

On an additional note, if you look at the profile of a poster then you can see the number of helpful postings on the Statistics tab. If there would be a way to show that under a user's name instead of the Thanked post count, that would also be an indicator of the level of help that specific user offers.

Kind regards,

Eric

0 members found this post helpful.

Hi jeremy,

From my personal point of view my answer is Yes to both questions. I think a lot of users, myself included, find it warming to be part of a community like LQ where we can help out others with problems they might have with Linux. Just like Anisha stated, we humans need some form of confirmation that we're doing something good (if I understood her words correctly).

And on the second note, a sort of reputation system would in my opinion be a very useful addition to LQ if, like you stated yourself, implemented correctly.

Kind regards,

Eric

1 members found this post helpful.

Let me admit now, a few months ago the ratio of my total posts and the thanks count was :
1 thanks after every 14th post !

Some how I made a resolution to reduce the ratio,
--by making some efforts to understand exactly what directions the OP needs to solve the problem.
--by not making any useless post like "Its not urgent for us...blah blah".
--by not taking the posts off the zero reply lists just by asking the OP to search Google.
--and by taking the time to reply the zero reply threads

Now my ratio reads as :1 thanks after every 9th post !

I don't think I would have made those efforts without the official "thanks" incentive.

Secondly, there is one of my threads about "wireless networking" in which the other senior person is trying his best to figure out root cause of the problem. But still after 20 posts the problem has yet not been solved. That means I should not click all his posts as "helpful" . Fine. But now I'll feel really bad since I'll not be able to "officially thank" him for all his efforts, since it is only the LAST post which solves the problem !!!!!!

I like to "thank" people when they try to help me just to tell them that I appreciate their helpful nature !

2 members found this post helpful.