I would hate to live in a World full of people with your opinions, I acted within the rules of the forum to stand against something I did not agree with.

Thank you Jeremy.
My signature has now been removed.

I don't know if anyone is even looking at this thread anymore, but I'm amazed that someone found the thank button unacceptable, and threatened to leave. That was ridiculous.

Confession: I've account-hopped twice, and this is my third account. Both times, if I recall, I did it because I got into flame wars here (one my fault, the other not), and wanted to hide afterward.

Oh, come on, that's why they make asbestos suits ... no need to hide, buy an asbestos suit instead and never get burned in a flame war ever again.

Can I wear a tie with it?

Hm, never saw this thread before, but I will go ahead and add my two cents. This is a “positive only” version of “reputation,” which has not worked at any board on which I have participated. As I am doing in this post, I typically mention that it does create issues as people vie for “thanks” in the same way some strive for high post counts or you name it. If it hasn’t happened already, I suspect some group of entrepreneurs will come up with an “I’ll thank you if you thank me” strategy or something worse. It’s your board, but I suspect the results will be different than you expect in about a year—and it will not be recoverable, even when you disable the feature because certain people will be emboldened and others will go elsewhere to escape.

This is actually fairly different than a positive only reputation system for a couple reasons. As with *any* system, it's certainly possible that it could be gamed, but the incentive to do so with the current setup is extremely low. A code upgrade that should be rolled out later this week will add the ability to hide the "thanks statistics" in your profile, allowing members to opt out if they so choose. Linux and Open Source are very much meritocracies where "thanks" are often the currency used, not traditional $$$. The Open Source communities I've looked at who have implemented similar systems have done so with good results and nearly none of the negative repercussions you mention. That being said, we'll continue to monitor how the feature is used and modify it accordingly. Thanks for the feedback.

--jeremy

Thank you for your reply, jeremy. Although my comments were not encouraging, you have responded to them (and those by everyone else) in an enlightened way. I sincerely hope it works out well, since LQ is my favorite resource for all things Linux.

I often think of myself as being naive, but in all honesty, and with no humility or modesty, most others would claim that I am the least naive person they have ever had the good fortune and blessing to have met.

That being said, I truly am amazed that something as simple as a "thanks" button can generate so much discussion, and amazed even more that there can be any negativity associated with its implementation.

Kudos to any and all here, especially jeremy and his band of merry moderators, as well as to many of the senior members. You have made my Linux experience much, much easier, and certainly much more enjoyable.

cheers,

PS - perhaps a giant thumbs up button somewhere within the thread that will generate a thank you for each poster, all at once! except for those who are vehemently against being thanked, and perhaps those with dumb comments, and the baiters, and the trolls,...oh...nevermind.

You can now hide the statistics tab in your profile, via the standard Profile Privacy feature.

--jeremy

mucho gratias

Am I missing something here? You can still not hide you thanks status in the forums. I thanked myself using another account and it was visible, it will still show zero as I have now removed the thanks.

Which group do you have the Statistics set to be seen by?

I set all the privacy options to "Your Friends".

I'm wondering why it would matter.

I am wondering why you have not read the thread or the other one on the topic. To save you some time I think ratings/thanks encourage behaviour like this