Are 'Thanks' Helpful or Harmful?

I've never got the sense that I am targeted because of the number of Fist Pumps or Thanks that I have accumulated. On the other hand I regularly feel gratified when I have put a lot of work into a post (which I do with regularity), and by work I mean real research that takes perhaps hours to complete, and then I post that here and later see a big pile of "Thanks" underneath it. It's a way for people to let me know that the work is appreciated and I should keep doing it.

If I didn't see that at all, there would be a feeling of almost buddhist futility involved in all this research and all these posts. Like you're talking to a wall.

On the other hand, the other way for people to make you feel appreciated for a particularly well research post is to directly compliment you with replies. This is problematic to me. I find it very awkward. People are often more effusive in their praise than I'm generally comfortable with, or they say something that kind of holds implications about the other people around here that I know also work very hard (e.g. "You're the only reason I come here" or "You make all these other posters look like idiots" etc). Those kinds of posts I find to be very awkward and not gratifying at all. If there wasn't a "Thanks" feature then I suspect you'd see posts like those more often cluttering up threads. If anything I find that kind of direct complimenting via posts leads to exactly what you're worried about which is a growing set of people who begin to resent the person that is constantly getting praised explicitly in conversation like that. But what are you going to do, report posts for being too nice?

The "Thanks" feature is right in-between, a happy medium. It lets you know that your work in a post is appreciated, while being impersonal enough not to make anyone feel awkwardly over-praised, and it doesn't explicitly or implicitly exclude anyone or hold anyone up at the expense of others. It lets you send a message to another person saying that you appreciate what they just did, but there's no need to add any more detail or make it awkward either.

I will say though I'm very serious about the Ignore function. Over the years I think we've seen several of our more high volume insiders like FFG, Section126 and Boomer really get pissed off to no end at a poster or group of posters that decide to keep pestering them about this or that in the Club. There have been threats to be done with this site for good. Some of those posters are no longer here because of those incidents, even though that poster may have been relatively well behaved like 95% of the rest of the time. How much pain could be saved if when a person runs into a poster like that, someone they just can't get along with and that clearly can't get along with them, they just Ignore them and it works like twitter to where they don't see what you say and you don't see what they say?

Currently I think the Ignore feature is under-used because people know that even if you can't see what that person says, they can see what you say and they can reply and they can continue being a jerk. The current Ignore feature basically does...well, NOTHING. It does nothing. If you want to ignore a post you could scroll down and when you get to one of their posts, just not read it. Keep scrolling. The current Ignore feature is a useless function.

I think having it be like Twitter would really improve things, and make it so that people feel like they could just end personal feuds, even if it's only for a short time and they change their mind later. Instead we've got bannings and people kicked out of The Club Level and whatnot.

I think what Stringer is describing that he is afraid of is a situation where a personal feud between posters develops, leading to a big argument in a thread. Then during that argument, people who dislike one of the posters flock to and "Thank" the posts of the other guy, making the other person feel all the more isolated and ganged upon.

But I say you can nip all of that in the bud before it even starts. If it's clear that two posters can't get along, one of them should be allowed to just end it, period. You hit the Ignore button and now neither of you can see one another's posts.

What's the downside? Seriously?

Let's say Person X is arguring with Person Y. It's starting to get nasty. They're obviously frustrated with one another. So Person X says you know what screw this, hits Ignore and now neither one can see what the other says.

The only theoretical downside to this is if Person Y really really WANTS to see what Person X has to say. But why would they want to? They were just arguing and getting nasty with one another. If Person Y really values Person X's posts so much that they don't want to be on Ignore then they shouldn't have pissed Person X off so much. Or they can DM Person X, apologize for the incident, and ask to be taken off Ignore. In that way this feature could prompt people to reconcile with one another instead of always duking it out.

And let's remember that Person Y has just as much right to put Person X on Ignore, to where X can't see what Y says. And if Y has valuable things to say that X can no longer read, then X should have the same incentive to reconcile their differences.

I really think this is how you eliminate a LOT of those annoying, take-over-the-thread personal spats that arise here.

FWIW, I like the thanks/fist pump button. I think it should definitely stay. It lets people know their post was appreciated. As much work as some posters put in here (as well as the insiders' info), I think clicking a button to show appreciation is the least one can do.

I think the polarization effect is pretty minimal.

We should rename it "Golf Clap" in honor of Joe Philbin's spin on the post-play Fist Pump

"ckparrothead wrote:

I've never got the sense that I am targeted because of the number of Fist Pumps or Thanks that I have accumulated. On the other hand I regularly feel gratified when I have put a lot of work into a post (which I do with regularity), and by work I mean real research that takes perhaps hours to complete, and then I post that here and later see a big pile of "Thanks" underneath it. It's a way for people to let me know that the work is appreciated and I should keep doing it.

If I didn't see that at all, there would be a feeling of almost buddhist futility involved in all this research and all these posts. Like you're talking to a wall.

On the other hand, the other way for people to make you feel appreciated for a particularly well research post is to directly compliment you with replies. This is problematic to me. I find it very awkward. People are often more effusive in their praise than I'm generally comfortable with, or they say something that kind of holds implications about the other people around here that I know also work very hard (e.g. "You're the only reason I come here" or "You make all these other posters look like idiots" etc). Those kinds of posts I find to be very awkward and not gratifying at all. If there wasn't a "Thanks" feature then I suspect you'd see posts like those more often cluttering up threads. If anything I find that kind of direct complimenting via posts leads to exactly what you're worried about which is a growing set of people who begin to resent the person that is constantly getting praised explicitly in conversation like that. But what are you going to do, report posts for being too nice?

The "Thanks" feature is right in-between, a happy medium. It lets you know that your work in a post is appreciated, while being impersonal enough not to make anyone feel awkwardly over-praised, and it doesn't explicitly or implicitly exclude anyone or hold anyone up at the expense of others. It lets you send a message to another person saying that you appreciate what they just did, but there's no need to add any more detail or make it awkward either.

I will say though I'm very serious about the Ignore function. Over the years I think we've seen several of our more high volume insiders like FFG, Section126 and Boomer really get pissed off to no end at a poster or group of posters that decide to keep pestering them about this or that in the Club. There have been threats to be done with this site for good. Some of those posters are no longer here because of those incidents, even though that poster may have been relatively well behaved like 95% of the rest of the time. How much pain could be saved if when a person runs into a poster like that, someone they just can't get along with and that clearly can't get along with them, they just Ignore them and it works like twitter to where they don't see what you say and you don't see what they say?

Currently I think the Ignore feature is under-used because people know that even if you can't see what that person says, they can see what you say and they can reply and they can continue being a jerk. The current Ignore feature basically does...well, NOTHING. It does nothing. If you want to ignore a post you could scroll down and when you get to one of their posts, just not read it. Keep scrolling. The current Ignore feature is a useless function.

I think having it be like Twitter would really improve things, and make it so that people feel like they could just end personal feuds, even if it's only for a short time and they change their mind later. Instead we've got bannings and people kicked out of The Club Level and whatnot.

I agree that the ignore function could be improved. However, we're limited by what vBulletin offers as well as what plugins that other developers create.

I'm not suggesting eliminating the "thanks" but it definitely does lead to a herd mentality.

During the height of the Ireland, or Philbin debates, you would see the same people thanking each other's posts, making it all too easy for the discussion to devolve into an "us v them" thing.

Not that I care about that particularly, but I see Stringer's point

"byroan wrote:

I agree that the ignore function could be improved. However, we're limited by what vBulletin offers as well as what plugins that other developers create.

That's what I suspected. It's really too bad because I feel very strongly that a twitter-like "Block" function would smooth out a LOT of arguments that get nasty like that.

"byroan wrote:

I agree that the ignore function could be improved. However, we're limited by what vBulletin offers as well as what plugins that other developers create.

That would be a difficult one to program without bugs.

Edit: Actually thinking about it, it wouldn't be too difficult.

like I said before, I like how "thanks" button removes clutter.

Keep it, Or else we'll have pages and pages of "sweet post bro" or "thanks for this" to sift through to get to actual information.

Personally, I love the "Thanks" system. Especially in the Club. Often times, I either dont have the time, or don't have anything to add, but want to acknowledge whoever it is either sharing inside information, or thanking them for taking the time to write a very useful, educational post. It's just simple, I click thanks, and move on. Without the system, I'd like end up quoting the post to say thanks, or come up with a rather irrelevant reply.

I do know what is meant by the herd mentality of the Thanks system and people ganging up on others or whatever, I however don't see it as a big deal.

As for the ignore feature, which seems to have become a side topic in all of this, I agree, the feature as it exists right now is pretty useless. I can ignore someone, but if they start a thread, or someone replies to one of their posts, I can see it still. I just simply don't want to see it at all if they said it. At least not until I'm ready to remove them from ignore, because for me, its often I ignore quickly if I feel things are getting to a point its causing a problem, but after everyone calms down, I usually un-ignore. Unless its just... that bad that I never ever want to read them again.

That being said, I don't like the idea of it being a complete block. I think then you're getting into a situation where people can pick and choose who gets to see what they have to say and who doesn't. To me, that just takes too much away from other users. I mean, they probably deserve it if someone is going to go to that length, I just see it as very counter productive, and I could see it being abused. I can understand why some would want it, I'm just not sure it's a good fit for a discussion board, because it prevents discussion. Then the thread goes on, and likely becomes a mess since some people can't see what's being talked about.

We also need a "go home you're drunk" button.

"The Following <#> Users Think <username> Is Drunk And Ought To Go Home:"

It is an easy of saying good work, or more importantly "that was funny" without all the clutter. I think it needs to stay.
For our current head coach I do recommend it being changed to "heckuva job."

"ckparrothead wrote:

I've never got the sense that I am targeted because of the number of Fist Pumps or Thanks that I have accumulated. On the other hand I regularly feel gratified when I have put a lot of work into a post (which I do with regularity), and by work I mean real research that takes perhaps hours to complete, and then I post that here and later see a big pile of "Thanks" underneath it. It's a way for people to let me know that the work is appreciated and I should keep doing it.

If I didn't see that at all, there would be a feeling of almost buddhist futility involved in all this research and all these posts. Like you're talking to a wall.

On the other hand, the other way for people to make you feel appreciated for a particularly well research post is to directly compliment you with replies. This is problematic to me. I find it very awkward. People are often more effusive in their praise than I'm generally comfortable with, or they say something that kind of holds implications about the other people around here that I know also work very hard (e.g. "You're the only reason I come here" or "You make all these other posters look like idiots" etc). Those kinds of posts I find to be very awkward and not gratifying at all. If there wasn't a "Thanks" feature then I suspect you'd see posts like those more often cluttering up threads. If anything I find that kind of direct complimenting via posts leads to exactly what you're worried about which is a growing set of people who begin to resent the person that is constantly getting praised explicitly in conversation like that. But what are you going to do, report posts for being too nice?

The "Thanks" feature is right in-between, a happy medium. It lets you know that your work in a post is appreciated, while being impersonal enough not to make anyone feel awkwardly over-praised, and it doesn't explicitly or implicitly exclude anyone or hold anyone up at the expense of others. It lets you send a message to another person saying that you appreciate what they just did, but there's no need to add any more detail or make it awkward either.

I will say though I'm very serious about the Ignore function. Over the years I think we've seen several of our more high volume insiders like FFG, Section126 and Boomer really get pissed off to no end at a poster or group of posters that decide to keep pestering them about this or that in the Club. There have been threats to be done with this site for good. Some of those posters are no longer here because of those incidents, even though that poster may have been relatively well behaved like 95% of the rest of the time. How much pain could be saved if when a person runs into a poster like that, someone they just can't get along with and that clearly can't get along with them, they just Ignore them and it works like twitter to where they don't see what you say and you don't see what they say?

Currently I think the Ignore feature is under-used because people know that even if you can't see what that person says, they can see what you say and they can reply and they can continue being a jerk. The current Ignore feature basically does...well, NOTHING. It does nothing. If you want to ignore a post you could scroll down and when you get to one of their posts, just not read it. Keep scrolling. The current Ignore feature is a useless function.

I think having it be like Twitter would really improve things, and make it so that people feel like they could just end personal feuds, even if it's only for a short time and they change their mind later. Instead we've got bannings and people kicked out of The Club Level and whatnot.

"ckparrothead wrote:

That's what I suspected. It's really too bad because I feel very strongly that a twitter-like "Block" function would smooth out a LOT of arguments that get nasty like that.

Honestly, we dont get a lot of bannings unless its bots, trolls or people who dont know how to act in public. The nasty arguments are minimal at this point.

I do agree that the block feature could be improved but like By said, we're limited by what VBulletin offers. I raised the idea to Muck anyway to see if theres a workaround.

"Boik14 wrote:

Honestly, we dont get a lot of bannings unless its bots, trolls or people who dont know how to act in public. The nasty arguments are minimal at this point.

I do agree that the block feature could be improved but like By said, we're limited by what VBulletin offers. I raised the idea to Muck anyway to see if theres a workaround.

....unzips

If we are going to have a Like button, I think a Do Not Like button would be proactive.

"lmeister3 wrote:

We should rename it "Golf Clap" in honor of Joe Philbin's spin on the post-play Fist Pump

" 'ell of a job " button plz

"CashInFist wrote:

If we are going to have a Like button, I think a Do Not Like button would be proactive.

A Do Not Like button is something we'll never have.

"byroan wrote:

A Do Not Like button is something we'll never have.

Why?

"CashInFist wrote:

Why?

Your posts would be destroyed :shifty:

"CashInFist wrote:

Why?

We're not here to put people down.

"SICK wrote:

Your posts would be destroyed :shifty:

You're suck a dick. I'd love for you to say that to my face. You'd get your teeth smashed in...

"CashInFist wrote:

You're suck a dick. I'd love for you to say that to my face. You'd get your teeth smashed in...

Bring it, geezer.

"SICK wrote:

Bring it, geezer.

Whatever.