We’ve discussed it and, while we’re happy to offer it, we do have some concerns. We also recognise that adding it without consulting our users is the wrong thing to do - we want to be sure that you all have a say in this decision.
Our major concern lies in popularity contests, or, the appearance of one user being more popular and thus more valued due to having a large number of posts that have received thanks. If this is an issue that most users do not feel is a problem we’re happy to move forward.
We also want you to be fully aware of what we’re offering. This is what you’ll see when a post is thanked:
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/iiMoxhu.jpg)
This would list a certain number of usernames between the body of the post and the signature on the post, then provide the number of thanks above those that are displayed as a username. We can set the number of usernames to be anything between 1 and 250, but we would keep it to 10 or below because a high number is both messy and can cause server lag. I didn’t want to create ten test accounts but I hope the screenshot is helpful.
We are not able to offer a thanks given and thanks received counter.
If the general opinion of the thanks button is that users would like it to be added we would enable it for a trial period and ask for further opinions at a later date.
We may need to disable the extension - possibly indefinitely - with no notice if there are compatibility issues. We may also disable the extension if it leads to a toxic environment.
We want to make clear that from a mod perspective we would not place any value in thanks that a user has received when we’re making any moderating decision.
Please do use this thread to give us your thoughts and to provide us with your concerns. If you want more information from us feel free to ask. We’ll let the thread run for a few days.
Edit: if you would rather share your thoughts privately you're more than welcome to - just send me or another mod a message!