What happened to Thanks?

[emoreira]

I also miss the thanks count.
It has been removed because some few miss used it.
But, as always in every society, some few that behaves incorrectly forces the authorities to harden the laws to the detriment of the majority that behaves correctly.
A poster with many many thanks received, showed me that his opinion could be considered with some respect. Now this is no longer available.
This site has been unmessurable useful for me. I've learned a lot, making me a better diver. I have to thank to those that gave me good and useful advise and instructions.
I'm user of some other forums, for diverse subjects. I've not seen that helpful tool in other forums, giving to SB even a greater reputation.

 

[Cave Diver]

PS I am not a "new member"

The user titles are reflective of post count. As post count increases, the user titles change according to preset counts. Even though you've been a member since 2005, you still show as a "New Member" because you only have 24 posts.

I too found a thanks count somewhat useful. I did not find it so difficult to pretty quickly figure out who was actually helpful, and who was just blowing smoke up everyone else's @$$#$.

The number of people that thank a specific post is another good indicator of someone who has been helpful

I also miss the thanks count.
It has been removed because some few miss used it.

The thanks counter is still available under the "Statistics" tab in your user profile.

 

[Bob DBF]

The thanks counter is still available under the "Statistics" tab in your user profile.

I did not know that. :shocked2:
That would have been my suggestion in this post after reading the thread. Obviously there are places on this board I have never gone.

To sum up, Nevermind.

Bob
------------------------
Oblivious

 

[Christi]

PS I am not a "new member"

Dave,

We all know you're not a new member - but a majority of your posts are under "Dave Dillehay" where you are tagged as a "regular member." You have two user names - so your true post count is not reflected nor are your "Thanks" because the two user names are not linked together except for those of us who know who you are

I'm not sure if there is a way that a SB Staff member can combine all of your posts into one user name, but it's worth asking if it's important to you

 

[cvchief]

The answer offered seems pretty weak to me. I have tried to post only when I could give good information on and about Cozumel, and for the most part avoided being commercial. I posted about my own dive accidents, the hurricanes in Cozumel, and many other topics of interest to the board. The thanks received was a pretty good indication of my contribution and I felt more than a little pride in providing posts that the board members appreciated.

Those in power of this board have now reduced the incentive to provide important and useful info.

Dave Dillehay
Aldora Divers

PS I am not a "new member"

I gotta say Dave, I agree with you.

 

[boulderjohn]

As so happens in life, a few people were ruining a concept that was working fine for the majority.

There were people who were building up post counts by thanking all their friends for everything that wrote, even one word posts. The ones who were most into it were approaching 50,000 thanks when it all ended. That might not seem like a big deal by itself, but when you see it in operation, destroying threads with obnoxious, meaningless posts placed simply for the reason of getting the thanks count up, you can understand it.

Another reason was the use of thanks for the purpose of bolstering a point of view. It was hard to know what to do about it. What was happening was that someone would make a post that supported a specific fairly extreme point of view, and the same half dozen or so supporters would jump in with their thanks. It is hard to make it clear in this thread without about 100 examples, but it was getting very divisive. Things were getting very heated, and the thanks button was being used as more of a bludgeon with which to attack others than an expression of thanks. The first impulse was to remove the thanks button altogether, but that was not well received. Removing the Thanks total was an imperfect way to deal with it.

For those who were not involved with either of the two above situations, it probably seems silly or even nonsensical, but for those who were involved, it was a very serious situation.

 

[cvchief]

As so happens in life, a few people were ruining a concept that was working fine for the majority.

There were people who were building up post counts by thanking all their friends for everything that wrote, even one word posts. The ones who were most into it were approaching 50,000 thanks when it all ended. That might not seem like a big deal by itself, but when you see it in operation, destroying threads with obnoxious, meaningless posts placed simply for the reason of getting the thanks count up, you can understand it.

Another reason was the use of thanks for the purpose of bolstering a point of view. It was hard to know what to do about it. What was happening was that someone would make a post that supported a specific fairly extreme point of view, and the same half dozen or so supporters would jump in with their thanks. It is hard to make it clear in this thread without about 100 examples, but it was getting very divisive. Things were getting very heated, and the thanks button was being used as more of a bludgeon with which to attack others than an expression of thanks. The first impulse was to remove the thanks button altogether, but that was not well received. Removing the Thanks total was an imperfect way to deal with it.

For those who were not involved with either of the two above situations, it probably seems silly or even nonsensical, but for those who were involved, it was a very serious situation.

I get ya.... I guess it would be too libertarian to ask why not just reset the counters on the offenders rather whack the rest of us. When I first came on here, Dave's thanks count helped me id his info as useful before I *knew* he was worth listening too. You might say it would seem arbitrary to pick members to reset, but doing it to everyone is too..... knife before the sledge, rifle before the grenade, if that makes sense.

Of course I mostly hang just on the Coz board and we all get along here....

 

[DandyDon]

The answer offered seems pretty weak to me. I have tried to post only when I could give good information on and about Cozumel, and for the most part avoided being commercial. I posted about my own dive accidents, the hurricanes in Cozumel, and many other topics of interest to the board. The thanks received was a pretty good indication of my contribution and I felt more than a little pride in providing posts that the board members appreciated.

Those in power of this board have now reduced the incentive to provide important and useful info.

I appreciate your posts whichever name you choose that day, regardless of how many I click. You might want to do whatever is needed to use only one name; your other one has you as "Regular" based on your post count there, which causes some giggles. You can become a Supporting member and write your own with frequent changes, or perhaps request a one-time change to something like "Cozumel Operator"...?

A poster with many many thanks received, showed me that his opinion could be considered with some respect.

But with the gross misuse by a few, that was not always true. Now you need to think about the actual quality of the posts; is that so bad?

I'm user of some other forums, for diverse subjects. I've not seen that helpful tool in other forums, giving to SB even a greater reputation.

It's still good to Thank a post based on its merits, and to avoid simply posting "I agree." The Thanks button is a modification of the Rep button included in V-board software, which I see used on one other board. That was tried here on SB some years ago but the Neg rep was abused so much, generally for personal reasons, that it didn't last a day. Even on that other board, the Neg rep was removed, and I suspect the same tweaking was done here to offer the Thanks button without a No-Thanks option.

As so happens in life, a few people were ruining a concept that was working fine for the majority.

There were people who were building up post counts by thanking all their friends for everything that wrote, even one word posts. The ones who were most into it were approaching 50,000 thanks when it all ended. That might not seem like a big deal by itself, but when you see it in operation, destroying threads with obnoxious, meaningless posts placed simply for the reason of getting the thanks count up, you can understand it.

Another reason was the use of thanks for the purpose of bolstering a point of view. It was hard to know what to do about it. What was happening was that someone would make a post that supported a specific fairly extreme point of view, and the same half dozen or so supporters would jump in with their thanks. It is hard to make it clear in this thread without about 100 examples, but it was getting very divisive. Things were getting very heated, and the thanks button was being used as more of a bludgeon with which to attack others than an expression of thanks. The first impulse was to remove the thanks button altogether, but that was not well received. Removing the Thanks total was an imperfect way to deal with it.

For those who were not involved with either of the two above situations, it probably seems silly or even nonsensical, but for those who were involved, it was a very serious situation.

Very well said.

 

[gypsyjim]

As so happens in life, a few people were ruining a concept that was working fine for the majority.

There were people who were building up post counts by thanking all their friends for everything that wrote, even one word posts. The ones who were most into it were approaching 50,000 thanks when it all ended. That might not seem like a big deal by itself, but when you see it in operation, destroying threads with obnoxious, meaningless posts placed simply for the reason of getting the thanks count up, you can understand it.

Another reason was the use of thanks for the purpose of bolstering a point of view. It was hard to know what to do about it. What was happening was that someone would make a post that supported a specific fairly extreme point of view, and the same half dozen or so supporters would jump in with their thanks. It is hard to make it clear in this thread without about 100 examples, but it was getting very divisive. Things were getting very heated, and the thanks button was being used as more of a bludgeon with which to attack others than an expression of thanks. The first impulse was to remove the thanks button altogether, but that was not well received. Removing the Thanks total was an imperfect way to deal with it.

For those who were not involved with either of the two above situations, it probably seems silly or even nonsensical, but for those who were involved, it was a very serious situation.

As I said, I really never saw how any of that really hurt anyone, or SB, and it was pretty obvious who the ones were who were doing that. It really only offended those who wished to be offended, in my opinion.

 

[Cave Diver]

As I said, I really never saw how any of that really hurt anyone, or SB, and it was pretty obvious who the ones were who were doing that. It really only offended those who wished to be offended, in my opinion.

Jim, the second paragraph of John's post was really the heart of the problem. The first paragraph was just incidental. I can only ask that you trust me when I say that it caused a lot of problems that weren't obvious from the outside looking in. There is no way to adequately explain that to someone that wasn't privy to all the details. It's even harder to explain to users who tend to stay within their own geographic regions and don't venture much to the board at large.

I'm not sure if there is a way that a SB Staff member can combine all of your posts into one user name, but it's worth asking if it's important to you

Not only is it possible, it's pretty much mandatory. We consider multiple accounts for the same user to be "sock puppets" and that is not allowed except under very special circumstances. (i.e. someone represents a business, manufacturer, or agency on the board and has a personal account as well)

Dave, I will be contact you later to work that out.