Do "Like" and "Thank Poster" depress forum building??

[roshaoar]

I'm new to SMF and looking at what mods to get. I was very tempted by these... but had a rethink about this. If people press buttons instead of actually writing thank you, could that discourage actual interaction.. as in writing a thank you, responding? I know it's a bit left field and maybe not what you might expect... I'm curious what people think

[Dominus Arbitrationis]

Not very many people take the time to write out just a thank you message, from what I have seen. In general, I think that as long as it doesn't end up like karma (Which is a popularity contest), it could actually help people. Then they would feel that people actually appreciate their posts and then contribute more. Course, I could be wrong.

[Biology Forums]

If you haven't noticed, people do enjoy clicking buttons. While it is useless in terms of content, it does encourage others, including guests, to sign up and participate. How many times have you read a blog, only to scroll to the comments just to see how others might have perceived the article. You might even be tempted to like a comment to show your support - same concept as thanking or liking.

[Irisado]

Yes, it could discourage interaction.  Think about how certain forms of social media operate, for example, Facebook, and the number of people who just click 'like' without posting a comment.  That might work for Facebook, but on a forum, which relies on discussion to grow, it's really unhelpful.

This is not to say that you want people to post for the sake of posting, this leads often leads to spamming, but it's far better to encourage members of any forum to post constructive replies, rather than to just click buttons if a forum is to grow and become more active over time.