I do not like the numerical counters about a poster shown with each post. The number of posts is neutral, and if anyone makes any qualitative inferences based on that, it's on them.
However, why show the Thanked count, or any other similar count? What is its purpose?
I do not believe the count has any worth. The only thing I see having worth is when a post is made, and some members have Thanked it, is that one can easily look at their recent posting history to easily evaluate the value of that mark to myself, with just a couple of clicks/taps.
I recommend this approach to everyone, especially to new members, even when there is no Thanked list, and only have the post and the name of the member who made that post, to go by: when they get a response, and have difficulty determining how to approach that response, they should just look at the recent posts by that member, to determine the context. This is not stalking, this is seeking understanding of where the suggestion stems from.
This might even reduce the occurrence of the unfortunate "who are you to claim that" -type of discussions, that often stem from insufficient or misunderstood context.
I believe adding the Thanked: counter is a wrong move. Re-reading most of the posts here, I think the change that has the best probability of achieving desirable results, is to just reword the "Say thanks" button and "The following users thanked this post:" text (and "Thanked" in the member profile page) slightly; plus additional advice to members on how the button is intended to be used.
What should be the modified text be, then? Note that we don't want to make any drastic changes, because the button has been in use for quite some time, and it would be nasty to retroactively try and change what they meant. Thus, I think it should only adding alternate positive meanings, corresponding to the different alternate positive uses it is already been used for; choosing the ones that might help with the underlying issue that started this thread.
Me fail English to whip out a brilliant suggestion here. All I can come up with is something like "Tap this post as Useful/Interesting/Worthwhile/Noteworthy/Nice", replacing "Thanked" with "Tapped".
(Tag would be nicer, but it is already used in SMF in another way, so using it here too would be confusing.)
The idea is that it is up to the Tapper and the reader to decide which one of the possible positive connotations they intended, as there would not be any way to mark why the post was tapped. No counters would be shown, only the linked member names who have Tapped that particular post.
The purpose is to add positive ambiguity, which can be resolved either by posting and asking for clarification, or by examining the other posts by said member(s) to understand the context. The intent is that this pushes members slightly in the direction of finding out more by asking or examining what the member has posted around that time –– this being the real-world equivalent of listening a bit more to find out what the speaker is talking about; plus, to mark posts that are useful/interesting/worthwhile/noteworthy/etc.
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