If we can’t have one without the other does that mean we need a “Not Spam” button too? 
Pressing the like or in our case thanks button is a secondary means of thanking someone. They always go together with writing a little something. And of course the person receiving the thanks doesn't always care who it came from, only that it did and they received it. Some forum boards show the person who pressed the thanks button. So yes, they will know who thanked them.
I just voted and strongly disagree with the idea to convert BLF into a congeniality contest!
We need a “It would neither help nor hurt BLF” choice in the poll, as well as a “No” that works for people who simply don’t want a “Thanks” button. The “No” choices presented don’t work well for some of us. In other words, this poll is obviously skewed toward the “Yes” answer.
But, the positive is so abundant in the posts themselves 
@ David EF :+1: and Thanks! 
I honestly think that this forum is amazingly free from political and social rudeness so it seems a shame to have a rudeness button OR a “like” button. It seems the focus is being diverted from the original purpose of the forum. i would think that any transgressions could be reported to SB and a warning pm should suffice. it is very easy. I was a forum administrator on another popular forum and it was very simple, “keep it civil or leave”. No trolling, no personal attacks, no profanity or political posts. KISS
ken
Well, the RUDE! button was added because of actual rudeness that was taking place, and it has been working. So, we no longer need to theorize about that. We can see that it was needed, and it is serving its purpose. Nobody asked sb to add a RUDE! button. He did it because he needed the administrative help that the RUDE! button provides. He has already explained this many times himself.
As for the THANKS! button: we don’t need it. The difference, as sb has already explained, is the real feedback. With a rude person or an outright troll, even negative feedback in the way of an argumentative post is an emotional win for them. So, we have a RUDE! button to respond to the rudeness without rewarding them. That way, they get flagged, so sb can know to look into the matter. But, they don’t get reinforcement for their behavior. With giving thanks, or +1’s we should want to give them emotionally rewarding personal positive feedback, which a THANKS! button would deny in the same way the RUDE! button does.
Sb have you though about putting these buttons in German so it sounds angrier? Now every German will call me rude lol :person_facepalming:
Maybe just one that says Nein Dont you dare!
Just Nein!
I didn’t think you would go for a public thanks meter. In fact I think a thanks button been brought up before.
Well, I'll concede that we do not "need" a thanks button. But it would be nice.
As you say, SB knows best! And I am good with that.
Ken
DavidEF said:
“Well, the RUDE! button was added because of actual rudeness that was taking place, and it has been working. So, we no longer need to theorize about that. We can see that it was needed, and it is serving its purpose. Nobody asked sb to add a RUDE! button. He did it because he needed the administrative help that the RUDE! button provides. He has already explained this many times himself.”
SB knows best!
Not picking on you, jhalb, but you teed that up nicely.
The name for what you’re describing is External Validation . Some of us “do what we do” because we need what we produce, some of us because we need others to approve1, some of us, just because “it’s in me and it’s gotta come out”.
In my experience (barely over a half-century, so hardly a representative sample), the kind of people who need “External Validation” almost never produce or contribute anything of any substantial value to themselves or the world around them. They really can’t, because “someone might disapprove”. I notice, for the record, that belief system is kinda rare in BLF. The real “Secret Superpower” of BLF is that so many of us (I was going to enumerate a list, but it would scroll on for pages, always significantly incomplete, without adding to my point — You know who you are!) so many of us here “just do it” and are gracious enough to share their discoveries with us mere mortals. They aren’t any more interested in “Thanks” than in whether others think they’re “Rude”.
Of course, the Founder and Creator of this wonderful Forum said it best :
How could any button even approach that kind of sagacity?
(And I would also note, the kindest “THANK-YOUs” often do not even include the word “thanks”.)
But I’m just…
Dim
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1 Or disapprove, aka “Trolls” who are addicted to some inverse form of External Validation.
Not so dim…
Oh,the buttons are too many.Why not post “thanks”directly ?