> > It might help to have some way of indicating that a post has been read/enjoyed without having to craft a reply that lives up to the usual intellectual/creative standards.
> >
> > On Yahoo message boards, you can anonymously "recommend" a post to show your approval. Anyone viewing the post can see that it has however many recs, and the poster can know his work was appreciated.
>
> There is a gem of a suggestion here, but I can see it backfiring by amplifying one of the problems it attempts to fix.
>
> If people are scared to post here due to low self-esteem and believing that their posts won't be appreciated, how will it feel when one can have concrete evidence that it wasn't?
>
> Many people, particularly online, seem to be rather weak in the emotional security department, and the Rinkworks community is certainly no exception to that. How many low-scoring (and it is effectively a score) posts will it take to push someone over the edge?
>

Okay, plan B - inspired by Rinkipedia.

How about having a kind of parallel board like the Rinkipedia "talk pages" where you can post an inane/non-boardworthy comment like "good post" or "me too" associated with a Forum post. These comments wouldn't clutter the Forum itself, but each Forum post could include a link to its comments and maybe an indication of the number of comments it had.

I guess each message would have a "Post a Comment" field with a brief explanation as well as a "Post a Reply" field, if Sam likes the idea.

I figure this would remove the psychological barrier of not posting anything that isn't "clever enough" or "RinkWorthy enough".

I still don't know what to do about those insecure posters such as myself who thrive on popularity scores. How can you know when your message is appreciated without knowing when it isn't?

^v^:)^v^
FB