drgary wrote:I don't want to clutter the thread with adding a post to indicate [Applause]. And having Likes to show appreciated content is different than ranked Helpful posts.

To clarify, I believe that you're referring to some sort of "reaction" choice. I've seen that on some forums and they are displayed below the post along with who/how many have reacted to it (e.g., like, agree, disagree, applaud, etc).

I took a look at the phpBB mod list and there's Topic/Post Reactions, Thanks, Like. It's still in development, but I installed it on a test server. It adds a fair amount of storage overhead to the database and could impact performance. I wasn't able to get it working correctly, either because (a) it's still in development, or more likely (b) one of the modifications I've made is incompatible with it.

I admit preferring the "keep it simple" approach to emojis/emoticons, since it seems to encourage more serious-minded exchanges. I don't spend a lot of time on social media, but from what I've observed, a lot of "contributors" are really just posting quips and silly reactions; that's not the sort of exchanges I want to encourage here.