Just a random idea... Steam rewards like, SG Rewards?

I'd like a simple "like" function for threads and comments that worked like how the holiday boxes do, but calling it "potatoes" to give it a bit of SG flavor. And also for it to show on the stats page.

I love it. Let's have it all! XD

Sounds like a slippery slope leading to a Reddit-like forum (where everyone gets downvoted if they don't say what's popular).

I liked the potato idea. But there are some flukes. Let's say you made a thread and i commented it. It got lots of potatoes. That would make me to only comment to get potato. This way as it is people showing if they liked or not that comment or post by expressing it.
"I loved this puzzle then i need to say something about it."
"This post is like garbage. Okay time to puke my thoughts."
That kind of features would chain the community and reduce the interaction. But liked your thoughts. Here is a potato 🥔

I would like some event like sacrifing 400 points into bowl to feed animals in shelter. Problem is at the end there would still have to be someone to actually pay for food collected in that bowl.

I've been on medium sites like SG where some of these features are a thing. The website, despite being centered around trading and raffles, was a cesspool of drama, people seeking attention, a continuous popularity contest. Not fun at all. Also a nightmare to moderate.
I do like the idea of being able to pin a comment tho, no more "reserving" comments to show up on top.

People are generally upset how Steam points and awards motivated absolutely pointless reviews, idiotic "guides" and trolling comments. En masse.

While SG is way smaller, I still don't see any benefit in it. If you do something well, you don't need such confirmation. It only motivates people who crave but don't actually deserve such confirmation.

I'm both pro and against it, same reasons as everyone here. As one random idea just to add to it, not super serious - ability to give people "cake" on cake day :))))
Although I would hate if it distracted from people leaving genuine comments wishing cake day

The idea of setting 1 answer as a 'this answers the question' or whatever sounds nice, that way if someone else has the same issue they can find the answer way faster.
The idea of upvoting an answer because you agree so you don't have to respond with the same one is also nice, but it does stop people from posting and so a discussion dying out faster so not fully sure if that would be a good addition....

Outside of that the idea of these things are nice but I personally dislike the Steam awards because, like others said, it motivates for idiot stuff that adds nothing, sadly there will always be people ruin it for the rest.

From personal experience, just a thanks comment goes a long way. I mean yeah, it's basic, but so few people actual bother to write anything.
Still, not a bad idea at all.

Transfering points is not a good idea, too many bot accounts already. It would just incentivize people with too much extra time to farm as much points as possible, even if it's 100:1. Too many no lifers around.

All level 5 and above members should be granted the right to wear a crown. 👑

Liking threads and posts that could show Like count; As a bonus a way to order discussions and posts by likes

This is has been discussed for years, and there's plenty of fantastic reasons not to introduce the system. Fundamentally, like systems (even without the dislike function) are meant to provide feedback support for sorting purposes, and even within that context easily get derailed. For sites not built around utilizing a like system (ie, anything that's not a content page with an associated feedback section, like webcomic sites or news sites) it quickly screws up the entire site (speaking as someone who has been on sites that introduced- and rapidly had to de-introduce- such functionality).

People start trying to farm likes despite their lack of benefit- which can push users off the site- people utilize it to passively push toxicity by liking toxic comments (eg, bigotry)- which can push users off the site- and it's just annoying visual clutter- which can push people off the site.

Pretty sure there's been quite a few other issues mentioned in past threads as well. Conversely, liking functionality in a site without an associated priority listing system (or that covers topics not suitable for such a system, like this site) adds nothing readily discernable as being a positive influence to the site. The only people that heavily appreciate likes are those who are insecure enough to want to farm them, and that only contributes to an unpleasant site atmosphere. For everyone else, they're an ignorable gimmick at best, and a frustration at worst.

Meanwhile, the likes don't offer anything constructive to their given thread (some polling or game functionality aside) and don't offer any direct positivity to the person getting likes- only social affirmation, which is fundamentally different, and generally inherently disruptive and prone to degrading community behaviors and flow. (See MarvashMagalli's comment above for a better detailing of those issues.)

In short, there's a reason you only see like functionality on blurb sites like Twitter or Facebook, or on sites with sorting functionality (be that Reddit or StackExchange or news sites or anything else) where you essentially have blurbs as response to a core topic, and not on proper threaded discussion forums. And you can just look at Reddit to see how terrible such systems can end up being, even on sites designed specifically for them.

I guess in theory you could have the functionality in a way that has minimal negative impact but, it'd need to have the site: 1. Restrict it to specific forums, such as the Puzzles/Event forum and 2: Have it as an optional toggle-on when creating a thread, not something that's available by default.

If you carefully manage it like that, where it's outside of general discussion, it may work. As an introduction into core site functionality, however, it'd just be disruptive and encouraging of toxicity, discouragement to use the site, and obsessive social-oriented posting behaviors. In short: Massive ew.

Point sink 'steam awards': a bit like steam awards for threads and posts, showing the count and if possible who, where it costs SG points to the givers but NOT to the awarded. It would be nice the other way but we have bot users who i bet also alt-account who would definetly abuse something like this... so instead it would cost to mark posts alone.
...or the above giving points but not 1:1 with a cap. Like each 10points=1point, cap 50 or whatever. Symbolic basically. Not worth the trouble unless it would be dead easy

No idea what you're trying to say there. But anything that involves generating points (which I believe is the core idea, in some way?) would find a way to be exploited, and again, could lead to site frustrations. There's already enough frustration with how the site handles P as-is (eg, overly demanding-on-time P cap, ability to stockpile points, etc, all leading to a site structure that's overly encouraging towards gaming the site through regular, high-effort use; Which, at that point, makes it weird the site doesn't feature some of the more involved giveaway practices of similar gifting sites, as well (eg, giveaway formats that allow you to, for example, invest P multiple times for multiple entries), as there's not really any reason to allow one thing and not the other.)


As for the awards idea, I'm not at all personally a fan, but I don't see any technical reason to argue the practice, so long as there's an account settings option to disable any associated visual clutter that may be introduced.

The pinned comment idea is more intriguing- while it could be also annoying in certain ways, it's the one idea that serves a clear potential constructive purpose (eg, highlighting answers to questions, highlighting important recent update posts, puzzle/gaming use, etc), as well as potential positivity aspects without any strong social gaming aspects. Likewise, there's not a huge potential for toxicity or disruption, like with the other ideas. Really, the only counterargument I can make on that one is "cg has more important features to update and add", but that's always going to be a counterargument for anything on this site. So yeah, maybe go with that idea?