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I'm ignorant about setting up a message board website so maybe this idea isn't practical, but I've always thought a messageboard should have a system where you can click a button that simply adds a "thumbs up" tracked stat to the post. Although I've seen a "reputation" system and a "this post was rated helpful" system, that's not quite right because some posts aren't necessarily helpful so to speak and from what I've seen on other boards "reputation" ends up being taken too seriously, yet you'd like to give a quick "liked something about that post", which doesn't necessarily mean you liked all or even most of the post...just that there was something worth recognizing, however minor and for whatever reason. Especially for people with big sigs, a discrete post just to put a smiley face emoticon or something comes across as clutter.

Anyway, someone codes these things from scratch, the originator, even if most everyone else just uses it as a template. If I was coding my own, that's the way I'd do it...for any forum, not just Talkbears.com.