If you like a post, tell the author!

I am supportive of this. May I also suggest that there's more than one way to tell the author?

• I have occasionally received a comment at the bottom of the post, saying something like "I liked this post", or "this was really interesting, thank you!". I have liked these comments.
• Occasionally, people have taken the effort send a message via the EA Forum's messaging mechanism to tell me how much they like a post. This has been really lovely.

Thank you for this post! I appreciate these kind of posts with suggestions about how to use the forum.

On the specific point, I appreciate the positivity of people posting that they like a particular article, and feel it makes it seem more appealing to write articles. Also, I often find it a bit tough to tell when I write something whether people find it useful, what they find it useful for, and what parts seem particularly useful. So I really appreciate people who find posts useful not just upvoting (which might just be a sign they found it a pleasant read), but actually commenting with some more information.

This is my favorite part:"While I understand the concern, I must emphasize that the Forum exists on the Internet, a system of interconnected computer networks where space is effectively unlimited."

I think this is in fact a very useful reminder. And it made me laugh, and read it again and laugh again. Thank you :)

(I like this post.)

This this this! As a PhD student in economics, I'm always pushing for the same thing in academia. People usually think saying nice job is useless, because it doesn't help people improve. It's important for people to know what they're doing right, though. It's also important for people to get positive reinforcement to keep going down a path, so if you want someone to keep persevering (which I hope we generally do), it's good to give them a boost when they do a good job.

In accordance with the post: I thought this was useful. As an old time forum hack I often have people say they feel too scared to post here because all you seem to get is people trying to destroy your ideas. It shouldn't be the case that the only people brave enough to post here are those types who score low in agreeableness (such as yours truly).

Thank you for writing this, Aaron. I'd be much more excited about participating in a forum with this cultural norm :) <3

As an author, this is SO TRUE.

Honestly the "people only comment to criticize" pattern incentivizes authors to be edgy to get any feedback on their ideas at all.

This is a good suggestion, one I'll keep in mind as I read posts that I find valuable. As someone who appreciates how hard it is to write a complex essay, I can say that it's encouraging to see positive responses alongside critiques. Positive responses register more clearly than an upvote and often include useful information as well.

(It's easier when you're told to do it directly, but I figure if I don't do it now, I probably won't later, and I'd like to start doing this, so...)

I really like this post! I also like to remember that complainy people are more likely to leave reviews, when I'm reading reviews for a product or something. Helps me take the negative ones with a grain of salt.

This post is great!

I like the general idea here, but personally I dislike comments that don't tell the the reader new information, so just saying the equivalent of "yay" without adding something is likely to get a downvote from me if the comment is upvoted, especially if it gets upvoted above more substantial comments.

hey, thanks for this post! I find it quite nice.

I like this post. I think I'll try and do this much more often here as an experiment. 

I mean, I'm active in many places online... as a lurker. But if I'm going to practice spreading positive good this is probably a great place to practice.