Okay, I hear you: you don’t want to the forum to start becoming chaotic and crap-filled like how social media platforms have become in recent years.
I’m with you on that; I can relate, especially as a gen-z member who has had to deal with all the distractions and noise that growing up in the age of the internet and tech addiction creates.
However, I don’t think implementing this feature would put the forum on a path toward become more like Instagram, TikTok or LinkedIn, with infinite feeds, shorts, stories and other features that nobody asked for.
BambuLab also has the plug-in enabled on their Discourse forum but I wouldn’t say that their forum is approaching something akin to LinkedIn’s info-tainment platform.
Yes, the forum’s main function is as a haven for support, but people also share their work in the Gallery category and are also interested in seeing how useful Rhino is to industries outside their own, as evidenced by the Rhino in social media, Youtube, etc? and Sketchup is more popular than Rhino in a few categories, but why exactly? topics.
I just think that having a more nuanced way to interact with posts without requiring a typed out reply would be helpful for users (new and old alike), and for McNeel to gauge interest and promote nuanced engagement.
I don’t care to write a one-liner “awesome work!” to every cool new project that I see posted in the Gallery (Rhino supports way too many talented people), but if I could react in a more nuanced way, I’d probably do that.
Sorry for the text wall. I didn’t expect such a strong negative response to a seemingly innocuous suggestion, so I thought it necessary to elaborate my point.