Jen, I don't think it's so much 'proper etiquette here' or that it's all that critical which
way you acknowledge those who've bothered to reply & help, so much as it is that you simply
DO acknowledge those who have responded!! It's only polite. :thumbup:
Hitting the 'Thanks' button can convey your appreciation for the response regardless of if it helped or not, which is maybe a (possibly subtle) difference to hitting the 'Like' button, which could also be taken to mean that you appreciate their response because it
did help, or in the case of someone who's not the OP, you agree or support the answer that's been given - either as the OP or just an interested reader, sometimes you might choose to hit one or the other, & occasionally maybe even both; but whichever/whatever button you hit, you've at least acknowledged the effort the poster has made in providing a response - and you can do the same thing by posting a reply too!
But IMO (& this is a general comment & not directed at anyone in particular) please, if you are posting in response to something already put up, try not to mindlessly 'Quote' the whole post when you only want to refer to a tiny part of it or just want to say 'I agree with what you said' or 'thanks'!! After all, if we've read that far thru the thread, we've already read the post you just quoted, so why repeat the whole thing?? Sure, if what you want to refer to appears waaaay up or even on an earlier page or comes from some other thread, then quote away; or if repeating the entirety of what someone posted is absolutely essential for your reply to make sense, then quote away there too; but if it's just up a bit or even the immediately prior post, then please don't quote!! If you must, you should be able to see from what I've done to the quote of Jen's post above, it wasn't all that hard to take out the bits of her most recent post that weren't important to my response, nor is it hard to maybe just use their name or username in your reply, like Jen did with the 'Mike' at the start of her reply, so why quote the whole thing?? Doing so needlessly IMO is just rude & lazy & disrespectful of every following reader!!
Look at it this way, if you were talking to someone
in person and you always parroted back everything that they just said before getting around to starting on your reply, you'd certainly be considered sarcastic or rude, wouldn't you? (Try it one day if you don't believe me!!) And if you did the 'parrot back' thing a lot when you were talking to people in person just about anywhere it wouldn't be long before you ended up getting your nose rearranged on your face!! IMO it is just as rude 'needlessly quoting' here as it is parroting back everything someone just said before replying when you are talking in person, just like its rude to not acknowledge the replies you do get from a question/post!! And it's certainly a lot easier to follow the thread of a discussion if it's not interrupted by great slabs of 'quotes' that are just repeated blocks stuff that you've already read, especially if you are using a small screen device!!
So
Thank or
Like or even
Post a reply as you feel fit, it's the acknowledgement that's important! But
please, if you don't want to be considered rude & disrespectful, then don't '
Quote' unless it's really necessary for your response to make sense; & if you do feel it necessary, please edit out the 'not applicable' bits of the quote & just leave the critical bits, including the [.quote] & [./quote] at the start & finish & maybe a 'snip' or ...... in place of removed text so that everyone can see that it's a shortened Quote (extra .'s added there so it doesn't show as a quote) Thanks! :thumbup: