Kathryn Litherland wrote:
In fact, from my cultural perspective, thanking someone for agreeing with your POV is ever so slightly "toady-ish". When I agree with a suggestion, it's because I think it is correct or best, not because I'm doing any sort of favor for the answerer. No favor = no need for thanks. If anything, when I register an agree, I consider myself to be rendering a service to the person who asked the question, not the person who answered it!
I've never followed KudoZ terms in language pairs other than Spanish and Portuguese, and I wonder if anyone has noticed differences in the thanks to agreers in different pairs? It's endemic in SP>EN and EN>SP, and I've thought once or twice about revising my stance just so I don't seem like an ungrateful a-hole. Maybe this post can serve as a blanket "thanks to anyone who ever has agreed or ever will agree with my answers"?
We're on the same sheet of music on this, Kathryn. While I know for a fact that many, many thankers have absolutely no ulterior motives (I know many of them personally), that they honestly just want to be friendly, I also know from many years of experience that many thankers do so because they see KudoZ mainly as a game to be won. They are the famous point grabbers. They tend to be the first ones to enter answers. Their answers tend to be rough and dirty because they're afraid someone else might beat them to it if they spent some time reflecting or even researching. To them an "agree" means they are one step closer to the points. They tend not to care, really, whether they have in fact produced the best solution to the problem - it's all about winning a parlour game. Their "thanks" are cheap.
In some language pairs - Spanish/English stand out - the game aspect has taken on such a prominent role that it is harmful to the process, which should be about quality. Many agreers are also harmful to this process because they too see KudoZ mainly as a game. "If I agree with my buddy, maybe he'll agree with me later on" seems to be the thought.
[Edited at 2008-04-06 21:00]
) - but the truth of the matter is that when I enter an agree without a comment, I always unmark the "notify" option, because I really don't want to receive yet another pointless e-mail. 
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