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The like system sounds better, but I think it might detract from truly rounded discussion. Some people will inevitably judge a post by the likes and might even skip over other posts not getting any attention. It also does not alleviate the supposed clique problem the moderators have alluded to as friends would jack up each others likes. Not that I understand the motivation of forming these e-cliques, but apparently it was something of a problem.
I was at this forum before rep was very consequential. Everyone just had one or two green dots. It was still, by and large, very similar with high quality discussion, if my memory serves me correctly. I do think, and perhaps it is my own perception and not accurate - that without rep everyone's posts were read with the same 'weight,' inactive or new members were on the same rung as daily forum-goers. I don't think this line of thinking applies to everyone, but I can't help but get the impression people sometimes might have an interesting point and some members will overlook it due to their low rep (or, similarly, flock to the high-rep post to see their opinion, without really considering the interesting thing said by joe-1-bar). Like the mods have pointed out, that isn't a good thing for fostering discussion.
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