Looking at some of the profiles I see this reference to “cheers”.
Have not been able to find where they are defined or how they are awarded. I do know that it isn’t a reference to the TV show
Would someone be kind enough to provide me the link to that explanation post?
Thanks
Well, Merriam-Webster may shed some light on the subject:
Though, on the topic, I rather liked Cheers the TV show.
I have 26,358 cheers. I occasionally like a glass of good scotch when reading the forum, but at the price of Glenlivet 20 I assure you I have not raised my glass 26,358 times.
Who knows what “cheers” means?
While we are asking questions, how come they don’t tell you which of ones post are being flagged? It may be that I am not using enough exclamation marks. 
Oh, I forgot entirely about the fact that cheers also refer to the points-based system. The leaderboard counts how many you have obtained.
I think this: 
and this: 
are cheers and maybe 
is but since there aren’t any “jeers” options except maybe 
it’s not easy to tell.
What Discourse says about it:
Note that Nick can change the word ‘cheers’ to something more meaningful to us if he wants:
In Britain (at least in England), it is used interchangeably with “thanks”.
Disappointing that there is not a clear answer. However, my takeaway is:
Oh, wait, I’ve got it now. They are like Bitcoin .
If you receive a like, make a post, read bunch of posts, start a thread, or similar actions, you receive a certain number of points.
The value is in the potentiality to win a whopping $200 gift card to the Trains.com Store!
Are they still doing that? I just remembered I have a $100.00 gift card from April I have not used.
How much clearer an answer do you need than the official definition by the software provider?
To my knowledge they are–I got a $200 gift card not too long ago.
“part of the Discourse Gamification Plugin” as “solved by Jammy Dodger” ???
And what kind of answer was that gibberish?
I might as well go back and re-read the what DCC system should I get thread.
Just because you don’t understand the answer doesn’t mean it isn’t the answer. Had you bothered to read the links, or for that matter just looked at the online Discourse material, you might have figured it out in a couple of minutes.
The ‘cheers’ are the standardization of the different kinds of ‘engagement’. Each of the little comment buttons (the thumbs-up for ‘like’, heart for ‘love’, applauding hands for ‘applause’, etc.) can be assigned a certain number of ‘cheers’. The admins can change the number of ‘cheers’ assigned for each type of engagement (for example, replies in threads) to encourage or discourage different types of behavior – for example, people who respond to every post with a comment to get their point count up.
Perhaps it is telling that they call it a ‘gamification’ platform; it seems very similar to the ‘stars’ system Kalmbach tried for a while… with somewhat similar results once there were perceived financial advantages to lots of comments and likes.
Woke, as a matter of fact I did attempt to read them. I quoted two phrases from them directly. You and others can shout as loudly as you wish about stuff like this, but that doesn’t make it true.
When you can give me a direct answer as to how they are conceived and rewarded, then you can get back to me. “Perhaps” just doesn’t cut it.
How’s this?
It doesn’t address the specific question, which was what the ‘cheers’ are. They are NOT the little thumbs-up approval that you can make (or the ‘love’ or ‘care’ or other millennial mystery-meat ‘likes’ you can pick.
‘Gamification’ might not be the best word for what the system is set up to do: for us non-gamers, a coined word like ‘engagification’ might be closer to the sense. The system is based on an arbitrary unit the developers chose to call a ‘cheer’. Each type of ‘engagement’ can be assigned a number of points (“cheers”) – a thumbs-up like gets so many cheers; a heart gets so many; a flag gets so many… and the system then calculates positions on its ‘leaderboard’ by totting up the cheer points.
I do not know if there is any mechanism for ‘negative cheers’, just as it doesn’t seem the Discourse platform has chosen to implement any kind of ‘jeer’ or downvote on a post or thread. The only heavy-handed piece of cancel-culture-centric recourse is the ‘Ignore’ control, which is laughably primitive compared to the old Kalmbach ‘friend’ and ‘foe’ controls – those at least let people know when their foes had posted if they wanted.
No, I agree–they are not the assorted thumbs-up or other emojis. They’re the same as the “points” brought up in the post I linked to.
I don’t care for the “couldn’t read” comment. That implies ignorance on my part. I certainly can read, but I prefer reading stuff that does not include techno babble.
Don’t bother. Right now I have better things to do than get involved in another TCS/Wifi/which one is better discussion. I’m sure you do, also.
Something has definitely changed with how “cheers” are tallied because somehow I’m on top for January and I have no idea why.