Hope that my question fits to this site (as it is the first time that I ask a question here.) I feel guilty when I don't say thanks to a very good comment or answer given by users on academia.stackexchange. I know very well that some questions are protected for saying thanks, me too ! etc. But does it really matter if I don't say thanks ?
How users on this site consider this issue ?
From what I understand the SE community (at least academia) is not supposed to be like everyday speech when phrasing your question, answer, or comment.
Every question on this SE is not just a resource for the OP but also for anyone with a similar question (hence why no duplicate questions are allowed) a person with the same issue can refer to the original question to see the context and refer to answers to possibly find a solution to their own problem. A comment such as "Thanks" may be polite but it has no value to the question or the answee for someone looking back at the question.
Instead of saying "thanks" I phrase my comments as "+1 for ..." to show appreciation for the answer or a unique part of the answer that other members may not have addressed.
I think the general SE policy is against trivial "thanks" and "me, too!"-type comments. If you want to add information about why you like the answer, or explain what's relevant in your own case, you're adding information to the system, which is a different matter.
This site is a resource not only for you but for others. Part of what makes the site so useful is that the signal-to-noise ratio is high: there's a lot of useful information, and it's not cluttered up with other stuff.
So, the etiquette on Stack Exchange sites tends to be: Don't write "Thanks". Don't write "+1". Not even "+1 for the second sentence." Instead, thank the answerer by upvoting their answer, and accepting the best answer that most helped you. That's the most effective way you can thank them and help others.
It might seem polite to write "Thanks" for "I really liked your second sentence", but when you take into account that your remarks will be read by many other people other than the answerer and you are effectively wasting their time by cluttering up the page, arguably refraining from posting such comments is actually the more polite thing to do.
