Newbies can't easily show appreciation for answers

Question

I'm new to the UX community, but have been on other StackExchange sites. Not sure if this is the right Meta to post this to, but the "problem" is happening here, so here it goes.

I asked my first question on UX yesterday. The question itself was voted up twice, and now has three answers, one being my own. The first two answers I received helped me come to my final answer, which I posted as the third. The two other answers helped me, and I'd like to show some appreciation, but because I am new with only 11 rep, I cannot.

I wonder if there is a better way for newbies to be able to show appreciation on their own questions. Possibly, if the newbie's question has been voted up by someone (ie. the question is real, and not spam), the newbie can vote up answers within their own question.

I know comments work for saying "Thank You", but with the StackExchange sites so heavily based on reputation, I sometimes think the newbie questions get brushed over, as the newbies can't provide an incentive to the people who answer.

Answer 1

It only takes 15 reputation to upvote posts across the site; you don't get it immediately because:

• The game mechanic is fun, and it's a basic privilege to earn
• It'd be crazy easy to abuse the system with fake accounts if there was no (or less) requirement to upvote your own posts

The rep requirement to upvote is pretty small, you'll probably get it before too long, especially if you ask/answer another question.

Don't forget you can accept the answer that helped you most as well.

Generally speaking there's no need for explicit thanks. There's a large community out there who can and do upvote good posts, and we're all doing this voluntarily. If people didn't think you'd care they probably wouldn't answer, or they answered because other people care. The other people that posted answers on your question already got a few upvotes, and since the question is only a day old they'll likely get more, and there may be more answers to come. Consider "thanks" a practically implicit part of the system. The system thanks users by giving them fun badges, reputation, and perhaps most important, answers to their questions.

Also, if you really want to sneak a "thanks" comment in there, slip it in a comment explaining why an answer is good.

Finally, as for "newbie questions getting passed over" that's not very true. People have clearly answered your question, voted for it, commented on it...we read all questions. On some of the larger sites questions slip through the cracks and they're not as willing to work with newbie questions when they don't fit within the site's FAQ. But UX is a smaller site and plenty of attention is paid to all questions.