"The majority of people who comment are going to "recommend," just as they now give you a 5 rating. "

Sure, but that's not the issue.

Look, I have some gallery images with over a thousand views. Getting over a thousand people to look at your image is really hard. I bet a lot of them would like to give a "thumbs up" as they go by and I'd move up the rankings in terms of total thumbs up. But right now, you can't even vote unless you're willing to make a comment. I don't want comments like "nice job", "beautiful image"and most people (excluding the sycophants) dont' want to leave comments like that. It takes too much time, and they have 100's of images to get through every day. But they'd have no problem with a "Close with thumbs up" button. 

I can't tell you how many times I'd like to do that as I skim the gallery, trying to get through 10 pagse of new postings. I pick and choose which to open based on the thumbnail. So I get counted as a "view". Then sometimes I see flaws in the full size, like missing refraction in water, or person floating over water instead of immersed, and somebody has already pointed this out and I just close, without a comment. I'd like to rate it a 3, but I'm not going to add a comment just for the right to rate it. So the 11 people who commented are the only ones contributing to the overall assessment.

But if I see an artistically nice image and I see no technical flaws, I want to give it a thumbs up.

Similarly, I'm curious about my own images. When 1000 people looked, how many liked it (thumbs up)? I certainly expect that it's close to 1000, but i have no idea, and I sure don't want 1000 comments just to get an accurate assessment.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)