Quote Originally Posted by Eddie View Post
... I myself don't personally care about them but I think certain posters do.
Yeah, they do end up being kind of kitsch, and risk encouraging users to post and post without worrying about how much value they are providing. That said, it'd be pretty weird seeing a forum without some sort of ranking. Some places of course try to improve on it by providing a voting or thank-you kind of tally that somewhat reflects the value of the posts that have been made.