but criticizing someone by citing a paragraph isn't personable or respectful.

True and I have no real excuse why I couldn't type up a better response other then laziness so hopefully I will learn from this. Maybe it was still rude but at the same time his response wasn't exactly personal or creative and would have been better suited for a pm instead of public comment. I don't see much justification as to boasting how much appreciate someone to everyone else. Although I do understand the awkwardness behind sending a pm I view it as a much better alternative and maybe something that should be mentioned in the Reddiquette? Of course that isn't up for me to decide.

I also think praising someone outside of leaving an upvote is a nice thing to do but what if everyone started to do that? Eventually every worth while comment and post would be filled with comments just stating how the people who read them upvoted it. Worthwhile comments would be drowned out by millions of pointless ones discouraging people to read the comment and thus engage in discussions that people could learn from.

I for one clicked this post's thread while browsing r/all looking to see a discussion about reposts and hopefully engage in the discussion because I feel I might have something worth saying. When I clicked the thread and noticed the top comment just saying "I agree" I was a little annoyed that something that is mentioned in the Reddiquette for a reason is now the top comment.

Also very few comments are about the topic the post addresses but whether that is something that should be changed or kept the same is something I can't argue all that well. A lot of comments are just jokes and very obvious ones at that. Why would I or anyone else want to engage in what I assume would be a meaningful discussion with these people if all they like are one sentence long jokes.

Nothing needs to be so regimented.

While I agree I think users still need to follow the guidelines of Reddit more closely. It would be nice if we didn't need rules and everyone had the same goals when the comment/ vote/ post but that is impossible especially on one of the top 50 U.S. sites. If we view things case by case and the rules were more open ended then people would easily abuse them by finding loop holes. The same can be said for any system. The reason why I think Reddit is better then similar sites is because of its rules which show a willingness for better commenting and posting. If no one followed the Reddiquette then Reddit comments would look no different from Digg's or Youtube's.

Also thank you for your reply and while I did just argue it I agree with most of the points you are making. Ironically I consider your responses to be the only intelligent response I've had in this thread.