It's for a feature not used at the moment, called "karma". When activated, two words appear beside a poster's avatar - "applaud" and "smite". If you think the post or poster was a jerk, you click on "smite". If you think it/they are cool, you click "applaud". Only able to do each person once an hour. It leads to people having a tally showing how popular or unpopular they are.
Won't use the feature, though, as could open up lots of playground silliness. If someone likes or dislikes a post or poster, let them say so with their name by the comment. I don't like the idea of creating an opportunisitic environment for anonymous click campaigns. Maybe that's because I'm a stuffy old fart.
No I quite agree. Everyone should be entitled to their opinion, whether anybody agrees with it or not. If they don't agree, and have a valid argument, then they will say so. If they don't have a valid argument (they are just being offensive for lack of an open mind), then it is likely to be them who get the "smite". :egypt1: