That said, I’ve seen plenty of communities where “I agree” is considered a taboo statement, and I always find it sort of surprising how often I actually see it around here
Some of us tried to enforce a noise-cancelling norm of squashing “I agree” type comments early on, but it was overridden by a concern that being generally unpleasant is no good for the community. See Why our kind can’t cooperate (and for balance, Well-kept gardens die by pacifism)
“I agree” is useful in cases where people think that their agreement would provide me with a non-negligible update, because they know that I respect their rationality or because they consider themselves experts in the domain in question. For example, an “I agree” from thomblake would provide me with non-negligible evidence if written in response to some speculations about academic philosophy. Of course, most people don’t signal agreement for this reason, so it’s not really what you were talking about.
Some of us tried to enforce a noise-cancelling norm of squashing “I agree” type comments early on, but it was overridden by a concern that being generally unpleasant is no good for the community. See Why our kind can’t cooperate (and for balance, Well-kept gardens die by pacifism)
“I agree” is useful in cases where people think that their agreement would provide me with a non-negligible update, because they know that I respect their rationality or because they consider themselves experts in the domain in question. For example, an “I agree” from thomblake would provide me with non-negligible evidence if written in response to some speculations about academic philosophy. Of course, most people don’t signal agreement for this reason, so it’s not really what you were talking about.
I agree