How do we thank people for outstanding work (beyond +1)?

Question

As I understand it, comments should be used to ask questions about the puzzle or the solutions, but not for a "Thank You" note. Sometimes people are very responsive and provide extensive information. There is no information or question I could add, but I would like to thank that person for their quick response and/or effort. There is always a possible +1 to the puzzle, solution, or comment but sometimes I would like to say more.

I am currently experimenting with a new method. I add a Thank You note in the comment, then some time later delete it. This way the person (perhaps) sees their well-deserved Thank You, but the comment does not stay around to pollute the comment chain.

Is this an abuse of the comment system? Is there a better way to express gratitude? Ideally, there should be a thank you button which you may send more than once - then again, I often have a problem adding features to otherwise good software.

Answer 1

We could always experiment with a "best of" meta competition similar to Code Review's. We could do ours on a smaller scale, perhaps once every month or so.

If you don't want to add clutter to the site, you could also ping the user in chat. (This will only work if he/she's been in the chatroom recently.)

Of course, there's always bounties for really exceptional answers.