The default viewing preference (Trending) is fueled by these. The activity generated by them bumps a thread up to the front of the page (If it's active enough), whereas sorting your posts by "Latest" just shows the ones with the most recent comments. They also bump the most popular comments up to the top of a thread when viewing it in "Popular" mode.
Likes can also act as a "Favorites List" of your content for threads.
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Outstanding, thanks for the info - and I thought "trending" was based on replies. Cool beans. Thanks again.
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Their might be some other factors involved, but that's the gist of it. Happy to help!