I think they are important as the YouTube dislike button. It helps me to double check what I’m reading in case I get fooled by something that sounds plausible enough for me. Apart from negative reactions, I don’t usually post because sometimes what I wanna say it’s not valuable enough or it doesn’t provide a real informative value to the thread, but at the same time I want to express my opinion so there’s where reactions comes in.
Ideally we’d be doing this by vetting the source and not by popularity contest. I like that the forum allows us to provide information about our knowledge and experience level. For instance, I’ve provided no information about who I am and I’ve marked myself as intermediate. This means you should neither dumb things down for me nor take me too seriously.
If you ask me why I think something or, if you didn’t and I’m feeling very responsible, then I can source my claim and you can evaluate it. I should really make a habit of not posting unless I can source my claims because no one should be taking me as an authority on any of these topics.
If someone is a cybersecurity professional with a verified identity then you might take that as at least one informed viewpoint. It’s implied they speak from their professional experience, training, and self education, so asking for sources is more for resources to self educate ourselves.