User blog comment:Kirkburn/Technical Update: August 17, 2016/@comment-26009167-20160818200127/@comment-126761-20160819134354

DEmersonJMFM's description is pretty great. We think it could be a great way to help editors know that their work is appreciated by others without it taking 5 minutes of everyone's time. A simple click for the giver, and a one-time notification for the receiver.

Edit: to take a really simple example, is something I might want to 'appreciate' - a nice fix by an irregular editor. It could feel odd to create a new wall post just for that. (Of course, you could still choose to do a post.)