I've been asking a few questions here and was told you get more responses if you up-vote the answers received. But I can't up-vote w/o a reputation of 15 or better. How do you show appreciation for insights/answers if you can't up-vote? And how do you get a reputation of 15? (I really appreciate the insights I've received from this sight, and don't want to seem ungrateful.)
Don
You can accept the best answer to your question by clicking the green checkmark next to it. This will give the answerer a reputation increase of 15, and you an increase of 2. This will (slowly) lift you up to 15. You can also get upvotes on good questions (+5), but the most important way to get an increase in reputation is via answering questions. An answer can get +10 reputation from each upvote, and +15 if the asker thinks you gave the best answer and accepts it. Because accepting answers is the best way to thank someone, your profile will display an accept rate, the percentage of questions you have accepted an answer for. In your case it's 0%, probably because you did not know you could do this. I recommend you go back and accept answers to your older questions, otherwise people might incorrectly think you never return the favor.
Another nice way of getting more reputation is by suggesting edits to other questions and answers that contain (small) errors. You also get +2 rep for each accepted edit.
The threshold of 15 rep required to upvote is needed because otherwise people could create fake accounts to upvote their questions. Yes, it's sad if you spend your time like that, but some people have too much time on their hands...
How zen, you are your own solution.
In your situation, if you were to simply designate the best answer for each of the questions you've asked, you'd have the reputation score you need.
In absence of voting, the natural way to show appreciation is leaving a positive comment on the answer.
