Welcome, Irishmar.
At the bottom of the answer space, you will see different words: lurve, leave a comment. etc. If you click on lurve, it will give the responder points for an answer you liked. You can also click above it you like the question asked. If you want to communicate directly with someone, you can click on the corresponding box. You can learn more about Fluther and its community guidelines by clicking at the top of the page.
Enjoy!

The “strings” here are a mixture of answers, commentary on answers and commentary on questions; sometimes a bit confusing. The best thing seems to make it clear which of these things you are doing. If you are going off-topic, you are supposed to whisper, which is the two dashes on either side of the comment. You should also direct your comment using the @Irishmar convention.

Points or “lurve” as we call them on Flutyher. are supposed to be for good or thought provoking questions or answers, but people frequently use it for there own reasons.

+GQ and welcome to Fluther!

Use the @ convention. See this for tips.

Exactly what everyone one said so far. If I wanted to takl to you I would say:

@Irishmar good question.

[mod says:] You can give lurve to an answerer by clicking on the “Great Answer” button below their response. You give lurve to an asker by clicking on the “Great Question” button under the title. If you are the person who asked the question and you want to thank an answerer you can also click the “Thank _____” button (on the same row as lurve and “Flag as…”) and leave a comment on their page. When you do this a link will be left in the PM so they know which answer you’re referring to. (Even if you didn’t ask the question, but you think someone gave a great answer you could leave a comment on their page. You just won’t see the “Thank _____” button.) As @stranger_in_a_strange_land mentioned, if you want to respond to someone who has already answered the question or the asker you should use the @ symbol. Once you type @ a drop down menu will show and you can either click their name of type it in. (It’s auto complete so if you type the first few letters and name name is highlighted you can hit enter/return and the name will fill in.)