Wording a serious post to resist the incorporation of this new policy was a bit difficult, mostly in that I found it challenging to do it succinctly. There's admittedly a lot of room for tangents and snide remarks on this subject.
I believe incorporating the 'like' system into CFC's disciplinary system to be a mistake. I think that this will increase workload to tackle a non-existent issue, having the same results as unnecessary city ordinances but without the profiteering for the staff team. It does not appear to pose a positive gain for anyone involved in this equation.
To contextualize as minimally as possible: The 'liking' of moderator actions isn't enough of a problem to warrant intervention by an authority, and I feel that it's dishonest to seriously argue that 'liking' a moderator action constitutes the same as openly debating or supporting the action.
I primarily believe this because the 'like' system is not intended to operate as a method of direct communication. A 'like' means many different things to different people and to a single person it can possess several meanings. Any type of interpretation from a staff member is just that, an interpretation, and I don't think it would be beneficial to the forum and its community to make this decision for the person (so that you can then punish them for it).
The thread being linked to in the OP is about this subject. It asks why people 'like' posts and there are a wide range of answers. Many people have multiple scenarios where they 'like' a post. It's most often meant to show a passive approval of what the post conveys, but nothing more. It is not meant to say something to the individual in question. It is not meant to be an alternative method of participation.
This is what the rule on PDMA says:
Public discussion of moderator actions (PDMA)
Public discussion of actions taken or not taken by moderators or admins is not permitted. If you have a problem with something a moderator has done, then PM the moderator concerned. If you are not aware of which moderator made the action, then PM one of the moderators of that particular forum. Moderators are required to answer you and justify their actions, but they are not necessarily required to agree with you. Please give any mod pmed at least 24 hours to respond. If you do not get a response to the PM within that time frame or are not happy with the response you did get, then you can request a review (see details below). In your PMs, it is highly recommended that you be polite. There are occasions where moderators get something wrong, but generally this is a perception issue, and they may not have seen something in the same way that you have. Remember this if you want to have a constructive discussion with the moderators.
General discussion of how and why moderators do what they do are permitted in the Site Feedback forum when the discussion is in the spirit of improving the forum. Discussing specific incidents of warnings, infractions, bans, specific posters or moderators is not allowed. A statement of a fact of a warning, infraction or ban you yourself have received without value judgements is allowed. Publicly discussing a specific instance as a "hypothetical" is not allowed.
There are two paths to take here:
1) 'Liking' a post is considered to be direct communication and therefore a 'like' is publicly discussing the action.
2) 'Liking' a post is considered to be a passive supplement to the forum experience, wherein the purpose and meaning is at the giver's discretion and isn't a replacement for direct communication.
It seems with the change in policy that the staff team has elected to travel path one instead of path two. The question to ask here is: why?
I recognize that there is legal precedence on this planet where people have gotten arrested for 'liking' posts on social media. Is this model something the staff team wishes to emulate?
More specifically, what problem do you believe you are solving with this rule, and what benefit do you believe you are providing the community by policing such an inconsequential aspect of the forum experience?
Are you willing to ban people for 'liking' posts? Will infracting people for this be considered maintaining order and fostering a positive environment for discussions?
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As an aside, this will be problematic logistically. Since I was on the inside, I can say confidently that this will result in hard feelings between the staff and the members. Since 'likes' aren't tracked by an external aggregate, the moderator whose post was 'liked' will inevitably be the only person aware of the transgression. I don't believe it will go well if someone likes a moderator's post and then receives a PM minutes later from that very same moderator telling them to unlike it immediately and that they've received an official infraction, something permanent on their record, for something innocuous and low-impact.
To tackle this issue, the moderator in question can make a thread in the staff section to ask another moderator to infract it for them. This is an unnecessary addition to the workload, and ties back to the questions I asked above. It's also easily seen through: again, this would only be brought to the staff's attention when the moderator in question logs in and sees the alert. No matter which way you slice it, the member who is being infracted will know that they are being infracted because the person whose post they 'liked' decided it was worth disciplinary action.
Furthermore, there would be no way of telling who got infracted and who didn't at a glance. You could mandate that members unlike the post after their infraction. What will you do if they don't? What will you do if they log out and don't come back on time to see your demand? Will you increase their infraction tally for noncompliance? How far are you willing to go? This again ties back to the questions I asked above. Are you willing to ban someone because they 'liked' a moderator's post?
