Sorry, that was not my intention. I agree that in many cases a modest “no big deal” or “it was nothing” is an appropriate response.

In the particular case I am thinking about the guy being complimented (probably unintentionally) hurt the other person’s feelings by basically rejecting the very sincere compliment, even though he could have easily said “I’m always happy to help” or something similarly impersonal and satisfied the complimenter without making anything bigger out of it. Or even used the same words he had but less dismissively. Tone of voice matters a lot in face-to-face communications.

My point was just that I wouldn’t consider even the most insensitive such responses to be “monstrous”, so I was wondering more specifically what Doreen Michele meant.

It's also actually socially very problematic to have praise heaped on you publicly. It makes other people jealous and causes lots of backlash.

The single most effective thing I have found for reducing forum drama is to mostly ignore any compliments. Saying "Thank you" is inevitably followed by multiple people feeling compelled to openly and publicly hate on me.

A way to avoid that dynamic could be to compliment only when no competitors to the receiver are around. A more direct solution would be to make sure those competitors all feel secure.