placing them above the text though is more jarring - it makes the text of the post bounce up and down as you move your mouse around. The alternate is to leave a large blank horizontal section at the top of each post to place the icons, but that looks funny too.
Having used the forum a lot over the last few weeks it's not been an issue (at least not to me).
The good news is it is all templated so you can modify it to suit your needs.
Thanks!
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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net