I always found it helped me to remember that I only had to press a string down to touch the fret, not down to mash into the wooden fingerboard. Easier said than done when one is enthusiastic, though!

Then you must have noticed that if you press too hard when sliding a noter (or any noter type object), you will get more pronounced 'thunking' as you go over the frets. 

Strumelia, this is a good point. I bring it up because I have heard people clarify that playing in the style of a noter with your finger does not 'count' as noter style. The thimble walks the tightrope between a finger, a slide, and a noter Of course a dulcimer is seated to low to comfortably play slide, but I've been having a lot of fun learning how to note with the thimble and achieve slides in between the slip-slides on the frets without tons of bumping. Super fun challenge.

Personally, I'd say it was a kind of noter, same thing as using a 'slide' of some hard material. Whether it were a glass ball or a metal thimble, I'd consider it to be a noter, since you are using a rigid object held in the hand to press the string down to the fret, not fretting with your bare finger.

p.s. - I consider noter playing to come under the category of "melody drone" as well. But when one uses a bare finger or fingers to play notes on only the melody string while leaving the drone strings unfretted, then I call it either "finger dancing" or "playing melody drone with a finger". By definition, "melody drone" simply means playing fretted notes on the melody string while leaving the other strings open to ring as drones... and that fretting can be done with either a noter/object or the bare fingers. But bare fingers are not referred to as 'noters'... they are fingers.