Post Counts....

bigdawg

whats the big deal??

Personally I dont see why its there in the 1st place, cant see any relevence in how much time you waste on, err how much you contribute to, the forum, but some peeps were getting pretty angry, and threatening to leave, cos their post count was deleted... what am i missing..??

John Stevenson

bigdawg wrote:

whats the big deal??

Personally I don't see why it's there in the 1st place, cant see any relevance in how much time you waste on, err, how much you contribute to the forum, but some peeps were getting pretty angry, and threatening to leave, 'cos their post count was deleted. What am i missing?

If someone feels they genuinely make a contribution to a forum community, by answering questions and so on, then their post count reflects the effort they've put in.

In any case, it clearly WAS important to a lot of people. The dev team gave us the tool we needed to fix post counts and we did so - and will carry on doing so if anyone else asks.

And of course we can now start doing what so many have accused us of and really start milking this forum financially. Yes, I can reveal that the Big Plan all along has been to sell post counts. Attain instant forum credibility today with a ten-figure post count! No knowledge or effort required!

20 quid per thousand, straight to my numbered Swiss bank account please.

Patrick Stevens

bigdawg wrote:

whats the big deal??

Personally I dont see why its there in the 1st place, cant see any relevence in how much time you waste on, err how much you contribute to, the forum, but some peeps were getting pretty angry, and threatening to leave, cos their post count was deleted... what am i missing..??

In the past people have used some clever tricks with punctuation etc to impersonate regular posters. There was a recent one with Flying Monkey, a highly respected C+ poster, and the only way to spot the imposter was the post counts.

Melvil

One reason why they should be kept on: The legend that is Keith Oates and his truly awesome post count. :shock:

overmars

Posts count!

Well I thought it was funny. :P

NorwegianBlue

So 100 posts of absolute twaddle mean more than one philsophical gem?

Interesting value system...

alecstilleyedye

Melvil wrote:

One reason why they should be kept on: The legend that is Keith Oates and his truly awesome post count. :shock:

he's top of the pops at cyclechat too (now his favoured forum), took the "yellow jersey" off me when i went on holiday a week ago and has never looked back. arch and mister paul fill the next two places.

seems quiet over here these days, wonder why

Big Red S

It seems to be the best system yet devised for roughly working out the value of someone's contributions to an online forum.

If anyone's got any better ideas, I'd love to hear them, but I've been asking since I first started using forums, and I've not yet heard anything more accurate, let alone workable.

The nice thing with postcounts is that they're automatic - the server does the adding up automatically. In general, the more someone posts on a forum, the more helpful they are - few people stay on a forum to post utter twaddle. The kind of forum that attracts that kind of person (the MBUK sandbox, for example) tends to have admins that recognise this, so post counts are frozen in them.
I've used forums in the past that tried a kind of voting system, where people rated answers. The problem with those is twofold. The first is that it relies on people actually rating posts, which they tend not to do. The second is that it relies on the expertise of the people doing the voting, and so is no more accurate than just a standard post count. We cannot rely on the person asking the question to do the voting, since if they knew what the correct answer was they wouldn' t be asking it. If we rely on the people posting the answers, clearly they're going to vote to boost their own status.

NorwegianBlue

I have to say that IME post counts never seem to tell you anything, other than the contributors post count obviously.

I've been on some forums where the post count is divided by the user's length of membership to give a post rate. That would be, I suppose, a good way of showing how much time the member spends on the PC and conversely how little time they spend cycling.

Voting systems are open to abuse and, as stated, apathy.

No system can account for a contibutor's experience and expertise.

Patrick Stevens

The general rule is that criticism of the post count system comes mainly from those with low post counts.

jibi

Surely its quality , not quantity, that really counts.
A poster could just makes quips at everyone's posts and amass a large post count, but what does that prove.

In the early days of the web I was on one forum that used musical instruments to denote the number of counts, from piccolo to bass drum , or something like that.

IMHO it is only bass drums that care about post counts, it's like a neighbour who "believes" they have more rights because they have lived there longer than you.

Post counts have their uses on an each forum, but in the end all they show is how much time a poster spends on there
.
If they are important to you then that's OK by me. but I won't worry about mine, well not too much.

george

NorwegianBlue

Patrick Stevens wrote:

The general rule is that criticism of the post count system comes mainly from those with low post counts.

Or to look at it another way people with high post counts are very insecure because they can't think of another way to prove their worth.

Frankly if you have time to read every thread and contribute then frankly you have your priorities all wrong. There are much more worthwhile things you could be doing with all that time. Ride your bike, spend time with your friends and family...

This discussion reminds me of our old school cycling club. Most of us had what would now be described as "budget" or "entry level" bikes, but we had no illusions; we knew they were merely cheap bikes. There were a small handful who owned expensive bikes, who were always upgrading components, or replacing the entire bike thanks to the generosity of mummy and daddy. These people always measured their relative worth by the cost of their mounts. Strangely however they hardly ever came out on club rides. Their excuses were, more often than not, that their bike was off the road while they replaced a key component or that they had pulled a muscle riding a solo 200 mile trip the previous week. It was more important to them to turn up at club meetings and compare bikes than it was to actually ride those bikes.

Put me off cycling clubs for life.

Big Red S

jibi wrote:

Surely its quality , not quantity, that really counts.

Oh yes, I don't think anyone's denying that. There's just no way to measure someone's posting quality, so we provide a measure of quantity instead.

jimmythecuckoo

Patrick Stevens wrote:

The general rule is that criticism of the post count system comes mainly from those with low post counts.

ha ha post of the week that!!!

NorwegianBlue

Big Red S wrote:

jibi wrote:

Surely its quality , not quantity, that really counts.

Oh yes, I don't think anyone's denying that. There's just no way to measure someone's posting quality, so we provide a measure of quantity instead.

If you agree that quantity is irrelevant, then why bother measuring recording it in the first place?

speshcp

Post counts, schmost counts.... :roll:

Given that at least one erstwhile MBUK forum member has a six-figure post count which is somewaht implausible*, it's all a bit meaningless at the end of the day, isn't it?

Which is why I found some of the moaning and dripping about missing post counts a little hard to take even the remotest bit seriously...


* Then again, I remember suggesting a couple of years ago that Keith Oates, C+'s most prolific poster, wasn't a real person, but was actually a computer program based around a random post generator. :twisted:

Somebody only went and knocked up a script or macro that posted "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" as fast as the forum's flood control would allow...

Patrick Stevens

jimmythecuckoo wrote:

Patrick Stevens wrote:

The general rule is that criticism of the post count system comes mainly from those with low post counts.

ha ha post of the week that!!!

QED

jibi

So everyone who leaves here, comes on this site to only complain of losing their post count,
But, at the same time, on the other site it's OK to have a low post count

Clear as mud. I mean its perfectly logical isn't it!!!

george

bigdawg

i never left but appear to have lost mine... :?

c'est la vie....

Tourist Tony

I'm coming back up under Andy Gates again, after spending some time on top of him.

Patrick Stevens

Tourist Tony wrote:

I'm coming back up under Andy Gates again, after spending some time on top of him.

I'm under Arch at Cyclechat. :oops:

Tourist Tony

I spent a while coming and going under and on top of Arch here, then she just came strong and rode away from me.