This is all my opinion of course, I thought I'd preface my post with that.
I think his point was that the XP system reduces the number of "Me-too" posts, since users will either post a "me too" or click to add XP.
Except, I don't think this is happening at all right now.
I think a good example is any of the various rules discussions. Not so much the tendency for them to digress into the message board version of two people past each. However, before that happens, usually there are several people who basically state the same thing without adding anything new.
The nature of message boards is to post messages, even if nobody else reads them. That lends itself to "me-too" style posting, especially if XP doesn't affect the way messages are read. The reason it works for news aggregation sites like Digg/Reddit/Slashdot is because you can filter and sort based on the "XP." We can't do that here, so I'd argue that it would show very little reduction in "me-too" posts.
I know that every XP is permanently associated with a specific post already, but I don't know how the data is stored or indexed. So you may be right in assuming technical impracticality.
My guess is that this is incorrect. XP is attached to the
poster as a data sets of XP Giver, Comment, Time, and Post Number. That way, each poster has a table for this, versus every post having information. It only ever gets called when someone looks at a poster's experience page.
The point of per-post XP would be:
1/ Act as a disincentive to cliques; and
2/ Remove focus on "good poster", put focus on "good post".
So long as XP is identifiable with a poster, you can't solve either of these.
Heck, so long as you have posters, you're going to have these. Hence, threads like The Hive. There are certainly in-jokes between members of the boards. I'd say most of us here in Meta form a clique, by virtue of us discussing site policy, separate from anyone else posting on the boards. I guarantee when someone like Piratecat or Morrus posts in a thread, they're recognized as good posters, in the same way certain people are recognized as poor posters.
I think we do agree about this. My original point was that, of all my behavior on this forum, the stuff I'm rewarded for most is not the stuff I consider my best posting behavior.
I certainly think you have a valid point in that. I'm just not sure where a per-post system differs from a per-poster system, when posts and posters are intimately linked.
The more I think and post about this, the more I'm wondering why ENW has an XP system at all. Since there's no real way to filter posts based on XP, it's basically a meaningless stat. I suppose that's the point though.
