Annoyed about posting for one's post count: is it just me?

[Elodan]

I agree.

Me too.

Yup.

Agreed.

Definitely.

Shoulda saw that coming.

I've posted four times today, I'm exhausted .

Tom

 

[mythusmage]

All we need to do is find Crotian a time intensive hobby and he'll be too busy to post. Has anybody introducted him to roleplaying games?

 

[mythusmage]

All we need to do is find Crotian a time intensive hobby and he'll be too busy to post. Has anybody introduced him to roleplaying games?

(And here we have an example of another way to inflate post count.)

 

[tburdett]

Detract from it? How so? I'm not buying that one. Postcount is a completely irrelevant item -- most of the time I don't even notice it when I look at someone's post. Signatures are a bit annoying if they're big and have big graphics or lots of text, but I still can't see it actually detracting from the conversation in any way. They're pretty easily ignored, after all.

It is the attitude that post counting encourages that causes problems. Most people look at post count as irrelevant, but, the few who place value on having a high post count above everything else will decrease the signal to noise ratio significantly by posting garbage just to see that number grow.

Signatures are invasive, off-topic, and unnecessary. They are simply a plea for attention that interrupts the normal flow of the conversation.

Nothing of value would be lost, at all, if both signatures and post counts were removed.

 

[Welverin]

I don't know. But it makes me wonder how many of the people we are accusing really just post sometimes brief messages because they are backing someone's opinion up. I do sometimes, and I'm not trying to get my post count up because, well, I just think it's silly. I hope people who read my brief replies don't think I'm doing so intentionally.

If you were trying to do that you wouldn't be very good at it with only a lttle more than four hundred posts. So I think we're safe in assuming you don't care.

 

[Desdichado]

Nothing of value would be lost, at all, if both signatures and post counts were removed.

Nothing of value to you. There's not need to pretend you speak for the entire population of the message boards, or that you're speaking about objective truths. As I said earlier, post count isn't really a big deal, but it is interesting at least, so I enjoy the fact that it's there. Signatures on the other hand, I'd miss if they were taken completely away. Signatures allow me to have a link to my Dungeoncraft articles without having to spam about it all the time. They also allow me to quickly scroll through a thread to find where I last posted and take up reading from that point on. Those two features are of considerable value to me.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Nothing of value to you.Signatures on the other hand, I'd miss if they were taken completely away. Signatures allow me to have a link to my Dungeoncraft articles without having to spam about it all the time. They also allow me to quickly scroll through a thread to find where I last posted and take up reading from that point on. Those two features are of considerable value to me.

I agree with your first point, Sigs do have some purpose. The second part is achieved just as well through Avitars though. I intentionally keep a distinct avitar for this reason.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Shoulda saw that coming.

Tom

You forgot my "I Agree" post at the begining. Plus now I get to post again further raising my count.

On a more serious side your post covers the multi-quotes in a post concept. As you can see by my posting above that I do not always subscribe to this aproach. I personally perfer to post seperate replies if the subject matter is distict enough. I find it easier to keep track of seperate sub-threads this way, not as a means of boosting post count.

 

[haiiro]

Nothing of value would be lost, at all, if both signatures and post counts were removed.

I think sigs are great, although there are exceptions. Apart from sometimes being useful, they're one more window into what someone else is like (which I think is generally a good thing). If I haven't seen many of a particular person's posts before, their choice of username, avatar and sig (as well as custom title, if any) are all I have to go on.

Sure, some of them are too large and not everyone turns theirs off if they post more than once in a thread, but these aren't major problems IMO. And if they are, you can always turn them off yourself.

And for the record, I think postcount is reasonably useful as well.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I like Dinkledogs point about the relative length of post and sig. It is truly annoying when someone says "I agree", and leaves their 10 line sig with dancing monkey-bear graphic on underneath.

NB: If anyone HAS dancing monkey-bear graphic in their sig, I'm sorry, I didn't know, and that comment wasn't aimed at you.

Aside from that, postcount means nothing, and the more you have, the less it means. Ask Crothian. Besides, it's not like anyone is ever going to top him, so the chances of anyone else becoming #1 poster are so minimal it's pointless to try.

Oh and postcount = postcount +1.