Throw out post count

[MerakSpielman]

(Postcount = Postcount + 1)

I like post count. It's fun. It let's me know exactly how much time I've wasted here.

On the other hand, I don't have a competitive nature. I could care less what my count is relative to anybody elses. I don't post just to raise my count because that is an even greater waste of time than most of the browsing/posting I do here.

The only little compramise I can think of is to put post count in the Profile. It's still there to look at if you want to, but it's not in your face if you're just idly reading threads.

 

[the Jester]

Getting competitive with postcount is a lot like getting competitive with your age. "Oh yeah? Well, I'm 32 AND A HALF, bucko!"

 

[pogre]

No I don't recognize every one of the 295 people with more than 1,000 post. This is a big site and a lot of people only hang around in certain forums, I haven't posted or even looked in General in months myself. I'll see names that look familiar but without the post count I wouldn't have a clue if they had been around or not. There are a lot of similar names and a lot of people who use the same avatars, I can't always tell who is who. It's like going to a convention where everybody is wearing ski mask, it's hard to keep up. Not to mention there is always somebody new around and people changing usernames.

You may have missed this earlier -

I totally and completely believe you.

I honestly did not know there were almost 300 folks with a 1,000 posts. You make great points.

Morrus said it is useful for mods and I believe him too.

I just do not see a need for postcount personally. My view is the minority - I gotcha'. I'm not mad or even "very concerned" about this - I just saw it as an easy way to shut down competitive posting with no real downside.

Tom C - I have three toddlers at home - I have plenty of pain my friend.

 

[Crothian]

*shiver*...(x3)......

Imagine it for me my friend

 

[jdavis]

You may have missed this earlier -

I totally and completely believe you.

I honestly did not know there were almost 300 folks with a 1,000 posts. You make great points.

Morrus said it is useful for mods and I believe him too.

I just do not see a need for postcount personally. My view is the minority - I gotcha'. I'm not mad or even "very concerned" about this - I just saw it as an easy way to shut down competitive posting with no real downside.

Tom C - I have three toddlers at home - I have plenty of pain my friend.

upon looking back at my post perhaps I should of added a smiley in there, I sound a little disgruntled, which is probably why I shouldn't post at 4am. ( feel free to imagine this one in there, my apologies for my tone). I figured you believed me I just didn't figure you realized we had about 300 people with that many post (and constantly rising, 38 more people have 900+). I don't think postcount is necessary myself but it can be fun for figuring out facts like that one. I haven't seen all that much jacking up on postcount just to jack up on postcount but I'd figure that would be something to report to the mods and let them deal with. It's not like everybody is abusing it and it's not like anyone is going to knock off Crothian anytime soon. If one guy has gone crazy let the mods know.

 

[Tom Cashel]

Tom C - I have three toddlers at home - I have plenty of pain my friend.

Touché.

 

[Davelozzi]

I don't feel super strongly eitherway, but overall I'm with pogre. I think it does more annoyance than good.

I think we should rename postcount to experience points!

If we're going to keep having 'em, I'd second this in a heartbeat.

 

[LightPhoenix]

To be fair, I also believe I know who Cordo is talking about, and truth be told it does bug me a little too. I would just put that person on my ignore list, but they as often as not have very constructive posts that I would rather read.

That aside though, I really don't think post count serves any purpose.

It identifies active members? If you're an active reader of a board, chances are you can name a few of the more prolific posters on that board without knowing their post count. So why is it necessary?

Honestly, I don't think it's a problem here, like it would be in numerous other message boards. The level of elitism on this board is very low, so that's not a problem. There aren't (many) people posting "Me too!" posts and posting inane stuff just to bolster post count. Also, the OT forum doesn't count for post count, which goes a long way to stopping that as well.

I really don't particularly care about it, but if I had a vote (which this isn't) I'd say ditch it or hide it only to prevent future problems should they arise.

 

[der_kluge]

It's funny that Crothian would only be 6th level using his posts as an indicator of XP. Think about how long a campaign would last if - for everything the PC did, he get ONE experience point. Damn.

I like the postcount=XP thing. Then there could be other incentives for posting reviews, or finding news articles, or whatever. They could all count towards XP. Probably be too difficult to implement.

I would also like to point out that, on a BBS (remember those, kids?) that I ran in college, I had a postcount of over 17,000. I calculated it to be a stack of books 6 inches high.

 

[Tom Cashel]

Change "postcount" to "XP" and the post-padding problem with swell to Epic proportions.

That's right--26th level post-padding.