Why Count Posts?
 

Just pondering why a forum counts it's members' posts. It is obvious that when considering the content of a member's posts, that QUALITY is more important than QUANTITY.


I would posit that whether it relates to music or not, it takes no more thought to vote in an "Album War" or to post "What You're Currently Listening To," than it does to tell us about your day or to complain in the "Bitch Box." Why one post should count towards your total, and the other not is a bit of a mystery to me.


I've been on forum's that have had "Rep" systems, and that did little to validate the actual content of a post either. Friends would "rep" each others' posts just to get their stats up, rendering the entire system meaningless.


I personally believe that an avatar, signature, join date and a username should be enough to distinguish a user's profile badge, letting their actual posts speak for themselves.

Why not?

/thread

"Why?" is equally valid an argument as "Why Not?"

Do you actually judge someone based on their post-count? No. (Or at least you shouldn't.)

It's completely meaningless. They should either all count, or none of them count. My personal opinion falls under the "None" category. It's like an attempt to quantify a user's value to the forum.

Because post count = the size of your e-díck.

It's not like I'm losing any sleep over the matter, just thinking out loud.

I know that when I was younger and joined a forum, I would tend to give more value to the opinions of members who had the highest post counts. But after a while, it became evident that the two were not mutually eclusive. I'm guessing that some of the newer or younger members of the forum may feel the same way.

Maybe it's just my wanting a level playing field, with each person being judged on their own merit, rather than on their post count or tenure (Not that this doesn't happen already.)

Just a thought. I was curious what other's thought as well. No biggie.

Why do think post count and tenure are not a part of someone's own merit?

Because someone could be here 10 years and post 5,000 times in "What Are You Currently Listening To," adding absolutely ZERO value to the forum. Someone sees "Oh, they've been here 10 years and have 5,000 posts! They must be some kind of bigshot!"

You're right there are other things about a member that are more important. I really don't pay much attention to post count, it is a small stat that that gives a rough idea how much a member participates to the forum at a glance. You can find more detailed stats in the member's Profile under Statistics - if you were curious about that.

True, but what I'm saying is those things are additional pieces of the puzzle, not the whole thing.

I think you are making a pretty big assumption that the only thing people think when they look at a post count is something like "Oh, they've been here 10 years and have 5,000 posts! They must be some kind of bigshot!". There are other things that might make post count relevant.

It's a built in feature of the forum software. If this site were being used for any kind of advertising you could see why it would be important.

Sites do this sort of thing naturally, and if you owned a forum and you saw that one section was getting lots of posts = lots of attention, you might focus some energy on improving that section over another for example.

Having that information is ultimately better than not having it. So why not have it since it's an easy thing for forums to keep track of?

You guys make good points. I guess that when glancing at a profile badge when posting, the numerical values (join date and post count) tend to catch your eye (or at least mine anyhow) pretty quickly.

I just don't consider someone's opinions more valid than anothers' based on those statistics (again, I'm not saying that you guys do either, simply thinking out loud).

But I still don't see why a well thought out lounge post does not count when an arbitrary music-related one does. Either way, it would inflate post count. If we are valuing posters' content, I don't think that we should count ones that simply require posting what song you're currently listening to.

When I joined, ALL posts counted. Then they deleted the count for all Lounge posts. Again, I could care less if I have a hundred posts or a million, but I guess I'm aiming for a little bit of continuity across the boards.

I'm glad the lounge posts aren't included. I'd be horrified to know my real post count. :shycouch:

Because the Lounge is only viewable by registered users. I don't think posts in the Mod forum count toward someone's post count either and it sort of makes sense if you think about it: the only posts that count are the ones that are viewable by absolutely everyone.

Yeah, if posts were counted there my actual post count would be soooo much higher than it is now. Another forum I post on has a lounge type section where posts are not counted either, but if you go into your CP or your own profile, you can see your active posts total. Like if you have 1000 posts in the general forums and 1000 in the lounge forum, under active posts it will say 2000. Beside your username, though, it only shows your general post count.

Exactly.

Because without my precious post count I'd commit suicide because my life is pointless otherwise.

Happy?