First, pardon me if this has already been stated--and more succinctly--by a previous poster in this thread. I just don't have the time to go back through them all right now.

Having been a member of countless forums, and moderator to a few, here is my $.02 (not to be confused with .02 cents for those of you who work for a wireles provider ):

Post counts mean something to some, and absolutely nothing to others. However, as a generalization, forum members see post count as a measure of individual contribution to the forum. While not always the case, the higher the post count of the poster, the higher probability that the information being posted is of value and is correct.

Forums that, by design, cater to a specific topic--like FT--tend to want to maintain that generalized view of post counts. By counting off-topic posts that usually have very little to do with the forums originally designed content, post counts become bloated and no longer have much relevance in determing valuable contribution.

Now, I understand that "valuable" is a very relative term, and some find OMNI posts quite valuable personally. But, I think it still all comes back to the forums original design.

I wasn't around here when FT started, but I doubt it was intended to be a place to blow off steam and discuss whatever came to mind. OMNI is a part of FT, not the other way around.

So, there's my long-winded vote for not counting OMNI posts in the overall post count.