Originally Posted by
magiciansampras
Oh. Oops. Didn't know it was against the rules if the identifying information was removed (just for my edification, can you point to this particular rule).
Kiwi, can you at least paraphrase one of these PMs/email to let us know what kind of situation the post counts led to?
OK. Just elaborating on an example I gave in another thread, let us say that you ask on the Blue Skies airline forum, a forum with which you are not familiar, whether fare class G on Blue Skies is upgradeable. You get 10 answers from various FTers. 5 Fters, each with 1000+ posts, tell you that "No, This has been discussed to death before. G is not upgradeable" and you also get 5 answers from FTers which each have between 5 and 10 posts, who tell you that they think that G is upgradeable. Which one looks to you like the most likely answer?
It is true that post count, on its own in relation to a single individual and without paying attention to other information, does not constitute a reliable expertise indicator. However, on a more aggregated basis, and taking into account all relevant factors, it is a useful indicator of probable expertise, albeit one one should not rely on blindly (like anything else, for that matter).
To me, post count has only two
useful purposes:
1) to distinguish the newbie from the experienced user, which is important in knowing how to respond to a question (we are normally more tolerant and understanding of "obvious" questions coming from newbies than established users)
2) as a rough indicator of expertise, albeit not an entirely reliable one and one which has to be manipulated with prudence.
It is true that post count also indicates frequency of posting. This is almost tautological. However, I do not see anything useful that is conveyed by this. Sure, this is information, but this is information which is just about as useful as knowing the poster wears trainers or shoes, what colour their hair is and whether it is natural, whether they sleep on their side or on their back, how often they go to the bathroom each day, etc... in other words, information which is in the normal run of event is totally and utterly devoid of any usefulness whatsoever.
Now if it is the case that the only usefulness of post count is what I suggest above, then it is plain that counting OMNI posts in it is not helpful. It is true that the same argument could be made of posts in other fora too. But this is a bit like saying that because a solution is not perfect, it is not a good solution.