Originally Posted by
NickB
Posts are no absolute guarantee of flying experience, but on a frequent flyer board, there tends to be some correlation, a,beit not an absolute one, between posting and experience.
In the same way as walking the streets of Paris has nothing to do with linguistic ability. If I was in the street of Paris and I want to address a passer-by, there is no absolute guarantee that that passer-by will speak French. It could be an American tourist who does not speak a word of French beyond "Bonn-joor", but, on the whole, it makes more sense for me to start off from the assumption that the average passer-by in the street of Paris is more likely to speak French than not.
Similarly, there are some 70-year old who are in much better physical condition than some 20-year old. Should you conclude from that that age has no connection and no impact whatsoever with physical condition?
Like in all situations of uncertainty, you form a view on the basis of a number of clues, not just a single one. And post # is ALSO one on which you base your decision.
I don't doubt that there are some individuals that put a lot of stock in post counts when making judgments about how much someone knows. I don't, however, think this is a major problem (if it is, I haven't seen any evidence of folks getting screwed because they believe bad info based on post count). I also don't think it is a very big problem. It is solved simply with a disclaimer.
You see the problem here is that we've started with a solution and have gone looking for the problem. Your points are all good and valid, but they just don't paint a portrait of a broken FT. People got good information before and they'll continue to get it after this OMNI post count change.
What has changed, however, is the disenfranchisement of a lot of people who feel they contribute by posting in OMNI.
Do you not see that as a problem?
Originally Posted by
NickB
Are you really telling me that, all other things being equal, you would attach exactly the same weight to an answer given by 5 FTers with 10 posts each and an answer given by 5 FTers with 1000+ posts?
Yes. I would take from that situation that something is amiss and more research is needed.
Originally Posted by
NickB
Now, if you think that there should be a disclaimer that no inference should be drawn from post count, are you not implicitly recognising that some people will make such inferences?
No, I am trying to solve the reported "problem" that exists with post counts without disenfranchising a large group of people.