To give Randy some input on things that are not VERY time dated - however this competition clearly was heavily time dated.

You still do not seem to have absorbed Randy's comments along those lines. ;)

If you have studied how TB works (and as a candidate I hope you have!) the deal is:

1. A matter is raised in private TB forum and discussed. I've had personal experience where this process alone can take WEEKS. In some cases MONTHS. If a mover and seconder are then found and the Motion wording is agreed, this then goes to a TB vote.

2. THEN the motion and date of vote closing is posted for member general discussion. That often involves several 100 often heated posts, name calling, food fights, taunts, suspensions, masses of post deletions, and generally raised blood pressures all round. :)

3. All TB votes run for quite a while, to allow for member input to be digested, and for the reality the 9 TB members actually have busy lives and travel a lot. ;)

4. Only after 1-3 are complete, is the final vote result posted.

So a month from start to finish is not unusual.

HOWEVER the free tickets needed to be used if full - both ways - by December 15. Durrhh.

And the original winner did say from post #1 of comp thread - and any colour is mine:

I must be pretty thick, but I don't see how hard it is to see this needed to be done fast, or NO FT'er would have gotten to use them.

Randy runs a large travel related biz and was running freebies and giveaways and competitions WAY before there was any kind of Talkboard, so I guess he managed somehow to think up some rules even without their valued input. ;)

Glen
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I'm in the school of not counting Omni in my post count.

Oz, that is not always the case. A few years ago we had a three-way tie for one of the TB spots. Randy asked TB to decide which was the best way to handle it and he needed the answer ASAP.

If my memory serves, all the usual voting rules were waived and he got his reply within 24 hours.

Wow! There seem to be at least four different discussions going on in this one thread! Let's see....

1. Do OMNI posts count? No, they don't. They did for a long time, but haven't for a while. One can easily verify the current status empirically.

2. SHOULD OMNI posts count? I thought this was already discussed to death in other threads, including the ones I posted links to early in this thread.

3. Should POSTS even be counted? A related question is, should there be "Evangelist" and other statuses awarded based on post count? Again, another topic that I believe has been beaten to death in other threads.

4. Should Randy have set up the Amsterdam tix drawing thread the way he did?

5. OK, there are more than four topics on this thread, but I'm giving up now.... ;)

Like the wise sage Judge Judy frequently says, "Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining."

The TB can be asked to do something quickly. I know I'm on FT every single day (except when on vacation or traveling to Asia) as, I would guess, are a majority of the TB members. He could've gotten SOME input. He's spent more time now explaining why he didn't bother.

A quick PM to the TB members probably would've gotten thoughtful responses back within hours or maybe a day. The CONTEST ran TEN DAYS. Surely, three days for some feedback and input wouldn't have hurt anything. I'm not saying a formal motion needed to be put up and seconded and voted on -- just provide some advice, is all, either via PM or via the private forum.

Since no one has chosen to respond to my post...I'll just ask directly I suppose. RichMSN, do you want me to have Randy reset my post count?

Chris

First-thanks to Randy and IB for the chance at the tickets. Nice contest. I had a LOAD of fun on the CommunityBuzz thread. I questioned my sanity at times, but it was a blast. I repeat JayHawkCO's comments above. Take my posts away - don't care.

Now, all this bickering is such a waste of time IMO. It's nice that this site has a talkboard at all. It's nice that the host(s) allow such freedom for its members to discuss, debate, engage in PhD-level research (once, in 2003, you said XXX), every issue ad nauseum. Neither TB nor such freedoms are necessary for this site to exist and thrive. I can understand broad discussions and debate over big issues, but I'm astounded by the fact that ANY decision made by the host is followed by a cacophony of complaints. They always seem to boil down to some strange, fantastical attempt to empower Talkboard (complete waste of time IMO, TB will never, never, never have any vested power unless they band together and buy the site from IB), or the 'devaluing' of post counts. Sheesh.

I don't care about your post count. I would gladly reset mine if I could display a (-1) in its place. Or ∞. Or ∏. If post count was so important to me, I could've written a little script to post every 30 seconds for 10 days. I had 12 posts.

It's the message that post padding is OK sometimes regardless of the TOS or past practice that's annoying. Either eliminate all post padding or return OMNI to the way it was. Consistency may not be as catchy as "Blink!" but it sounds way better to me.

And to reply to the previous post: I am a customer. I've paid $12 to be a premium member of this site. Those who haven't are paying via watching paid ads. I am amazed that people feel that the customer should not comment when he/she feels something is not right. Strange business model, that.

That said, I think it's very nice that Randy bought tickets for the third winner. Randy is very generous and has done quite a lot for many members of FT. My point is not personal, just an observation. I would hope that Randy would appreciate all viewpoints, not just those that agree with him.

And I do not disagree all the time with Randy. Like most other places in life, it's only the disagreements that provoke commentary. The 90% of the time I think Randy's doing a great job don't get much time from me, and for that I can only say (sincerely) I'm sorry.

You state that you don't care at all, not a whit, about post counts. You're only concerned with 'consistency'. If you really don't care about post counts, who cares? Your insistence on consistency seems inconsistent to me.

Now I'm confused :)

It's the implied message that OMNI is a lesser forum than others. I love OMNI and feel it's as much a part of this community as any other forum. By eliminating post counts, Randy has told people who frequent OMNI that their presence is less welcomed or less valuable. Other people feel differently, but that's how I feel about it and why it matters to me.

That said, I wouldn't care if all post counts were eliminated. At least then all forums would be treated equally again.

I never said that I thought customers shouldn't comment. I'm all for it. One of the things that makes this site great. I AM against a constant barrage of 'comments' about the same topic over and over and over again (BTW, this is not pointed at you personally, just in general). It would seem to serve only to antagonize folks and be generally useless.

RichMSN may not, but apparently there are a few in this very thread who'd like that very much. Those 4,000 increments seem to be very threatening or unworthy to some folks in Northern Australia and Austin. :rolleyes:

I'm just trying to figure out here...what does my post count "get me"? After access to CC (something I have yet to use), everything else is just another number. I don't even remotely understand what the big deal is. It would be like complaining that your license plate number is an odd number. Who cares?

Chris

that's a great analogy!

Perhaps some members took some bad advice from someone with a high post count and want to ensure that others don't suffer from "misleading datapoints" such as post counts or maybe its simple jealousy of the fun some of us have while earning each count? :rolleyes:

You really don't get it, do you?

Post count by itself is just a number. It can be from number zero to ∞. Every FTer gets a number. There's nothing TOS about it.

Post padding, on the other hand, is against Flyertalk Rules. (See the specific guideline on post padding here.). Per FT Guidelines: "Members who engage in this are subject to disciplinary action."

It's all about the principle. It's about the TOS.

It's troublesome to me when FTers (should) know post padding is not permitted but still perform the act. After getting caught or spotted, the individuals in question just proclaim they don't mind their post counts reset.

Almost like someone makes a truckload of money. He becomes rich (or richer). The fortune he makes is from insider trading. Everyone knows insider trading is wrong. (Well, it's also illegal.) Then he gets caught. He thinks others are jealous of his money. "I don't care about the money. Just take away those money", now he says. I would say money is least of his concern. There are far more serious consequences than becoming rich by insider trading.

Can you at least see the difference (post padding vs. post count)?

Just to be clear, I am not aiming at any particular person participating in the AMS contest thread. Randy made a decision to have no rules in that particular thread. As a result, FTers are having vivid discussion of all the implications in so many different threads right now.

And some of those that are devoted to FT too opted not to post at all in that thread, because we wouldn't be able to use the tickets, so please, don't assume that only those who posted for hours on end to that thread are the devoted FTers.

As far as OMNI posts counting or not counting, I'm one of the people who posted quite a bit on some of the counting games and other games on OMNI. Even now, with posts not counting, I still continue to post in some of those quite a bit. Why? Because it's mindless, it's relaxing, and some days, when I'm bored, it helps me kill some time. At least for me, it wasn't about padding my post count, but about passing time. Yes, simple things amuse me. :)

I can clearly see the difference, but what I don't get is that some members seem almost obsessed with other members postings and if they are TOS violations (despite an effective moderator team that keeps such violations to a minimum). Randy explicitly encouraged repeat posting/entries in the Amsterdam thread, so repeated posts were not considered "padded" and did not fall under TOS violations. It's pretty clear to me that the contest was a rare, but clear exception, and by most accounts it was a huge success.

If you see a true TOS violation, and are not already very intimately familiar with the "Report Bad Post" button, you should use it to report problem posts. I found the moderator team to be quick to respond.

I wish I could add something to this, other than ^. Well said!

^ or at least eliminate counts from TSS, Community, Etc.

Even better -- let's get rid of post counts completely. They accomplish nothing except cause these repeated arguments.

At the same time, let's dump titles (Evangelist, TalkBoard Member, Moderator, etc.) Evangelist should never be used and TB Member and Moderator should only be shown when posting in an official capacity.

Disagree about doing away with titles altogether, though dumping all post counts is beginning to hold some appeal.

As to the Mod.'s being able to turn on or off their Mod. title, is that possible with the current FT technology?

It would be possible by giving them a second account -- which would be used only for official purposes.

Sounds good to me.

The constant revisiting of this divisive issue is frustrating and demoralising.

If we are all getting worked up over the OP's revival of this controversy (what's this? check the links posted by SkiAdcock), why not bury all post-related info in our profile link (so it's there for anyone interested).

Then (re)introduce Reputation Mk II which Randy mentioned recently.
I suppose that will be introduced like the recent changes, so we should try to be aware of the Mk II implementation before it happens - and monitor it for abuse. ;)

I have no personal beef with people's post counts either. It is the fact that this controversy (like this thread) resurfaces more than once every year after a few people are annoyed at the fact that someone has posted junk yet has a higher post count. The name calling, arguments and wasted time usually ends up in a non-result and Randy does whatever he thinks is necessary to shut it down. Lose-lose for everyone and lots of time wasted.

Hypothetically:
What do you think will happen on FT if our Host eliminates the visibility of the post counts and titles (and equally, the 'official' titles if appropriate, e.g just in the applicable forums) and focuses on 'Reputation'?

A very simple solution, Dov. I like it!

I would continue to post as I normally do.

BUT, I am all for ending apostheid on OMNI. Doesn't it make sense just to lock the post-pad threads and suspend users who continue to violate the rules? There are moderators now on OMNI @:-).