1 - It's Internet Brands

2 - The Amsterdam contest was in CommunityBuzz (sort of an OMNI-like forum in that it's not directly mile/point related) so I don't see how the contest degraded your travel talk.

FWIW: a lot of us care about travel and want to have some social fun at the same time. The two are not mutually exclusive. @:-)

No one is saying they're not, which is why you're missing the point I think, although this is a topic/thread that's been debated ad naseum. And I do mean ad naseum.

A # of folk think that FT is first about miles/points & that the count this post thread (whether the 1-time EVER it's been allowed in Community) or in Omni is secondary to the primary purpose of FT.

The reason that Omni exists is that Randy figured out there needed to be a place for threads, safety valves, other outlets, hence Omni, so people could 'care about travel & have some fun at the same time'.

For a time the 'count this post' (and similar) threads started to dominate even the non-core Omni forum, and there was a concern that newbies would think that folk who had a gazillion posts were more knowledgable in terms of travel - not knowing that in some cases the posts were gained basically in Omni & not in 'core' FT forums - hence, the concern about Omni posts counting.

But as mentioned - this topic has been discussed ad naseum & others can read the threads/links posted above. I'm not sure that we need another thread on the topic.

FWIW - I used to be against Omni posts counting for reasons stated above, but now that IB/Randy has decided to open it up to Google & will gain by the metrics/jumping atop of the search engines, I think Omni posts should count. If IB is going to gain, then in fairness so should those FTers who are helping out, especially since the counting thread is going to increase in the future thanks to the contest.

OVMV. Cheers.

I'd like to chime in here as one of the winners of the AMS tickets. Before the AMS thread I had around 360 posts, all of which, I consider, to be either substantive or questions that I posed to the FT community. I posted around 3,600 times in the AMS thread. Guess what? I figured it was going to be a random number, and there's not many sweepstakes in the world where you can actually increase your chances of winning to over 5%, which is what my post count on that thread provided.

I could care less about "Evangelist" status. I could care less about the 4,000+ number sitting next to my name now. I just wanted to win some free tickets. If it makes other people feel somehow inferior to me, or perhaps threatened by my post count (for whatever reason), cool. Delete my posts. I don't care. I don't earn more money at my job because of my post count. I don't receive any tangible or intangible benefit from my post count. If you wanna drop me back down to around 370 (which is where I am if you subtract my AMS thread posts), I won't bat an eye.

But...keep in mind, some of those who are the most devoted to FT are those who posted in that thread. Who else would waste ~15 hours of their life typing in repetitive nonsense just to win a free ticket? Those are the people who have traveled a heck of a lot more for less money because of FT. We love FT enough to waste every free hour we had to post BS in that thread.

I, for one, am tremendously happy that I won the tickets, and have gotten several friends and seatmates to check out FT because of it. And guess what? None of them is going to take a look at my post count and stress about it. Why does it matter? Oh yea, it doesn't. If you want to judge my "worth" to FT, check out my $484 flight to SYD or perhaps my *A RTW spreadsheet (which is located in my first ever thread started on FT). The little number next to my name means little, and if you have "post envy", I can't help ya. Just keep posting and learning, and please, please stop stressing.

Viva la FT,

Chris

I think this is a good idea/solution.

OMNI now is totally open. Since there's no entry bar for folks to view, having prize contests in OMNI may be good enough an incentive for onlookers to register and participate. Whatever the contest rules may be, there's no concern of post padding since OMNI is a post count free land. At least we can be sure for those who feverishly post in those new OMNI prize contest threads are really into the prize. One individual can freely generates 3K, 4K or even 5K posts in one single thread.

ps. Unless, of course, Randy, if you decide to change your mind and start counting OMNI posts again...

Randy, I am not a guru statistician. But I have to say your question is not a fair question, statistically speaking.

You decided to do a random drawing in the recent AMS contest, right? Let's try another scenario in a much smaller scale.

Let's say Randy you decide to offer a grand prize of a private jet ride to lala land to celebrate 2009 New Year. The lala land contest thread is again in CommunityBuzz! Forum. There's no rule. FTers can post anything in the contest thread.

The catch: it's only open for 10 minutes.

You receive 100 entry posts in total. John Doe has 41 entries. Jane Doe has 35. Little Johnny makes 20 entries. The rest of the John Doe I, II, II, IV get the remaining 4 entries. You use a randomizer application to pick the winner from the 100 entry posts. (Well, 100 is really too small a number for truly randomization among 7 people but let's play along. )

Statistically speaking, the more you enter a contest, the more likely you get picked. John Doe will have a much better odd to be picked since he represents 41% of the total entries. So is Jane Doe's 35%.

After running the program, the computer tells you John Doe is the winner. (Surprise, surprise.)

John Doe is thrilled because he's never been to lala land and really wants to go. It will be his first private jet ride ever. On top of that, thanks to the 10-minute game, his total post count gets to 95. He can access CC Forum now! Even though John Doe is one of the original members, he never posts enough to meet the requirement for CC. Not any more!

It might be hard for John Doe to tell you his pure intention is just the lala land trip by now. He gains so much from the contest! It's a whole package. He thinks the boost of post count doesn't hurt either.

There are so many variables involved. Unless you take out the post padding possibility out of the equation, you can't say for sure post count really doesn't matter to (some) players. If it's any indication, didn't the mushroom counting games threads in OMNI calm down after you reassured no OMNI post count earlier this year?

Maybe there is not a significant number of FTers that are post count frenzies. With over 170000 registered members, 50 or 60 big post count players might not totally push FT over the edge. But it's enough to get noticed. I just think it's not a good thing for FT in general to allow any FTer to "abuse" the system, let it be bending the rules, padding posts, or breaching TOS.

Yes it's a good solution in terms of isolating promotion / posting / activity from post counts (until the next change ).

I was puzzled to find the AMS thread in CBuzz, for the very reason that some people will be upset that others have posted junk.

More worrying was that this thread, according to a little birdie, was only to be monitored for a few parts of the FT TOS (e.g. not posting personal attacks or X rated pics) - but was open to 'post anything' that extended to not stopping people using software 'bots' to post pasted text, post after post, 2 per minute.

IIRC this is a repeat of what happened with another (former/suspended) FT poster who became obsessed with posting twice a minute to the degree that he had accumulated 40k posts in maybe less than a year.

After that person was suspended indefinitely, I was incredulous to find that FT was being operated in a way to create a greenhouse/hothouse for bot posters again. After all, we don't want to encourage this... quality over quantity, right?

Randy - wouldn't this discussion be better for you and FT if it were conducted in TalkBoard Topics? Sving you a little time and using your sounding board?

(PS. Not everyone who has enjoyed playing OMNI games is there to post pad. )

In case I was not clear, I was not targeting at any particular FTer. To be honest, I don't know which FTer you were referring to. I wasn't paying attention to OMNI back then.

I am no programmer. But I imagine it won't be too difficult to write a "post robot' program. Sometimes folks do things for no obvious reason other than just because they can. I recall when FT first introduced the visit count in profile page in September, one FTer with a mansion () did something in his computer so he got thousands of hits within hours. That was for fun only.

My point is numbers are so easily manipulated, let it be post or visit count. Once the backdoor is open, you'll see it coming.

Let it be 40K for a legend status, 10K for a Evangelist, or merely 90 for CC access; post padding is post padding.

Post padding is simply one of the many acts that breach FT TOS. If the admin & management are perfectly aware of such "abusive" conduct, why not just stop or prevent it from happening?

Do something! Doing nothing is almost like encouraging such behavior.

In the name of loving travel, FTers are after miles and points. And status. It won't be too shocking to realize that some FTers will do anything to get bigger. Post count, I mean.

Why?

Because AFAIK it has nothing whatever to do with Talkboard. @:-)

Randy ran a great prize comp exactly the way he wanted, and got a result in the time frame he had to work within.

I really can't see what business it is of anyone's except Randy?

Glen
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If you had taken the time to READ the threads I listed, you would understand.

Simple explanation: OMNI posts USED TO count! Then that was changed so that they NO LONGER count. It really isn't rocket science to understand something like that.

The current state of things is VERY EASY to test. You should have tried it yourself, instead of continuing to prattle on about how OMNI posts DO count.

Go ahead. Try it. Write down your current post count.

Then go make a post in OMNI and/or OMNI/PR. And note that your post count is still exactly the same. See? That was easy! (Maybe you should have done that before starting this thread.)

You could say that about anything related to FT. And then the next logical question is "why have a TalkBoard at all?"

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.