Should OMNI posts continue to qualify for post count ?
 

Hello Randy !

I have a question / concern regarding threads that do not really benefit the FT Community and whose primary purpose it seems to be to somehow push the individuals post count as much as possible.

I cant really see much use in a thread where only single icons or letters are posted and the respective post counts jump in the sky, following by a lufty title for the posters.

Not that I care about the particular titles but they suggerate for example to a new member high experience and knowledge, especially if someone asks for advise. That a majority of these posts do not result from constructive discussions but rather a waste of bandwith is nowhere visible. There are certainly very active & knowledgeble members from other forums as well but that doesnt eliminate my concerns.

Dont want to be the party pooper for OMNI but thats how I feel give the current situation.

What do you think about this ?

Cheers,
S.

OMNI posts do not increment post count, and haven't for some time.

I'm too lazy to dig up all of the haranguing over this from last year, but I'm sure somebody will come along with a link.

OMNI posts do not count, but wait around: I'm sure there will be some contest where you can get 10K posts in a week if you never leave your computer.

You must be referring to the recent "free Amsterdam tickets" thread in CommunityBuzz. ;)

The list of posters to that thread, with their post counts on it, looks like this. (For the sake of brevity, I have limited it to those who posted more than 100 times to that thread. And there were a huge number of people who posted exactly once to it.)

Who Posted?
Total Posts: 67,080
User Name Posts
colpuck 5,002
Anglo Large Clawed Otter 4,045
Sam - DFW 4,007
rolov 3,754
JayhawkCO 3,652
primusux 3,546
CO 1E 2,658
szg 2,647
masonp123 2,533
jrzyshawn 2,460
planeluvr 2,394
AvalancheZ71 2,112
MatthewLAX 1,824
Clincher 1,627
ssullivan 1,604
RxCapt 1,487
sbm12 1,276
Gaucho100K 1,188
sdm1130 1,001
luvsbucks 1,001
m60521 981
MKEbound 835
fozz 619
MileageAddict 602
Gargoyle 545
OPFlyer 480
BiziBB 456
Brian_1 423
BondAir007 420
itsaboutthejourney 405
prefer_2_fly 398
General_Flyer 384
gil123 371
belynch 362
GivenRandy 341
jfe 327
zitsky 322
Hartmann 314
CDG1 288
briantoronto 235
Blank Sheet 226
Shuttle-Bored 225
patalan 219
Mike1625 219
gbryan84 197
Lori_Q 194
Olton Hall 188
Peetyrd 187
Mary2e 166
mrgender 150
SFOTerry 145
jason8612 132
EasternTraveler 131
CObigtimefan 126
cfbrtr 121
Brobbel 115
dmatorin 103
COFan 102

This might be resolved by asking you to answer this truthfully. The 12 times you posted on the recent thread to win free business-class style tickets to AMS - was that because (like all the others) did actually hope to enjoy the generosity of FlyerTalk and go to AMS or were you the only one there that was thinking the entry was actually a post pad and you were hoping to be 12 posts smarter than the next member?

I've chatted with the three winners and they are all extremely happy to be going and seem to have nothing but great things to say about the chance they had to gain even more things from FlyerTalk than just increasing the knowledge of their travels and as well make positive new friends out there in the skies.

So, was it AMS or was it the vanity of just trying to have more posts than the next guy/gal. Just wondering ...

I've been to AMS 4 times and would love to go back again. I don't enter contests I don't want to win.

The way you drew the winners rewarded post-padding and encourages it in the future. Congratulations, I guess. :rolleyes:

And I gotta say that if you think that 12 posts constitutes "post-padding" then, well, I think you need to examine your thinking just a little bit closer. You couldn't be any more off base.

Should OMNI posts continue to qualify for post count ?
 

I'm somewhat surprised someone running for TB was unaware OMNI posts do not count towards a member's total post count given the huge debate on the subject.

A couple of major threads on the topic of this thread (i.e., OMNI posts counting or not)

In this forum (Only Randy Petersen):

www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=790240


In the Talkboard Topics forum:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=790993

Who says that they dont count? Wouldnt be the first IT bug that ever occured...

Then what kind of posts bump someone into the 35K region within 2 years ?

I can say I post quiet a bit and made it to about 5K within 3,5 years. Something seems to be wrong here.

Specifically talking about the Rolleyes Thread etc :rolleyes: :p

I've long wondered why some members spend so much time worrying about other members post counts :rolleyes:, shouldn't the focus be the information, learning new things, exchanging ideas and having some good natured fun at the same time? @:-)

Too bad you didn't get a chance to read what was posted. Last minute, not planned on and use or lose situation for the tickets. Other model before while not intended cheating to get an extra entry in, did lead to much more monitoring than I had time for with the urgency of this change in another members plans. Didn't have time to go back and ask everyone if they were still interested (we'd still be getting replies...). Because of the extended time from the originating offer there were many more members now interested because their schedules changed. Only on FlyerTalk when you try to do good for others will some find fault. As for your 12 entries in the AMS giveaway? Gee, what else could have it been? After all, you only needed a single entry to be eligible.

But here's the rub. Rather than suffer the analysis paralysis of these types of opportunities, I'll make the best decision I can in the moment - it's called "Blink." And if it leads to the occasional misunderstanding, so be it. You know, there's still time to have Clincher, Anglo and JayhawkCO send you a post card from AMS if you hurry up and contact them - they really are on their way ... while others might have still been trying to devise the absolute perfect system to gauge interest in something very cool and rewarding from FlyerTalk. Some walk, others talk.

And the practice of "Ready, Fire, Aim" continues. I can't express it any better than you just have. It would've taken a very short amount of time to engage the TalkBoard for a recommendation on how to distribute the tickets, but you really aren't interested in the TB's advice it appears. Or anyone's.

Actually, I can't express it any better than this post: Here.

Sorry I'm losing the line here :(

What does the AMS contest has to do with all of this ?

Well yes, people posted x times on there but did these count on the total ?

I'm basically opting for eliminating counts completely but thats just my opinion... what kind of indicator is that anyhow.

Randy does. For further reading on the topic see the links posted by KathyWdrf.

What's the mystery? Posts count everywhere on FT except OMNI and OMNI/PR. Some have said that padding your post count on Community or Contest forums is still possible. FWIW I'm against eliminating post counts altogether.

I don't often wade into OMNI land or most of the areas I didn't have questions/information about. What concerns me is that I often judge the quality of a response to a question based on a few things:

1) Do I know the member/does the board
2) What's their post count (i.e. a low post count often = less experienced)
3) How long they've been here (longer = better in my mind)

Eliminating post counts would be a foolish thing in my mind. However eliminating the posts that happened on OMNI / other non points/travel areas doesn't concern me...

Don't forget CC as well.

+ 1

Is this the appropriate forum for discussion of a divise, frequently argued issue by TalkBoard candidates?

Retrospective reduction of post counts which I understand the OP is proposing, is something that should be debated as a TB election issue, if it has not been covered.

I'd be interested in every candadate's position:
What is your position on proposing changes to the retrospective and prospective counting of posts in FlyerTalk forums?

Randy, I recall you gave an explanation of this issue this year, regarding your decision on the implementation of non-counting of OMNI posts.

Further wholesale changes to FlyerTalk would be disappointing, but if TalkBoard has any say in the matter, I'd appreciate knowing where candidates stand. Thanks. ^

I had and apologies for doing so.

And I can't express it any better than these posts:
Here.

And this post:
Here.

And this post:
Here.

Again, did you miss the question that did you or did you not willfully pad your post count or were you really interested in going to AMS. If you were really interested in going to AMS, like the others, then really what is this all about?

But I have to admit, I haven't had such a laugh in a long time. Let's see, your solution, even after 16 days of thinking about how you would invent a better mousetrap would be to solicit the TalkBoard for a recommendation (I took about 1.6 minutes... you might read this excellent book Blink.). Let's review (tick-tock, tick-tock) what took you 16 days to come up with (tick-tock, tick-tock). That sound you hear, is the clock ticking for the tickets to expire AND for the winners to have a respectable amount of time to plan on going. Remember, time off from work, purchase connecting airline tickets ... under the expensive two week booking window ... get a pet sitter, you know, things that are truly wonderful when other respect that time is important to making decisions.

RichMSN's 16-Day Well Thought Out Plan for AMS tickets (the TalkBoard solution):
- A minimum of 48 hours must elapse after a topic has been raised by a TalkBoard member either in the public TalkBoard Topics forum or in the private TalkBoard forum, before any member of the TalkBoard can make a motion regarding that issue. This is a minimum time and it often lasts longer. For instance, it took 190 days for the TalkBoard to come to a common agreement on the recent guidelines. Uh, RichMSN, the tickets for AMS were only valid for a bit more than a month before all winners had to be back.....
- Once a motion has been made and seconded the President shall post a sticky poll thread in the TalkBoard forum calling the question and announcing the vote. Regular motions shall be kept open for a period of two weeks from the posting of the sticky poll...
- The purpose of posting voting topics in the public TalkBoard Topics forum is to solicit member feedback on any motions that are up for a vote and to allow for comments after a vote is made.
- Then a few members would surely have opposed anything the TalkBoard would have recommended and then the TalkBoard would have had to defend their thoughts on this after a week or so of comments and then we would have had to start all over.

Guess what, while your advice is teetering on the hopes that the TalkBoard could come to some agreement of the best recommendation for this, the members I selected are already leaving to go to AMS and more than likely will all be back before your solution ever had the proper consideration. Looking at the guidelines above, we're talking a minimum of 16 days - A MINIMUM. I'm not sure what political party is accused of being for more government, but this seems to be similar.

Fault my approach as much as you want, but at least my guys will actually be able to use these wonderful gifts on behalf of FlyerTalk, while yours may just have been mired in "bureaucratic red tape." Like I said, some walk ... others talk.

But RichMSN, all humor aside, you have to admit, even my solution got you involved, not once but 12 times. Pretty cool huh? And you know what is even cooler, I never thought for once that you were post padding.

And for those tuning in, I'm actual a big fan of RichMSN and have enjoyed his participation in the recent TalkBoard Debates and am glad that he again ran for one of the open positions on the TalkBoard. While we may see things different in this case, I want to make absolute sure that every member that reads this understands I have the same respect for members whose thoughts differ from mine as I do for members whose thoughts are similar. RichMSN is, has been and I hope will continue to be a valuable member of FlyerTalk for a long, long time.

And RichMSN, don't think ... Blink!

Look, it's pretty obvious what is going on here and no one, least of all Randy, should be blamed for going along with the business plan of the site owner.

The owner of FT, Interstate Brands, wants page views to increase, presumably so that ad exposure increases, leading to revenue increases. It would also be normal that there are financial incentives tied to these corporate goals for some employees.

Virtually every action that has been taken recently, including the recent announcement of prizes for playing "Who will be the next person to post," suggests this process is well underway.

Yes, my evidence is circumstantial, but circumstantial evidence is all we're likely to get. If circumstantial evidence is conclusive enough, it is sufficient.

Will this degrade FT? Almost certainly, but the degradation will be reduced significantly for those of us who are here for the original travel purpose if the area that is pumped up is just OMNI. And except for the recent Amsterdam ticket giveaway, that's been the case.

So please run all the prize contests in OMNI, bring the folks who don't care about travel into that forum, and keep the rest of FT true to its original purpose.

Do you really believe in the "Blink" stuff? Personally, I do to a certain extent -- I will come to a rapid conclusion in my world but then pass that through my trusted advisers and colleagues to either confirm or rebuke it.

In terms of the post-padding: Could've fooled me. It felt like you were accusing me of exactly that earlier in this thread. I've posted 12 times on threads many times and, really, my post count was the furthest thing on my mind when I did. I was planning on posting once, but something caught my eye and I posted more than once.

But it doesn't matter.

My point was and is this: It was seen as a cool way to post a lot, have those posts count, and try for a trip to AMS. This less than a year after deciding out of the blue that posts in OMNI wouldn't count anymore because people were seen as post padding. This bugged me as someone who really liked OMNI for what it was the past few years (until this year).

I just think OMNI has taken it on the chin way too many times the past few years, despite you saying many times that you are a fan. You've closed OMNI, you avoided appointing moderators to OMNI because you didn't want to subject moderators to that, you eliminated post counts, you split OMNI into two parts, you opened up OMNI to the world, you appointed two moderators to OMNI.

To me, only the appointment of the two moderators have been a positive step recently, but that probably should've been done a long time ago.

I keep seeing you say are a fan of OMNI, but the life has been sucked out of it for many people who used to participate regularly. To those who dislike OMNI, this is probably a good thing. But to many of us who grew to enjoy OMNI, things just aren't the same anymore. I just wonder what was so broken about OMNI on January 1 of this year that you felt such a need to change it into what it is now?

I do have a great deal of appreciation for all that you've put into this site - all I'm asking is that you sit back and examine the changes you've put into place in the past year, TALK to some of the regular participants to get some honest feedback, and think about whether all of these changes are positive and whether there are some that maybe should not have been put into place.

To those who think I am being a bit too rude to our host, I apologize for that, but Randy and I have had a pretty good give and take and, trust me, I don't take anything Randy says personally and I hope he doesn't either.

Thank you, you put together what I wanted to express.

While the post count CAN serve as an indicator how competent the answer is, how do you differ if a majority of these posts were utter bs or quality discussions about FF topics.

Then again, its an internet board and we will never get an answer where we know if it's 100% correct or not. Unless we try and see how it works.

But my question remains: HOW is it possible to generate such a massive amount of posts (e.g. 35K) within 2 years ? Some longterm FT members and Moderators on our biggest boards do not have these amount of posts.

The Debate Forum is closed as the election already started and many people put in their vote already.

OMNI was discussed and it's probably important to say that I expressed my positive opinion about that forum. My issue with post counts does not relate in any way to disliking specific forums but is more a general concern.

Easy, if you sit at your computer and post a number in a counting game all day, every day for a few months. Actually, do it in a few different threads too.

IMHO, the few people who did this were the major cause of Omni posts no longer counting. Guess what? After the change was made the counting games stopped.

Again, it was another feature abused by a few and instead of dealing with those few, the feature was taken away - post counts, in this case.

So, excepting a few people who actually post alot of relevant information in other forums for years, many of those you see with 35,000+ posts got them from counting for months in Omni last year.

Let's say slowed instead as there have been counting game threads introduced since posts in OMNI stopped counting, such as this one.

They actually went back to normal. We always had 1 or 2 running. For a few months, the entire first page of threads were these type of post padding threads.

They made Omni virtually un-navigable because it was so difficult to wade thru them to get to the real threads.

And for the most part I agree, though think it wrong to single these out as the only offenders as game threads were around long before these. The biggest offenders? Yes.

Agree with all of this. OVMV.

Cheers.

Google Analytics...
 

I can't guess what's behind the decision to open up OMNI. I am not Randy afterall.

However, I was switching my security suite last week and have been tweaking my system. I have to pay attention to how my system behaves so I can adjust the setup/settings.

Something caught my eyes after the switch. My FT sessions kind of slowed down and I didn't know why and what's causing it. Due to the slowness, I was able to see the site data transmission messages at the bottom of the Firefox browser. It appeared that my FT visits had been sending data to different places. One site stood out: google-analytics.

Ironically, I googled and found this:
Maybe FT has been on Google Analytics for a long time. I don't know. I wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't changed my internet security suite and my system hadn't slowed down. Because I didn't like the slowness, I followed some online advice and installed a (free) web proxy. Being non-techie, I'd never dreamed of needing a web proxy and installing it myself.

Now I know my system is back to the normal speed and my FT privacy is not part of google's tasks. :D

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...:p

Intent: Contest Winning Vs. Post Padding (or others)
 

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.

All this over 'A FT Posting Legend'?
 

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. :D

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 (:p) 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. :D:D

Why?

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

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
.

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. :rolleyes:

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?"