365RoadWarrior

Forgive me if someone's already had this off-topic/distracting thought.

Why don't we make it work like our (beloved) hotel and airline programs:
- Every January 1st, your post count goes to zero and you are "dirt" again
- Every so often, each post will be devalued. 10 posts in 2014 will be worth only 8 posts in 2015.
- Post counts can be bought as FlyerTalk merchandise
- A new FlyerTalk credit card will convey high-status title, above that conveyed on people who actually contribute.
- Posts by people who have status appear first in every thread, in large font and bold type.

(Sorry, I couldn't stifle the thought.)

SkiAdcock

beltway

To hold up the mirror to life, we'd need everyone--elites & kettles alike--to crowd around the thread to make it hard for anybody to post.

UA Fan

I like the inspiration behind this.

And on that note, how about naming some of the levels like the airlines/hotels do? Silver, gold, plat, etc?

dnwaldmann

Ok, you can tell I'm a relative noob. But, here is my suggestion:

Posts > 0 = Member

It shows how many posts you have, why do you need a title?

Somebody that makes four and a half trillion posts of meaningless drivel should not have a title that implies greater importance than someone with 100 posts of great value.

The only other option I would consider is one where posts can be voted as good or bad and that contributes to the poster's rating.

SkiAdcock

If you go back in this thread it was discussed at one point & then felt to be too confusing.

Cheers.

BadgerBoi

+1

At the moment I'm watching someone post a great amount of trivia and "I agree" "me too" type of posts, clearly on a count padding exercise; I'm guessing with the intention of reaching the next status title. Quantity certainly doesn't equal quality by any means; there is no way I would ever follow suggestions from this "evangelist" (in the unlikely even he ever posted an actual suggestion...).

I find titles juvenile, some of the real quality posters on FT seem to hover around the 6 to 7k mark and I doubt that they care about titles either as they don't pad their count.

CMK10

If what they're doing bothers you, report it. Flyertalkers have been suspended and even banned for doing that, the mods take it very seriously when it's brought to their attention.

BadgerBoi

It's just white noise to me, to be honest. When he's on a roll I'll put him into my bozo bin for a while then take him out a few days later when he appears to have gone a bit quiet.

I pick my battles when playing netkop, for example calling out racism or offensive pictures (had both removed from threads recently).

The poster I have in mind has started up again, a little slowly so far, I'll keep an eye out and report it when it next reaches RBPable level.

Sorry, this is way OT.

joshwex90

I agree 100%. There are forums around that allow you to "thank" or "like" or "+1" posts without replying. And you can do negative as well. This would require a technical upgrade from IB, but in the long run, could be much more helpful in terms of knowing who is helpful and who simply pads posts.

ozstamps

Some folks are too new around FT to realise we had a similar thing here called "Reputation".

There is nothing new under the sun.

A pack of jackasses here ran around and abused it totally in a malicious and pre-planned way, and Randy did his block, kicked them all up the butt, handed out a few suspensions as I recall, made them close down their Frat House website giggling like 13 year olds about it all, and canned the whole mess. Forever. Thank goodness.

Some VERY senior FT'ers were involved I might add, who will not want to be reminded of that silly experiment. @:-)

That one was tried - and failed dismally.

This one is far more benign.

Last time I looked at the TOS overt post padding is Verboten, and Mods have for years dealt with it quietly and efficiently. Report anything that looks like a posting run.

joshwex90

Not everything looks like a post padding. There are some who just aren't so helpful, but aren't necessarily padding posts. There's a member who has been a member since 2011, and is almost a posting legend (has something like 38K). I've seen his posts. Maybe I'm naive, but I don't think he's padding - he just posts tons of drivel. So lots of posts, but not so helpful. Thankfully, I know his (her?) handle. But newbies will see "FT Posting Legend" and rightfully assume he's "smarter" than others.

BTW, some forums (UA comes to mind), the mods do a great job of combining consecutive posts. Not all forums do. So on one forum, one post can be equal to 6 on another

GUWonder

I think the conclusion is usually more akin to: "has too much time on the hands and can and will comment willy-nilly".

No one in their right mind conflates "smartness" and "blabber mouth" as being generally indistinguishable. Plenty more people probably conflate high post counts and "blabber mouth" as being less distinguishable.

beltway

I'm increasingly of the opinion that a member's profile & posts should show not only total number of posts, but also the number of other FT members who have that user in their ignore list. The optimist in me thinks this would, at least in some cases, inhibit the drivel production you describe.

GUWonder

I don't know about that. It may also be considered by some to be a badge of honor in someways and create a perverse incentive in some ways.

I doubt that BB software used for FT has the current technical capability of doing your suggested count on a live basis. Maybe someone from IB could comment.

Your suggested feature has the possibility to be a sort of version of the reputation feature that flopped earlier on FT; and it would have some of the same twists as with that.