Proposal: Do Not Consider Posts in OMNI For PostCount
 

I noticed that posts in OMNI are part of FTers total post count. This being a travel related site and OMNI being more of an OT area, why not exclude OMNI posts in the overall post count?

The benefit is that only posts that are (purportedly) travel related are counted.

This is one variation of an issue which keeps getting raised here. Other variations are:

** Do not include any posts made on forums other than travel forums.

** Do not include any posts made on forums other than those restricted to particular airlines, hotels, or car rental agencies.

** Get rid of the post counts completely.

** No, don't get rid of post counts.

I have to admit that I find the whole debate completely uninteresting. Get rid of some of the posts included in the counts; get rid of all of them; keep them all.

I judge posts based on their content, not on how many times the poster has sat down to type something out.

That's a somewhat aggressive reply to a sensible proposal.

The interesting thing is, OMNI posts aren't supposed to count, according to the policy. But they do.

It is in no way aggressive. I don't oppose the proposal -- nor do I support it. It has been made over and over again (along with all the variations I mentioned) and I do not believe that post counts are at all important.

A couple years ago it was decided that posts in OMNI weren't going to be included in a member's post total. And all previous posts to OMNI were then retroactively removed from everybody's post total. I remember some posters losing several thousand posts overnight.
A few months later a decision was made to reverse this and to include OMNI posts in a member's post total. That decision still stands today.
Just a FYI.

I see. Thanks for the clarification.

I agree.

I always thought that too. I kept thinking, I hope no-one realizes that I'm getting post counts for OMNI :p

I wouldn't be too affected if post for OMNI did not add to the post count. Therefore I am neither for nor against this proposal

Cheers

Agree 100%.
There are plenty of debates, threads, even forums that I find completely uninteresting. I just tend to ignore them, rather than tell those wanting to hold a discussion that the issue they are discussing is uninteresting. Just my tuppence worth.
Was a rationale ever posted for this by the decision-maker(s)? I certainly would be interested to know.

Were one or both decisions reached by TalkBoard? Or just an independently run experiment to see if it would do anything to get posters to focus on FT's core areas?

I was one of those who lost thousands of posts from post count at that time. I don't think it was quite how Cholula put it however. My recollection is that for a period OMNI posts did not count. When OMNI got closed some threads got moved out of OMNI, and later put back when OMNI reopened. In the process of moving threads around, those who posted to the specific threads lost some (in some cases lots) post count. Other OMNI posts did not get subtracted out from post count.

I couldn't care less if it does or doesn't count. I form my own views on other FTers' posts and post count doesn't come into my thinking in the slightest. I hope other FTers do likewise with my posts.

I am one of those who agree that post counts are currently largely irrelevant. But, as I have pointed out elsewhere, in my mind it doesn't make sense to make a big deal of telling people how serious an offense post padding is, even going so far as "punishing" some by turning their post count back to zero (in other words, adding further to the idea that post counts are in fact "valuable" in some way), if they can just go into OMNI and post countless irrelevant, off-topic, useless, etc. posts, and build up their post count into the thousands again.

Either make post counts truly mean something, by not allowing OMNI posts to count, or make them irrelevant, by getting rid of them completely. Just be consistent.

Post padding is only a serious issue when used by FTers specifically to gain access to two places, OMNI and Coupon Connection. Both forums require one to build up some time and experience on FT before access is permitted and IMO with very good reason. In the case of OMNI it keeps people from easily registering duplicate handles to use for 'nefarious' purposes and in the case of Coupon Connection it allows that person to build up an FT 'track record' before going into a forum that could conceivably allow one to commit all sorts of fraud and theft.

I wasn't on TalkBoard at the time and I'm not even sure I was a mod when this happened so I don't remember the details.
I just know I lost a couple thousand posts overnight. :)

Will the 'policy' of not including OMNI posts in the post count be updated (or deleted) to reflect the current method of counting all posts?
I am also surprised, as a relatively new FTers like the OP, that OMNI posts are counted.
I thought the policy referred to in the past meant that OMNI posts were (are) not counted.
If the policy were updated to delete this reference, this might become a non-issue as many of you believe it to be.
- Ben

OK, I agree that post counts may be easily quantifiably "valuable" only up to the point where they allow the poster to access OMNI or CC. But after that, shouldn't post counts be irrelevant if OMNI posts continue to be counted (based on the argument in my post above)? Yet in reality they are not--two examples: a) posters with large enough post counts are labeled "Evangelists," with obvious connotations as to their "knowledge;" and b) in general, many FTers naturally also tend to give more credibility to posters with more post counts than those with less, whether deserved or not. This happens both everyday and during special occasions such as the TB elections.

I think this is an important enough issue to be addressed by the TalkBoard.