While post-padding in OMNI is certainly a serious problem, it is not the only one. I believe that all posts in OMNI are superfluous to the core purpose of FlyerTalk. While I see nothing wrong with posting in OMNI and will continue to do so even if those posts no longer count, I don't see why my post count or yours should reflect our dalliances in OMNI. It seems evident to me that the opponents of this change have a vested interest in protecting their post counts as is because if OMNI posts are eliminated from those counts, the statistical measure of their contributions to FlyerTalk ("Evangelist", "Legend", 15 thousand posts, whatever) might show that they spend only a fraction of their time in helping us all better appreciate miles and points.

I agree with you. However, there is nothing wrong with baby steps. If we're unable to cure all the ills of the world -- or even merely the FlyerTalk world -- in one fell swoop, that is a very poor reason for categorically rejecting a productive incremental change.

Concur with motion as originally posted by OP.

Example, postings in the very fun "Count down from x" and "Count up from x" OMNI topics are essentially post padding.

Along your lines:

If the aim is to have post counts reflect travel knowledge, then why eliminate counts only at forum-level selection? Perhaps we should then get down to a thread-level or post-level selection as well. After all, if this is about helping individuals make better judgments due to their own shortcomings in that area, that would accomplish even more .... going along the lines of reasoning presented by some of those who are advancing this motion.

Instead of this motion, I'd be more likely to consider supporting a proposal that shows how many posts a member has contributed to that forum when viewing that particular forum. Oh wait, I can already do that. :)

I'm still not clear what this motion will solve that can't be addressed by that which is already in place on FT. I wouldn't be surprised if this motion results in more clutter on the travel threads, thus doing little to accomplish those goals stated by those advocating on behalf of this motion.

This is all premised on the idea that somehow post counts mean something in terms of reliability and information. Where has that been shown? I certainly don't think that my opinion is taken more seriously because I have x number of posts over person B with x number of posts. Why should I?

Let's say we're in the UA forum. Some bozo that hangs out mainly on the, oh I dunno, JetBlue forum, comes over and answers a question. This poster has 30,000 posts. Am I supposed to infer that his answer is better than someone who has 200 posts? What if the 200 post user spends all their time in the UA forum and not the JetBlue forum?

This whole idea that post count = anything related to knowledge is foolish.

Who says we're curing all the ails of the world? This is really simple. We just need to come up with the forums that you think posts contribute to a user's "knowledge ranking." I sincerely doubt this forum would qualify, for instance. :)

Actually, my vested interest is in not having TB make asinine decisions by creating "policies" to "fix" "problems" that don't "exist."

Great post by the OP! ^ ^

Phew, this isn't OMNI, I just got myself another post! Yipeeee!!!!

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Get ready for this kind of nonsense in the United, American, and the Hilton forums, folks.

I think post counts do mean something. They're not a measure of travel knowledge, but they are a measure of participation in the FT community. Like many, I visit FT by selecting, "New Posts" and reading those threads that have topics that interest me. My posting is split between lots of forums, including OMNI. However, my post count reflects, almost entirely, measured and considered posts -- if FT paid posters by the word, I'd be a wealthy man. :)

Additionally, a lot of threads that are travel-related but turn contentious and ugly get moved to OMNI, e.g. discussions about COS, children on planes, or TSA. Post counts do measure something: the extent to which someone participates in the FT community and, generally, I do give more consideration, if not more weight, to a response to my posts from an established member of the FT community than I might to a low-post-count "newbie." I would not want to see my participation discounted compared, for example, to someone whose sole but habitual contribution is to write, "Great post by the OP ^" in response to a Greenery-initiated thread (Ooops . . .I just saw Magiciansampras' post above mine. I wasn't referring to you. ;))

Post-padding is a violation of the TOS. Deal directly with the post-padders the same way FT deals with any serial TOS-violator. I really don't see any difference between exploiting FT to get a high post count or exploiting FT to do some other precluded activity, e.g. spamming a commercial service. They're all TOS violations, and counter to the idea of a community of people interested in flying and travel.

One more thing. I think there is a difference between the game threads, e.g. the Paddington Station and Geography threads, and the ones which, literally, are just a waste of time (I think everyone knows which ones I mean). I think the latter have their place in OMNI. The former don't and are just a waste of bandwidth.

And one more thing. I'm familiar with the posters who, I think, sparked this discussion, not from their high post counts, but from their very real and significant contributions to the community in the form of substantive posts both in the travel-specific forums and in OMNI. Unless there's someone else in mind, the post-padders have lots of good and interesting things to say. So . . . can't we just deal with the act of post-padding, stress to everyone that it will be treated as a TOS violation, and then just enforce the rule as necessary?

This has been a very entertaining thread. Thanks, everybody. I am especially intrigued by the attempts of some of the OMNI regulars to belittle and ridicule this change; this is a great strategy, and I wouldn't be surprised if it'll serve you well. Have you considered the "this will lead to post padding problems in other forums" angle? Play that up as well!

I would find the following statistics very enlightening:

How many Evangelists do we have?
How many Evengelists will lose their "status" if this change is implemented?

How many FTers have a minimum of 1 OMNI post?
How many FTers have a minimum of 100 OMNI posts?
How many FTers have more than half their overall posts in OMNI?

Another explicitly-stated vested interest: concerns that this "motion results in more clutter on the travel threads, thus doing little to accomplish those goals stated by those advocating on behalf of this motion."

I would like to find the following statistics:

How many FTers with no status are pushing for OMNI posts not to count?

:p

There are less than 100 FT "Evangelists", although I'd be curious about the specific number too.

I suspect that a majority of "Evangelists" would drop below 10k posts if this proposal were to pass. (I haven't actively posted to OMNI in over two years ... and at that point I had well below 15k posts.)

I'd be shocked if 5% of the membership base has posted to OMNI. I'm not even sure that more than 10% of individual FTers even have individually accrued 90 posts across all of FT.

If FTers are going after post counts, then this proposal won't address that issue ... and perhaps "this will lead to post padding problems in other forums". I'd be anything but shocked by that.

Didn't bother to read the whole thread, and can't imagine that I can say anything new that no one else said said...

But if anyone is taking a tally, upon consideration, I think it's a good rule and would support it as written.

^

What would you need to see to determine whether or not the contention is right or wrong? I think the contention is dead wrong because I don't see folks complaining about bad advice they were given by FlyerTalk Evangelists who turn out to know nothing about travel.

But hey, that's just me.

I was not taking a side in the debate, but merely commenting on the direction of this thread and the "framing" of the issue. I would actually expect some post padding to result if this change were implemented; the poster whose remarkable post growth was discussed earlier, for instance, has the unfortunate habit of splitting up even the simplest response into several posts. However, post padding in main forums will, without a doubt, be more limited than in the game threads. But possibly a greater annoyance to more people.

My biggest complaints about FT aren't about bad advice -- travel or otherwise -- from people with more than 10k posts. Just me, but the post count or lack thereof isn't a basis upon which I make my determinations -- I look at the posts themselves .... and maybe the reactions to them (amongst other things).

Some of the best advice I've been given by people on FT has been given by people with low post counts. And some of the best advice I've been given has been given by people on FT with very high post counts. I really don't see how this proposal will improve what I take away from FT.