Another reason to just do away with post counts^

If it was another reason to just do away with post counts, then why do so many bulletin board communities have post counts displayed? Wouldn't the trend be to eliminate them? Which big IBBs are doing that?

A yes from me.
 

I'm all for this change - exactly as outlined in the original post.

And I have to admit I'm going to be very curious to see how my own post count is affected (for similar reasons to why a smoker might like the chance to see the inside of their own lungs! :) )

I am in favor of this proposal.

I don't buy the "ain't broke, don't fix it" argument. What if the status quo were that they didn't count, and the proposal were to start counting them?

This is the best suggestion that has been made in this thread, IMHO.

Remove those, and take out anything in this forum, the private forums, and (for that matter) community.

Shame it won't pass.

I wouldn't support a change to the status quo under the scenario you present there either. I'd have to see what the issue is that needs resolving and then have to determine whether or not the "motion" addresses that issue without having even worse side-effects. In this thread, I've not yet seen what's broken that needs fixing by a new fix (i.e., this motion).

That is, if posts weren't counted before, I would not advocate going back to count them either except under conditions noted in my prior paragraph.

Will the issue of relevance to FT's stated goals (and the "quality" of posts) ever be the sole deciding criteria for counting posts? Aren't there are far too many posts that are borderline or even slightly OT (and some even belong to the most venerated of FTers)?

As has been said over and over, if you really go through any thread, you will find lots of posts that repeat information or simply add an opinion or give details of the individual's latest flight experience without really adding a lot of value to people who are trying to maximize miles and points.

I think most people agree that FT is about more than that, though, and there clearly is a community or social aspect to any established BB.

Omni is a catch-all category and a bit of a free-for-all and it's hard to say that ANY thread there is off-topic because of that. But I still wonder if perhaps behaviour there shouldn't be better-monitored....? It does seem silly to give an Evangelist title to someone who primarily posts by counting up or down. It almost makes me agree with not counting the posts there at all... but I also see how that kind of thinking can get extended to a critical review of posting practices throughout all the rest of FT.

If I started a thread in one of the airline forums that listed all the FINs of the Dash-8s and CRJs (just for an example) and posted each and every arrival and departure time of each and every aircraft compared to its schedule, would it be on topic? Would the thread be left open? Granted it's a lot more work than just increasing or decreasing a count by one, but I bet I could get a pretty good number of posts every day.... :)

If there clearly are guidelines for post-padding, why aren't some of the Omni threads shut down? Part of the problem is that threads like WhoWillBeTheNextFlyerTalkMemberToPost (???) have been participated in by members who are very highly regarded and have contributed lots to other areas.

I'm not usually one to say Bring on the Moderation, but maybe that's the simplest way to deal with the extreme examples that are being given. If FT has some rules and at least some of those rules apply to Omni, then why aren't they being applied? But if Omni is outside of the rules, then indeed, perhaps posts there should not count.

When I used to activately post to OMNI a couple of years back, the FT rules applied there too. Have things changed since then? I don't recall hearing anything about that.

I don't think I said that very well, GUWonder. It's just that it does seem that there are some threads on Omni that some people use solely for post-padding purposes, and I think that it has been raised here that that practice is against the TOS....???

I hope I am not getting into territory that I shouldn't be, though....

I fully support this motion. Posting in OMNI shouldn't in any way enable you to achieve "FlyerTalk Evangelist" status, imho.

We all know that FT is growing and new forums have been created over the years. I remember the "General Travel" forum when I started, which is long gone now. Mileage Run just spun off a new forum on Mileage Run Discussions, and prior to that spun off a new forum on Hotel Deals. Maybe it's time to spin off part of OMNI, too.

These game threads, from one that views them on the outside, seem to be very popular and are getting thousands of posts (I haven't participated in any of them). Maybe it is time to spin them off to their own forum, incorporated within OMNI, and just not count the posts. I do think that's a fair way to deal with posters that are accumulating thousands of posts just by typing a number (the most obvious games I see there--I'm sure there are others).

I'd rather have post count mean that you took the time to write a few paragraphs, no matter what the forum, than just typing a number as many times as possible over a few hours. The way some of these are going, GUWonder is going to be surpassed in FT Legend status by someone who has just typed numbers within the next few months, and that's just not right when I can see GUWonder, as an example, has contributed on many forums here on FT over the years (and should be applauded for his contributions to FT). He just didn't show up last year and type 40,000 numbers to get there. It took a lot of time and effort to type out all he has typed out, let alone the time formulating responses to begin with. Those numbers recognize that someone has made a serious contribution to FT, and they do mean something to me.

If the vote to not count OMNI posts fails, I still think we need to deal with posts in the game threads, and would hope someone from TalkBoard would put that out for a vote afterwards (creating an OMNI Games forum, and not counting posts in that forum).

This won't affect me one way or the other but I agree with Chexfan; 'what real "problem" is being solved?'

I can however see that a few personal agendas might be served by this change [and I would consider someone's self-satisfaction alone to be an agenda even without any sort of material remuneration], just my opinion.

I do have one serious question that I have yet to see addressed: Have we heard anything from the board's new owners in regards to the significant drop in page hits that this new rule would likely cause?

My 100% honest opinion is that the principal motivation driving a push for this is envy for "official" status on a popular IBB, NOT concern for the interests of the FT community. YMMV.

I'm not sure that there's much benefit to doing this, but, on the other hand, I have seen some people gain thousands or even ten thousand posts just with stupid "increase your post count" timewasters in OMNI. I don't have any rational reason to be against that, but it chafes me for some reason, nevertheless.