And sometimes the "side dishes" arent that obvious. What about threads within travel forums that are non-sense ones about nuts, or champagne or other things that are really just chatter?

The problem is that when you try to identify "side dishes" you find some people that only like side dishes, some that eat side dishes as a meal and some that see no difference.

When is the last time a restaurant started having two bills for a dinner. Your bill (your total count if you will) represents your ENTIRE meal!!!!!!

Agreed - and I have a feeling I'm not the only one who finds irony in the fact that, on a board that (rightfully in most cases) goes into the highest dudgeon whenever a miles or points program unilaterally changes its rules and "devalues" the worth of the anticipated-but-earned reward, some in the board's elected leadership desire to do (metaphorically) essentially the same thing .......

OK. I went and looked at the Vandy posts....

of thirty five posts since 2004
Twenty were focused on a trip(s) to Hawaii that were answered by the Hawaii moderator,
6 were in ORP on this topic
3 were Birthday wishes for the moderator who gave the advise.

and the other 6 were miscellenous.

Not one of the questions that were asked were responded to by anyone who has an inflated OMNI post count.

There was not a problem as described with that case.

Next....

Dovster, your own post here just made the best argument possible as to why this motion should fail.

Placing a value judgement on which posts, threads, or forums deserve to be counted is a fine idea....but applying that judgement indiscriminantly (i.e. OMNI posts but not Lounge threads, Newstand forum, OT threads, etc.) is just about the most anti-FT Community idea I've seen advocated, given the limited time I've spent here.

(Nota bene: I do not have, nor am likely ever to achieve, enough posts in FT to achieve any "status", whether OMNI posts are counted or not.)

As I said in the original thread that sparked this vote, I could really care less one way or the other. As a matter of fact, I hit the 10k post mark around that time and I didn't even know I was close. It was pointed out to me by someone on that thread.

That's just how important they are to me.

Everyone is so concerned about newbies impressions of high Omni-generated post counts and I will use myself as an example.

Had I registered, I would be an original member or darned close. I found FT right after it started, was amazed and read it every single day since then. I was a total FF novice and I learned a ton from those original posters and was too intimidated by my lack of knowledge to register.

But I absorbed information, and absorbed some more, and then some.

When I finally registered my main forums were UA, HH, Orlando & Hawaii. It's where I was best able to help. The forums have now changed, but I doubt there's very many people here who could match my Disney knowledge and I often end up giving advice via PM because people don't want to post their private information.

I'm very active in Hyatt now too.

Still, there are people with much better knowledge of COs program than me and I often don't post for fear of giving wrong information.

I read about 10 forums daily and pretty much am up to date with respect to their current "events"

I visit Omni for the community aspect and have always visited it for that reason since its inception.

If Omni no longer counts, well, so be it. I will probably lose half my post count. And I really don't care.

However, who is to say that a poster who does not post all that much in the travel forums isn't a whiz at the program? Even if my post count drops to below 100 (and it won't) who is to say that my advice for the Hyatt program, or Disney, or Hawaii isn't good, thorough, or not made with the best of intentions to truly assist a person?

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is that wrong information is often quickly corrected by the member base or the mods.

I don't believe it's about quantity but quality and number is a poor judge of the latter. The content of the post is what matters.

All that said I'll repeat that it really doesn't matter to me one way or the other.

And then we are told that the software can not handle eliminating the post counts as suggested.

Then if it can't be done right, why do it?

DO I LOOK LIKE I WAS BORN LAST NIGHT???????? Who is saying that the software cant be told to eliminate post counts? Did I miss that? NEWS FLASH whereever that came from. If you can tell the software to ignore some forums you can tell it to ignore ALL forums, just pick them all in the instructions on which to skip. Fine you cant turn off the label, then everyone just has a zero because all are being ignored. SHEESH!!!!!!!!

It seems like a lot of energy being used to deal with something that I cant even imagine really being a problem in any practical way.

And the other point, why not eliminate posts in community or news forums and such, and then which ones, is quite valid in my opinion. Posting a link to a news story on Newstand is not different than posting one on Omni. Or for that matter posting one in any forum, such as is rampant during the days of airline Ch11s, union negotiations and mergers.

At this stage, we would have to abandon the initial vote and re-table - especially for something I wouldn't see as an amendment, but a new motion in it's own right. At which point we'll have spent more time on something I consider quite trivial (even if lots of FTers obviously find it important :D), particularly given some of the other things which are on the board at the moment. However, the idea proposed is an interesting way of getting around people post padding in the games, and seems a much better tailored solution for that problem. Perhaps it might be better to see what happens with this motion, and if this fails, spin it off into a separate thread proposing it as an idea we could consider if this continues to be an issue for some posters?

And should this motion pass, I suspect you, me, and many other people will lose those same posts again, which is why I asked this question yesterday:

Which no one has really addressed (although I guess it might be a tech question, and yes, Dov and I did discuss it briefly, with no real outcome).

Additionally, what will happen to post counts on threads that get moved to OMNI from another forum? Will they count or no?

----

In general, I don't really care about post counts. I am, however, in agreement with other posters here, in that the problems this motion is intended to "solve" are either already addressed in the TOS or would be better addressed with a more comprehensive post count resolution, the elimination of post counts entirely, or the elimination of certain titles.

Dov once in a while you actually hit on something important *smile* and I bet you didn't even know it did you.

I genuinely believe THIS is the problem, the purpose of FT. Not the games in omni, not new posters not searching first, not repeat questions, not post counts. They are symptoms of a bigger issue, a growing pain if you will of FT.

There are two very distinct camps on what FT should be and until that is addressed and decided we are going to have insane motions like this one!!!!

There is one camp that wants FT to be a true community of travelers, with all the "chatter" that a community involves. Questions will get asked over and over and some topics will not be 100% on topic. And yes there will be a social component. That is part of a community!!!!

The other camp wants FT to be purely information for travellers (more of a wiki-world) and nothing more. They want to insure 100% accuracy of information, they want things in an organized, neat, quiet package when you come get information and that is that. You can contribute, to a point, but only if it fits in this neat package.

Then there are the rest of us inbetween who keep fighting for the centrist view and who are frustrated in this thread because we see the second being legislated against us.

Someone, I guess our new owners, REALLY need to address this issue and figure out what FT is going to be for the next decade and steer towards that. Because right now, it is floundering being both. I am NOT saying one or the other is the right plan, but there needs to be one plan.

And honestly if it is the second then the site needs a MAJOR redesign where the information is the first thing you hit not chat boards!!!!! Maybe the chat and social can be secondary but make the informational the main thrust of FT.

And if we are going to stay community based, stop trying to punish people for being in a community that has ALL the dynamics of a community!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Cause I for one am sick of feeling like posting on FT is having one of those substitute teachers who wants to send you to the prinicipal if you don't keep 100% "on topic".

BTW I have already had a lot of this conversation here http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showp...5&postcount=52 if you are interested in reading the long version of the theory *smile*

Do you really believe that? Once this motion passes I do NOT see getting that horse back in the barn! Your theory works if it fails, but what if it doesnt?

Is this a good place for me to start a 13,500 post club? :D

ozstamps, you have a private message.We are actually discussing two separate incidents, both of which were true.

If you remember, that thread was inaccessible to FlyerTalk members for a period of time while the OMNI forum was open because of performance issues pertaining to FlyerTalk.

Here is the thread by Randy Petersen explaining this very issue — and, as we now know, the few days became several months to ensure that that thread was indeed not interfering with the performance of FlyerTalk while searching for the source of the problem.

As I said, that thread has a unique history on FlyerTalk.

Well at least your posts in this forum will count. :)