No matter what, posts in prison diary threads should always count. Maybe count double.

There has been a dearth of prison diary posts lately. :(

Omniscent
 

Omni is fine as a place to zone out, but I just don't see any reason to count it in your post counts. Honestly, I wouldn't mind if most other forums were included, other than more of the core FT forums.

I mean, if people really want to rant and rave about Alberto Gonzales, the price of tires, or ANS, go for it. Just don't encourage the people who want the Evangelist title under their name to do it in a disruptive manner.

I would agree with that comment; but that is a separate issue not having OMNI type forums versus having post's count.

That is what I think as well. Maybe that is why I have never been made a mod, I post in OMNI. :D Couldn't be my opinions on subjects could it ;) nah...

See also this thread, which may not be all that relevant, but is still mildly amusing.

I'd also like to see the evangelist title eliminated. I don't see any point to it, and it seems to be the goal that encourages excessive posting in Omni games.

How about a limit about how many posts in a thread count? This is my third post in this thread, and I've yet to say anything constructive, so that should count as 1.

I suspect most of us that have reached the 10,000 post plateau have done so without playing the OMNI games (I've never played one of them).

Evangelist? Heck, I'm still trying to get that "Commander Catcop" title.

Seriously. To the TalkBoard... what issue does this motion solve?

Hey, me too! :D

I don't see an issue that is really worth worrying about, but I haven't voted yet, either.

I do think there is some truth to this contention. When I think about the occasional IBB I go to for a technical question about cell phones, gps's, PDAs, etc., etc.) the folks with high post counts are ones I tend to assume have more knowledge, or at least more experience perhaps, with the subject at hand. I would think that the reverse holds true: the occasional visitor to FlyerTalk who is looking for some specific information would perhaps think that the very experienced, high-count posters would a priori be worth listening to.

Such visitors would not realize that in many cases those posts counts were hugely inflated by posts that had nothing to do with knowing anything about miles/points/travel.

Like posting 500 posts in a game thread in 22 hours, etc., etc.

Okay, a serious response:

I have said repeatedly, both on the private TB Forum and on the other TB Topics thread, that I consider the entire question of post counts to be monumentally unimportant.

I judge a post by its content -- and not by whether the poster has "Evangelist" under his name or if his post count is either "1" or "100,000".

In fact, in my own case, I consider the first post I ever made on FT to be among my best (although being a newbie I didn't realize that I should have started a separate thread for it and instead took another thread off topic).

All that being said, I realize that there are quite a few FTers who have a different opinion than I do. They put a high value on both the "Evangelist" title and post counts. Some of these want Omni posts to be counted, others are very much against that idea.

A thread was begun (not by me) on TalkBoard Topics on January 17 about this. A second thread was begun on the private TalkBoard forum (again, not by me) on March 5 to discuss this.

I felt that it was time that TalkBoard made a decision, one way or the other, and put this issue to rest. I felt that we owed at least that much to the people, on both sides of this question, who feel so strongly about it.

My own feeling was that I didn't care if Omni posts (indeed, posts on all of the non-core points and miles forums) were counted or not. But I did have two points that I cared strongly about:

1. If we were not going to count future Omni posts then we should not count past ones. There is absolutely no logic is giving more value to a post based simply on the date that it was made. Moreover, as all of the TB members, with the sole exception of Bhatnasx, have at least 500 Omni posts and some (of which I am a prime example) have Omni posts which run into the thousands, we should not keep these posts in our counts while telling future posters that they can not.

2. I did not want to see any person who enjoys going to Omni kept from doing so simply because we took away posts from his count and he dropped below the 180 mark.

Therefore I wrote the motion to include these two provisions. As my inclination was to go along with the people who objected to the Omni posts being counted (although, again, I emphasize that I do not feel very strongly either way), the inclusion of these two provisions allowed me to vote in favor in good conscience.

Why not put forth another motion to open OMNI to everyone, and drop the post count qualification entirely? I've seen some good arguments put forth about the value of that forum, so maybe it's time to drop the 180 post rule entirely.

Omni has always attracted a number of problematic posters. It is my understanding that if spammers are not considered, Omni is responsible for most of the suspensions which have been given out.

The idea behind the 180 post/180 day requirement is that most would-be trolls would not have the patience to go through it just to start posting on Omni.

I honestly would like to take this one step further and make the 180/180 requirement a trial period. I suggested to TalkBoard that if a newbie were to get his warning, his 7 day suspension, and his 30 day suspension all during that short period that he should not be Omni-enabled at all. There was, however, no interest in that suggestion.