Where did I say get rid of the games? What I said was we need an OMNI Games Forum. We could start an OMNI Politics forum if you'd like. We don't need to get rid of either of them.

In the history of FT we have split up popular forums. For instance, General Travel was a very popular forum when FT first started, and it was closed down and several forums replaced it.

More recently, Hotel Deals and Mileage Run Discussion were spun off from the Mileage Run forum.

OMNI is a loss leader. It's here to keep folks happy and keep people here. Traffic went down dramatically when OMNI was closed for a brief period of time. Turns out people don't want to talk about miles and points all day long. But they will talk about other things AND miles and points all day long.

Just wanted to point out where I'm coming from, since a bunch of people seem to be making sweeping generalazations of TB members. We're an advisory board, so the reason I am not seconding koko's motion is because I don't necessarily agree with the motion. It has nothing to do with Randy. Actually, as an advisory board I think we should still make recommendations to Randy, even if he has only recently ruled on something. After all, we just give him advice, he ultimately decides what he wants to do with it.

If I see serious post padding issues outside of OMNI now (and please don't try intentionally doing this, folks!), then I'll reconsider my viewpoint, but as of now I think Randy made the right decision.

Jusy my two cents.

When I looked early this morning and went back 24 hours, OMNI was slightly ahead of the UA forum in total threads. OMNI was almost 4 full pages (at 25 posts per page), and UA at about 3 1/2 (which actually surprised me).

But I think in terms of revenue posts would be more important then threads.

I see what you're saying. If Internet Brands was really that revenue dependent, though, wouldn't they open OMNI to everyone and not have an entry restriction?

Earlier in this thread I proposed that an OMNI Games Forum be open to everyone (no 180 day/180 post restriction). With those number counting threads getting thousands of posts, there would seem to be an opportunity for a lot more revenue if everyone on FT could post in them.

I must say that I find it very difficult to have a rational discussion on what should or should not be included in post counts until the preliminary question of what it is that post count should be regarded as signifying (if indeed it signified anything) has been resolved.

If you take the view that a post count is at best irrelevant and at worst misleading, then surely the rational answer would not be to include OMNI in post counts to prevent perverse effects but rather not to count posts at all. Take away the incentive for post-padding (i.e. post count) and there is no reason why indviduals should post-pad (beyond the initial OMNI elibigility threshold).

It you consider that post counts do matter or if, regardless of your own personal opinion, you consider that a sufficient number of FTers consider that post counts matter so that the 'nuclear' option of having no post count at all is not open, then you need to address the question of what it is that post count signifies.

Here, it seems to me, that there are two main approaches to this. The first one is to regard the post count as a measure of participation in the FT community. We could call this approach the 'badge of honour' approach, in which members of the community which contribute most by their number of posts are recognised by allowing them to wear a badge of honour with a high post count. I can't say that I am terribly sympathetic to this approach which has more than a whiff of, and encourages, male 'mine is bigger than yours' competition about it, but others may see this differently. If this is the significance that you attribute to post counts, then clearly posts in all forums should count. There may be an issue here of insignificant contributions that should be discarded, but it seems to me that the workload this would place on mods,a nd the controversy that it would generate, would far outweigh the benefits that might expected of such strict policing.

Another way to look at post counts is treat them as an indicator of expertise on the subject-matter which is at the heart of FT and its reason for being, viz. FF programs and ancillary travel-related issues. To be sure, post count is an unfaithful friend in this. Some people with a very low post count are extremely knowledgeable and some people with high post counts clearly do not know what they are talking about. That said, when used sensibly together with other elements, most importantly the content of the post and evidence pointing towards a certain background of the indvidual concerned, post counts are not entirely devoid of usefulness. If I ask a question in a forum which I am not familiar with and 5 frequent posters come up with an answer and 5 unfrequent posters come with a different one, all other things being equal, I know which answer I am more likely to regard as probably more reliable.
If we regard post count as an indicator of probable expertise, then clearly posts in OMNI as well as a number of other forums should be discounted. But then, I would probably go along those suggesting that post count in that particular forum is, on the whole, a better indicator than overall post count.

Once we take a view as to what post count should stand for, then we can start to have a look at various solutions (what to include or not include in counts, whether to show exact number of posts of just thresholds, whether to show nothing at all, etc...) and the perverse effect that some solutions might bring with them, in terms of post-padding in particular. We can weigh advantages and disadvantages and we can look at second best solutions, as I very much doubt that a magic bullet that would solve everything and would have no downside is likely to be found. But it seems to me that it would help not to throw the cart before the horse and clarify what it is we seek to achieve by showing post counts first before considering solutions to a problem the full terms of which are not yet defined.

Under any reading, it seems to me that there is at least one useful purpose of post counts, which is to distinguish regular members of the community and newcomers. Clearly, you are not going to react in the same way to a newcomer posting a fairly obvious question that is addressed in the FAQ or sticky at the top of the forum as you would to an established member posting exactly the same question. Whether this requires the actual number of posts or just an 'L' plate type indicator, I am not sure. And beyond that, I am not myself entirely clear yet whether post counts are a good thing or a bad thing. I would probably tend towards the 'indicator of expertise' approach, however imprecise, but I can't say that my views are set in stone on this.

Nick... interesting, except what about the lounges? I know for a fact there are people with 5K plus counts who travel once a year, if that. When I asked the question for the talk board election, "How often do you travel?" It was met with criticism that how much a person travels should not matter if they get elected to a travel website "board". If travel expertise didn't matter for that, do you really think post counts are a reflection of travel expertise?

Why does this remind me of Congress "investigating" steroids in baseball?

Sometimes when you don't have enough to do, it's okay to do nothing.

I'd like one of any of the posters here, in favor or against, to cite one position that was not made a year ago. Just one. Til then, I'll leave you alone.


Here is what the talkboard candidates have said on this issue

Good point, and a reason why my views are not set in stone and precisely why, imo, if people are unhappy with the way things are with post counts, they should clarify what it is they expect post counts to do or not to do before jumping to recommendations one way or the other.

You know how it is Dov, i tried to do everyone a favor by giving them an additional 4 years to add to their post count via OMNI and now a few members are picking on me for that favor. I guess in hindsight if the tech thing would have worked correctly back then this would not be an issue.

As for counting yesterday and not tomorrow? Actually, isn't that the same as what would have happened in 2004? And the retroactive thing? Actually there is a button to push that would have recalculated everyone's total back to then. I decided that really wasn't a good idea and passed on pressing the button.

Before this thread is closed:

Thank you, Randy for (a) addressing the OMNI post counting issue,(b) switching on the 'ignore thread' feature and (c) nipping this thread in the bud!

I suppose many posters with strong views will still have an axe to grind and that the issues will be raised in re-worded submissions to TB or ORP.

I hope that (b) helps those who are annoyed that their threads of interest in OMNI aren't pushed aside by the wake of the OWOT threads.

Happy travels and miles/points accumulation everyone.
I hope that you retain your community spirit and sense of humour between the former and your perusal of OMNI.

FT is a great community for all of your participation. No wonder it's compulsive viewing.
See you there (or back at TB Topics / ORP for the next 'post count/OMNI games' debate). ^

once again, thank you for your leadership kokonutz!

^

kokonutz is a true leader. If there was a President of TB, I would vote for him. ^

Sir, please explain the following post from Technical Issues dated November 10, 2004.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...ting+omni+post

Post 3 is from dan at WebFlyer

He says:
This runs counter to your assertion that it was a four year oversite, the quoted post was posted by a member of the WebFlyer staff.

Both bdjohns1 and NickB have interesting points about this. Just as we love miles & status, we love our FT stats. At first I agreed that moving the post count off the post might be a good idea, but NickB raises the good point that it really is an indicator of how to respond or take someones post. I know that I will take it much easier and repeat easy to find info to a newbie with a low post count.

I'd be curious to see if there could be a "score" in place of post count on the profile section of each post. The score could be a set algorithm of length of time registered, number of posts, number of threads started, referrals, suspensions, etc. A newbie would have a low score that would grow as they participate and time goes by without any suspensions.