Based on your post, what reason is there to have a post count at all?

It is a gauge of how often a member visits and participates on FlyerTalk. ^

And if 950 out of a posters 1000 posts are in OWOT threads, is it worth even having a post count?

I'm not arguing with you, but instead trying to get a better understanding of a position other than my own. If I don't see all the angles myself, my opinions have been known to change after having them pointed out.

Certainly it is worth it. It wouldn't matter to me in the least in which forum a member decides to hang.

I really would rather know that a member has been devoted enough to FT that they have (one way or another) managed to rack up 10,000 posts, than to not know anything about them at all.

Having said that, I am also very impressed with those folks who have been a constantly active part of the community for a decade, and still somehow managed to restrain themselves to the point where they have less than 500 or 1,000 posts.

Those two elements, join date and number of posts, work together to give us a glimpse of a member.

Well said.

+1 :p ;)

I have to give you ^ ^ on this point, Punki, one for insight into the matter and another for your consistency about it over the years. It's one sensible way of looking at participant metrics.

so would avatars! :D

(Sorry, just wanted to inject a little humor into this.)

Seriously, very good points Punki.

:D ^

It may be a guage, but not a very acurate one.

It might be that it's only a guage for those pre-occupied with a post count.

I know many, many members who visit frequently and participate whole heartedly. Not all participating members want to be Evangalists.

Yes it is a most totally and completely accurate gauge of how often someone visits and contributes to FlyerTalk. Who am I, or even you, to judge the value of their visit or contribution? We all come here and enjoy FT in our own fashion.

What each post by each poster says to me is that this person has chosen FlyerTalk as their cyber parking spot today. If they choose FlyerTalk as their cyber parking spot 10,000 times, I suspect they feel that it is their cyber home.

There was a time a few years back when a couple of FlyerTalkers rigged a way to accumulate thousands and thousands of posts without really posting at all. At the time if made me furious, but you know what, all that really says is that they knew lots of cyber tricks that I didn't know and used them to become FlyerTalk Evangelists because they cared about FlyerTalk. I am finally cool with that.

The bottom lline is that, with all of our individual warts, idiosyncrasies, scars, and pimples, we are here because we love FlyerTalk. I vote that we all just relax and learn to live and let live.

I'm not misinterpreting anything but you certainly seem to be.

That type of behavoir has the potential to wreak havoc with a system and if I remember correctly, it did then, too. And you are cool with that??

So, to be consistent with yourself, Punki, you must presumably applaud with both hands post-padding, since the person who writes "great post by the OP" in 500 threads is showing much more devotion to FT "one way or another" than the poster who just gives a considered answer to questions in just 50 threads?

The problem with your analysis, as I see it, is that post count per se is not a reliable indicator of meaningful participation in the community. So, displaying the post count as a "community"-gauge is inviting readers to jump to conclusions on the basis of garbage information. Not all "glimpses" on members necessarily convey meaningful information. Knowing how often a person visits the bathroom everyday would also give us a "glimpse" on them. This would not make it useful and meaningful quality information.

What makes things even worse is that the very fact of suggesting that this could be regarded as a participation-gauge tends to increase the likelihood of it being an even less reliable measure, as this brings us back to boys' metrics and "my post count is bigger than yours, hence I am a better FT member"-type competitiveness.

I've tried to stay far from this as much as I could...it just baffles me that supposedly mature people would spend so much time arguing about the benefits of, wait for it, POST COUNT.
I think a "package" needs to be voted for/against, and I am proposing to combine the following things that have been proposed before, but I 'm proposing them as a total package.

1) Hide post count from under-name details and put it into the member profile page. "Evangelist" and "Posting Legend" titles to be kept for relevant posters.

2) Create an OMNI subforum for threads with games / OMNI community posts ("tell us about yourself", "Omni Radio")

3) Include OMNI posts in the user's postcount, but exclude the ones in the subforum.

Thoughts?