magiciansampras, I don't know you, so this is nothing personal.

On this thread of 326 post, so far, how many posts do you have?

I understand you're a little upset, but...
Don't you think you've made your point?

Here's the top 10 posters:

User Name Posts
magiciansampras 51
Spiff 27
ClueByFour 17
kokonutz 15
nsx 15
nroscoe 15
essxjay 15
Punki 13
tazi 13
Dovster 12

Hm. Looks like the mega-posters are pretty evenly split pro, con and procedural. Proving only that feelings are strongly held on all sides of this issue.

As I said earlier today in the private TB forum: If everyone can intelligently disagree over something that we all care very much about and then at the end of the day still have the utmost respect for each other over a beer or three then we have all done our best for FT, IMHO.

That certainly would be nice.

Edited to add: Didn't see Moderator2 had already handled the situation. :)

I don't think a vote or petition is going to make any difference but, for what it is worth, I think Omni posts should not count toward the total counts.

I have had fun posting on Omni but it would not bother me a bit to see it disappear. I have no idea what purpose it serves on a frequent traveler newsgroup. There are plenty of other places where people can argue about meaningless issues or work on their math skills.

I used to think the same thing, but Randy enlightened me. To answer you, OMNI is an escape valve. If a discussion gets off track, moderators can move it to OMNI. Or they can ask the food fighters to take it to OMNI. FTers are passionate, and they don't want to go somewhere else to debate contentious subjects. They want to debate the same people they know from other forums on FT. OMNI allows this to happen without damaging the rest of FT.

Take away OMNI and the other forums and some of its activity would end up in the other forums. Moderators would have a tougher time, and members would see a lot more food fighting. Nope, that's not the anwser.

Here's the list you looked at and the links to the answers for each member. Not sure if it looks "pretty evenly split"? As we have it right now, there are 5 against the proposal with three who while they have engaged in the conversation, have not formally stated an answer to the question of the proposal. One might draw a conclusion (might, though not conclusive!) that of the three undecided, two might declare against the proposal and one for the proposal. That total would seem to indicate - only based not on the ensuing dialogue, but rather the answer to your question for the proposal, there would be seven for rejecting the proposal and one for your proposal.

Draw from that what you will and i have included the links to the answers i have tallied for these results. The trick is of course, to filter through the inter-member dialogue and focus on the answer.

Hope this helps!

User Name Posts
magiciansampras 51 (No formal statement one way or the other):

Spiff 27 (no formal statement one way or the other):

ClueByFour 17 (against the proposal):
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showp...50&postcount=3

kokonutz 15 (does not count since it is the TalkBoard gathering information and presumably wants to base their vote on the voice of the members)

nsx 15 (presumably against the proposal as he calls for Punki to withdraw her second, which would then invalidate the proposal)
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showp...4&postcount=88

nroscoe 15 (against the proposal):
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showp...3&postcount=11

essxjay 15 (no formal statement one way or the other)

Punki 13 (does not count since it is the TalkBoard gathering information and presumably wants to base their vote on the voice of the members)

tazi 13 (against the proposal):
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showp...&postcount=236

Dovster 12 (against the proposal):
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showp...&postcount=231

Very logical. I can see how counting those posts would be ok. So lock OMNI down, call it a Cont'd Discussion or Overflow forum, allow only mods to create threads in that forum (either new or moved from another forum), and set post-count = yes. Then create another forum for the totally non-FT-related stuff (counting down, etc.) where posts are not counted.

But without separating out the actual FT-related discussions and the "I was abducted by gay aliens" threads, not counting all posts in OMNI is the logical choice.

So where would a thread about Airline Mogul (web based game where FTers have a strong dominance) be started in this case?

OMNI has real value to FT once the post-padding through OWOT is controlled. This issue (IMHO) has always been about post-padding through OMNI and I think both sides agree something needs to be done about it. One side would like a more surgical approach to fixing OMNI (which I personally side with) and the otherside appears to just want to get rid of OMNI (or at least devalue its presence).

Just my two cents since no one wants to touch my question Ive asked a couple of times now...

Are you serious about this question? Seems a no-brainer: into the non-post-couting thread. It's a game discussion. If the game discussion spawned an on-topic issue, it could be posted in the related forum with a link from OMNI.

I must have missed the question.

I was serious about the first question since it isnt just a game thread but actually gets FT's name out more to the public eye (which I'm guessing is something Randy might actually like). Its not about post padding other than people post in the thread to talk about the game and how to best dominate it.

And the first question was last referenced and linked to here
http://flyertalk.com/forum/showpost....&postcount=327
Basically I dont understand how the majority of the posts in threads like the one in the link are any different from what occurs in OMNI (minus the game threads)

OMNI is as much of a part of FT as anything else here and in fact in a lot of ways it helps me to get to know people better which means i come back more and more and click on the various ads that i do see more frequently. FT might have been founded on Miles & Points but it grew into a family within OMNI before the OWOT got out of hand. OMNI being made to a second class place (which is what the current action by Randy does IMHO) means I will probably find a new home for my online browsing instead of almost solely frequenting FT. This isnt a threat but since I dont see much value added in repeating what others have already posted in most forums my time spent on FT will most likely decrease. Posting of my opinion about how an airline or TSA or hotel chain treats people doesnt add any value to FT, and actually diminishes the value of others FT posts IMHO.

And yes I do care about my post count on some level since it appears to be portrayed as some semblance of knowledge.

I'm all for protecting the validity of the post counts I just feel there is a much smarter way to do it than the current "No OMNI posts count"

In the context of the single motion before the TalkBoard, very helpful! ^ It shows many of us are actually on the same page. :-:

However, in the larger context of what kinds of posts should & shouldn't count, or if we should even have post counts at all, I sense we're more divided.

Of course I applaud you for even giving this discussion attention when you have the power to shut it down as you've made your decision. But I urge you to consider the idea of a poll that takes into consideration the many different opinions/scenarios that have been given to you and the TalkBoard. This is clearly not just a simple count/don't count OMNI issue that has brought out so many impassioned statements. And unfortunately, I don't see tempers cooling until the wider issue has been addressed. Hopefully addressed in a wider format (ie: poll) than a thread in TalkBoard where not everyone visits or trusts their opinion will be heard.

Sorry for not being more clear. I am formally for this proposal.