Do you have any empirical data to back up this claim? I've seen lots of folks in this thread, some with low post counts, saying that post counts don't convey anything. I'm not sure you're right that people assume anything about post counts correlating highly with knowledge level.

Stealing from Punki "Real, specific reasons do not include "It is better for FT" or "OMNI is an off-topic cesspool" or "Randy has done the right thing"." are the reasons I have seen as to why to not count OMNI posts.

If we are going to single out OMNI v. anything Non-Miles/Points related then I want to understand why the focus is on OMNI.

I dont argue that some people look at post counts but solely focusing on OMNI doesnt really solve the problem any more than putting a band-aid on a cut that needs stitches help fix it. It might slow the problem down for a little bit but at the end of the day a more thorough fix is still needed.

I dont think people are anti-OMNI specifically but I have a hard time figuring out why the focus in solely on OMNI posting when there is post padding in many other forums on FT. Travel/Safety and Security is a good example of sanctioned post-padding that in many ways serves less value to FT than a majority of the OMNI posts do.

My biggest issue is that I cannot figure out why the focus is solely on OMNI post counting when OMNI is just part of the problem (and would be even less of a problem if the blatant post-padding threads were moderated out of existence like they should be per the TOS of FT.)

One other thought regarding this issue.

I belong to a few other specialized boards. All of them have off topic areas. All of them count the posts in those off topic areas. Yes, some of them have off topic areas segregated by interests.

The situation is exactly the same as FT - a board geared toward a specific topic where post counts can give newbies the wrong impressions.

However, FT, as well as those boards, have a pretty active community and bad information of often corrected very quickly.

For some reason, almost since it's inception, there has been a negative attitude toward Omni.

What I don't get is why FT is that much different than other specialized topic boards where some contributions to the community are of less value than others.

Doesn't IB also own cruise critic or some other major cruise board? Well, the last time I visited that board, and it's been a while, their off topic area counted too.

So again, what's so different about FT?

You would undoubtedly be impacted more than I would if we restrict this to Omni posts, but I think we will be in the same position if we get rid of all the non M&P posts.

I did some checking today -- I have 16,801 posts on non M&P forums (not counting the private TB forum). In addition to that, I have 1918 posts on the Delta Forum Lounge Thread and 635 on its predecessor, the Unabashed Cholula Spam Thread. That is a total of 19354 posts which had nothing to do with showing someone how to get a better and/or less expensive trip.

(As I don't have access to the private TB Forum anymore, I don't know how many posts I have there, but I would not be surprised if they represent another 500-1000 of my total.)

If someone is judging my expertise in the core issues of FT based on the number of posts I have, wouldn't it make more sense not to mislead him with the roughly 20,000 posts that shows up in my count?


Perhaps they don't -- but the fact that a lot of people are fighting to keep their post counts indicates that they feel it gives them extra status, and on an IBB dedicated to M&Ps, extra status should be reserved for those who know, and share, information on its core subject.

It's never been illustrated for me that this is the aim of the post count and the titles. Is it written down somewhere that the titles are supposed to convey status as based on contributions to miles and points? Things like "Flyertalk Evangelist" and "Flyertalk Legend" don't convey anything to me about knowledge per se, they convey activity. Evangelist says to me that the poster is someone that has been around for a long time and has turned other people on to FT. Whether this hanging around has been in OMNI or United Forum really is immaterial.

If we're going to say that post counts convey status based on knowledge, then more accurate titles would be "Miles and Points Expert," or "Mileage Genius," etc.

Put simply, the titles themselves convey activity, not knowledge.
This is why I can't cash the check you're writing here.

Now, if you're making a normative argument about the way things "should" be, then that's a different issue. I'm talking about the way things appear to be, from my vantage point.

It's funny you bring this up because I think it speaks to my point above. To me, Dovster, you are like Mr. FT. When I think of Flyertalk I think of a couple of people, and you're one of them. It really has nothing to do with miles/point knowledge (I don't even know what airlines you like to fly), nor should it really, I don't think.

Finally, one other point: isn't the place to convey knowledge about miles and points the programs info under our names? I think it is a lot more revealing about my United knowledge that I am a 1K than it is that I have 20k+ posts. @:-)

My information is that conveyed directly to me (either PM or email) by newbies. As a moderator, and frequent poster on a number of miles & points forums, I have contact with a reasonable number of newbies.

Can you forward any of them to me (or maybe post them here without the revealing information)? I'd be interested in seeing some examples of individuals getting hosed because they thought a poster had knowledge they did not have and this was due to the post count.

You are asking Kiwi to breach FT rules @:-)

Oh. Oops. Didn't know it was against the rules if the identifying information was removed (just for my edification, can you point to this particular rule).

Kiwi, can you at least paraphrase one of these PMs/email to let us know what kind of situation the post counts led to?

So, Kiwi Flyer are you saying that you don't think OMNI posts should count because high post counts that result from OMNI activity could lull newbies into thinking that confirmed OMNIites really know more about travel than they really do?

FWIW, I receive e-mails and personal comments from relative newbies asking, "What's up with these people who have tens of thousands of posts? Don't they have real lives?"

That is my incentive to try to keep my post count under three per day. That is getting harder now that I have to pay attention to TalkBoard issues.

OK. Just elaborating on an example I gave in another thread, let us say that you ask on the Blue Skies airline forum, a forum with which you are not familiar, whether fare class G on Blue Skies is upgradeable. You get 10 answers from various FTers. 5 Fters, each with 1000+ posts, tell you that "No, This has been discussed to death before. G is not upgradeable" and you also get 5 answers from FTers which each have between 5 and 10 posts, who tell you that they think that G is upgradeable. Which one looks to you like the most likely answer?

It is true that post count, on its own in relation to a single individual and without paying attention to other information, does not constitute a reliable expertise indicator. However, on a more aggregated basis, and taking into account all relevant factors, it is a useful indicator of probable expertise, albeit one one should not rely on blindly (like anything else, for that matter).

To me, post count has only two useful purposes:
1) to distinguish the newbie from the experienced user, which is important in knowing how to respond to a question (we are normally more tolerant and understanding of "obvious" questions coming from newbies than established users)
2) as a rough indicator of expertise, albeit not an entirely reliable one and one which has to be manipulated with prudence.

It is true that post count also indicates frequency of posting. This is almost tautological. However, I do not see anything useful that is conveyed by this. Sure, this is information, but this is information which is just about as useful as knowing the poster wears trainers or shoes, what colour their hair is and whether it is natural, whether they sleep on their side or on their back, how often they go to the bathroom each day, etc... in other words, information which is in the normal run of event is totally and utterly devoid of any usefulness whatsoever.

Now if it is the case that the only usefulness of post count is what I suggest above, then it is plain that counting OMNI posts in it is not helpful. It is true that the same argument could be made of posts in other fora too. But this is a bit like saying that because a solution is not perfect, it is not a good solution.

Now that I think about it NickB, I rarely even look at the handle of the poster, let alone his/her post count. I just rely on how credible they sound.

One thing that is pretty certain on FlyerTalk, is that if somebody posts misinformation, there will be a dozen people to very quickly jump in and correct them, for better or for worse.

http://www.flyertalk.com/help/rules.php#q84

But see here you are adding more information than is in the post count itself. You're comparing an apple to a Mercedes. On the one hand you're saying you have posters with very few posts. On the other you have posters will lots of posts AND the fact that this has been discussed before.

The example also isn't very realistic since incorrect information tends to get corrected within minutes on FT. I've been corrected on UA many times by folks with far fewer posts in that forum.

It's not posts that are relevant, it is experience. And posts simply say nothing about flying experience; they say something about posting experience.


This, I think, is very dangerous and wrong. I've been given very bad information by folks with lots of posting experience and very good information by folks with little posting experience.

# of posts, IMHO, has nothing to do with actual knowledge.

Perception seems to be the point you're trying to make. The way to do with this, I would think, is some kind of disclaimer that says:

"Post counts do not and should not convey any information about a user's expertise in a given area."

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Example: Do you think moderators have more expertise than normal users? What do you think the perception is?