Didn't Randy himself provide his reason for removing the Post Count? I seem to remember his point being that this change provides "consistency" between the two forums in FT that have post/time entry requirements (i.e. CC and OMNI).

Two reasons? Being an international student has always been a big disadvantage. I am a slower reader and sometimes I misunderstand the points. It usually takes me longer to write in English. I guess my English must not be as good as I once thought. I may need help.

First of all, even I am against this motion and don't support counting OMNI posts, I did read this whole thread (and some others from other fora on this counting-OMNI-or-not debates). I didn't take notes when I read all the posts, however, I failed to find the same reasons the way Punki summarized above. Now I am not sure if Punki and I had read the same thread/s.

Giving my confusion, I don't think I am competent enough to summarize what I had read so far. That's not my job anyway.

The whole "process" as I recalled, both sides asked some good questions and made valid points. There were also unfortunate incidents that words got twisted and discussion went personal.

There are quite a few "big" words being thrown out in the "friendly" discussion, such as disenfranchisement; empirical and binding; substantive vs. unsubtantiated...etc. Besides all the big words, I don''t recall the no-OMNI-counting camp citing the "jealousy complex" as a "subtantiated" reason. Correct me if I am wrong, I believe it's magiciansampras who "introduced" the jealousy theme into the debate (maybe be two or three pages earlier) and some folks played along a little bit.

Even this motion is "simply" a TB recommendation, asking Randy to reconsider his decision, the debate goes FAR beyond what the motion is all about. FWIW, there's EVEN disagreement on what the motion IS about. No doubt, the emotion is high. Or we wouldn't have 39-page of discussion by far and still going and going, just like the Energizer bunny.

A lots of issues emerge during the course of discussion that go WAY beyond the motion: the meaning of post counts; the value of post counts; the structure of post counts; FT contribution or participation; the consistency in TOS; the challenges of moderation; post padding; the hurt ego; the value of OMNI; game subforum...etc. Some issues may be contextual, intertwined or essential to a healthy FT community. Some should be dealt with in separate threads and TB motions.

I haven't "officially" joined FT community long enough to know all about the history. I would at least say killing all the birds with one stone is too ambitious. Don't overload this current motion.

"consistency" was the reason he cited, what prompted him to review were the recent threads started by civicmon and peteropny suggesting that OMNI was getting "annoying" and there was a large amount of "consecutive posts by a longstanding member". The issue raised seemed to mostly be the gaming/counting threads.

the problem some of us see with the "solution" is that he created a double-standard where now some posts count more than others. Meanwhile, 6969 post count club and such continue to flourish, as do threads such as this TB motion.

I have read through threads you mentioned, except I have to admit I hadn't seen the "6969" one.

All I was doing was replying to Punki who asked for "reasons". She had not listed Randy's reason that he offered. Given he made the change, it just seemed appropriate that we make sure everyone knows that he did in fact provide a reason.

I suggest you re-read this thread and the closed thread again because many more than one or two have responded with their reasons.

You know what I love about how this discussion has gone. It hasnt actually fixed the problem that OMNI currently has which is fixing the games threads from runing OMNI. "Out of Sight Out of Mind" for the win!

People don't always agree with each other.

Frustration runs high and people get upset when communication fails to go through for whatever reasons, or when meanings get twisted. I am afraid that you haven't really got (sometimes even misunderstood) the points from the no-OMNI-counting camp (please see some of the responses: Post #456; Post #552; Post#561 ). Glad to hear your research is not finished and you are willing to listen though.

(Bolding mine)

I thought Randy had spoken on this very issue already? Why ask those who had voiced their opinions to repeat themselves over and over again? Just to give a summary?

Besides, it won't be fair for either party if they don't get the chance to answer the same question, right? I would think any TB member who hasn't formed an opinion and is openly seeking for members input would have asked both pro-count and against-count parties the same question.

UNLESS, Punki, you've already seen "a clear and concise post" that has stated the "clear, specific, cognitive, comprehensible, reason that they do believe OMNI posts should count"? If so, may I ask which post is it? TIA!
BTW, CC posts don't count.

Technically, a post is not a post and all posts are not equal in our FT world at this point. I am all for principles and consistency. First, we have to be very clear on what are our principles. If "consistency" in post counts shall be implemented, another TB motion should be in place. Don't we have a modest proposal from last year on post counts that hasn't been moved yet? @:-)

Nail - on - head

That would require a separate TB motion and no doubt many more times the talk than even this thread has generated.

BTW, I'm not so quick to want to end all OMNI games as some who find them annoying. WWBTNFTTP is a much beloved OMNI game and you can't, IMHO at least, ban some games while not banning others.

No, no, no: His reason was that he made this decision in 2004 and forgot to flip a switch. Until wr_schwab did some research and found that this was not the case, after all, that Randy himself had back-tracked and said in late 2004 he was all for counting posts in OMNI.

THEN what you wrote became the reason.

At tom911's figures below show, some lucky folks appear to have wayyyy too much time on their hands,

Good for them. I wish I did.

But folks like my dear friend Alex posting near 20,000 times in just ONE totally mindless counting thread is just absurd if those posts count to an overall tally - which they have so far.

And what % of posts from these ~15,000 below (counting up and down from 100,000) did drbond make outside OMNI I wonder? I seem to recall in our last debate reading near zero. That is not adding to miles and points knowledge to anyone.

I do not recall ever seeing member szg post anywhere on FT that I have visited, yet note he/she has 16,422 posts in just 3 threads below. The mind boggles as what his/her total post count is.

-----------------------

Newest Omni Waste Of Time - Count Down From 100,000

User Name Posts
drbond 10,039
hhoope01 8,938
BiziBB 8,214
yashan 7,408
im-headed-west 6,005
oldpenny16 5,353
szg 4,604
the_traveler 4,179
Cornroaster 3,151
Amanda 3,058

Who Will Be The Next FlyerTalk Member To Post? An OMNI Game

User Name Posts
Kiwi Flyer 14,695
jfe 12,172
myefre 10,655
philk10 8,554
chrissxb 5,666
richard 5,030
Canarsie 4,992
Jenbel 3,472
szg 3,356
fumitani 3,029

Newest OMNI waste of time - count UP to 100,000

User Name Posts
Gaucho100K 18,357
szg 8,462
the_traveler 4,761
drbond 4,365

---------------------------

A simple posting bot could acheive the same ends and not add a bean of info to FT on miles and points.

We could have 1000 bots posting 10000 posts a day .. would that assist FT in any way?

Folks with weeks ans months of spare time to killl can do what they like with it on such threads - just from now on it will not count to absolutely massive post totals. Sounds fair, and is years overdue.

Glen

Agreed, but is triggering a formal vote really the only way, or the best way, to accomplish this? What's wrong with opening a discussion on this forum before seconding the proposal, allowing it to be debated and refined first?

Who really cares when it's done? A wrong/bad decision is a wrong/bad decision minutes after OR years after.

Yup, let's start the talk on "black helicopters." That's always productive.

FWIW, when I made this motion the TB Topics and ORP threads regarding this subject were locked...

What is the purpose of this post? Only thing I see this doing is rehasing something that we all (appear to) agree on: That posting in OMNI has been abused in some cases. Those threads you mentioned above are not a part of my argument since I agree that something needs to be done about them.

I'm just failing to understand how cutting off OMNI all together is more effective to solving this problem than an enforcement of the TOS.