Game threads and Postcounts

[fawkes]

Since the sticky is supposed to be a suggestion box, I thought it might be a good idea to make a thread of this in case anyone else wanted to talk about it.

Here's what some people have already said in the Suggestion Box sticky:

Please do your best to preserve postcount, it is useful (to me) in sizing somebody up. Plus, it's rude to decimate somebody's postcount without any warning and without a good reason.

Most people here don't want game threads affecting post counts because they aren't really a good measure of whether a person has become a member of the community.

Some people see post count as one's contributions to the community. A post saying "moo" is a lot less substantive than a detailed rebuttal to some heated debate or whatever.

And I don't think any complaints/suggestions about post count are going to be heeded. An easier solution is: stop worrying about post count, since it doesn't matter.

If it's possible to disable posts in all the game threads, not just the more popular ones, that's my suggestion. I don't want those counting because you get people who post garbage just to post something.

Basically, I tend to think any post is a contribution to the forum. Yes, there are some who just post garbage to get their count up, but sometimes someone just posting "moo" could be in response to someone else's random comment, and wants to have fun and feel included in the randomness.

While postcount doesn't mean much in terms of someone's status among the forum members (some mods only have a few posts while regular members have over a thousand), I enjoy trying to increase my rank, either by joining in a serious discussion, or just having fun goofing around in the Game Room. I've only been here a week, but I enjoy this forum and the people in it.

So, what do you think? Does postcount really matter? Does content matter? Do you think the posts made in game threads shouldn't count the way other posts do?

I'm not trying to turn this into an argument, so please don't take it that way. I just want to see what everyone else thinks.

[v-girl]

I don't care, and that's true either way, whether we continue to count game room posts or not. Because post count honestly means nothing to me anymore. I'd like to think that even though I don't have 500+ posts that I am still a part of the community. You can be a part of the community regardless of how many posts you have.

Now, if the vote question were, "Should we count game room posts?" I probably still would have said no if I had to pick. Because I, for one, find it ridiculous that some of our top posters have (or had) well over 50% of their posts coming from the game threads. I don't necessarily think anything needs to be done about it, but I would really examine your motives for posting if you are upset about whether game room posts count or not.

[LilBee91]

^ What she said.

[powerfulcheese04]

I don't think the game room posts should count.

I mean it's fun and all, sometimes. But most of the actual content of the forum and the real community aspects of it occur eslewhere.

[Jebus]

What's the point of giving the post counts value by having a rank system if the majority of a post count is made up of one word comments in brain-dead games?

[VelvetElvis]

Do the postcounts really matter all that much?

[anonshadow]

I don't care, and that's true either way, whether we continue to count game room posts or not. Because post count honestly means nothing to me anymore. I'd like to think that even though I don't have 500+ posts that I am still a part of the community. You can be a part of the community regardless of how many posts you have.

Now, if the vote question were, "Should we count game room posts?" I probably still would have said no if I had to pick. Because I, for one, find it ridiculous that some of our top posters have (or had) well over 50% of their posts coming from the game threads. I don't necessarily think anything needs to be done about it, but I would really examine your motives for posting if you are upset about whether game room posts count or not.

Agreed.

[ValentineNicole]

I agree with Catherine.
I don't really care. If I had to chose, I'd say don't include the game room posts, but that's just me. Honestly, I don't really feel like post count matters much at all - especially given that so many people here have been on pweb so very long and have just had all of that restart.
Am I judged by the fact that I have under 100 posts?
I had over 5000 on the old forum, and quite a fair bit ( though I have no clue how many) on Ye Olde Pweb. I've been a member for almost half a decade. Am I in any lesser rank than a newbie with hundreds of posts?
*shrugs*
Anyway, that's just my two cents. I don't think anyone should make a big deal about it. So you lost some posts. Move on.

[Virlomi]

I know that the right answer would be to say that post counts don't matter and I've moved past such things... but the truth is that no matter how long I'm here, I'm still going to care, however petty. I feel like being a part of a community is something that's built over time... it's learning its rhythms and its idiosyncrasies, its learning names and making relationships, its learning about and respecting the traditions and the history that defines the existing culture, in some ways its about paying your dues... and then eventually, once you really understand the culture you're walking into you can begin to help shape it. I know this is probably really small and shallow of me, but I get annoyed when someone comes in without understanding or honoring that process and instead just haunt the game room for two days and become the highest poster. I feel like it cheapens something that I see as a way to gauge the slow, daily process of immersing yourself into a culture. Anyway, that's my two cents on it, at least.

[Bevis]

No, the postcounts do not matter. Even if the game room were excluded, there are plenty of posts throughout the other forums that don't add significantly to a conversation. Maybe someone's just agreeing with the previous poster or razzing them or bickering with a longtime foe or sliding a joke to a longtime friend. The only effective way to know the quality of the post you're reading is by reading the post. (Oooo, cyclicle.) And a posters collection of conversations is the only way to tell if thier posts are worth the trouble of reading.

[v-girl]

I agree completely, Janelle. Because there certainly was a time when I cared about post count. There was a time when having the highest post count actually meant something. Trust me, if it had never mattered to me, I wouldn't pride myself on being in the top ten posters on Pweb 2.0, at least for the first couple years.

But the fact is that it is already cheapened. The title doesn't mean anything anymore. And for those of us that already have our niche, I really don't think it means anything at all.

edit: Oh, and trust me, I'm not above petty things. Remember the whole thing about who joined Pweb 3.0 first? So I would admit it if post counts really mattered to me.

[mr_thebrain]

at this point it really doesn't matter if we count them or not. but in the future, when there are a whole lot of newbies around that only want to get their count up, yeah, they shouldn't count.

personally i don't care much about my post count. i don't like having threads that i contribute to be deleted all the sudden, with no warning or explanation. i think it's rude and bad business.

having been active on the game board since the rebirth i can say that while there was a lot of meaningless posts. there were also a lot that actually did mean something. in the past now. so it doesn't much matter.

my point is just because it's a nonsensical game doesn't mean that nothing of worth is being said or has been said in it in the past. as such it IS contributing to the form.

anyway it doesn't matter what any of us think. it's what they think.

[Jayelle]

Should have posted this here...

Just a note about the deletion of the threads. There was a long discussion about it in the super-secret mod fortress, and the consensus from all involved was to periodically delete the Word Association and the Last Post threads.

I agree with what many people have said here- posts that are one word long don't reflect a contribution to the community and aren't important for archival.

(I think I spelled about a million things wrong in that post...)

[starlooker]

I cared about post count in Pweb II. A lot more than I was willing to admit to anybody (except Ali). I was especially crazy over it right before the board crashed. That's because I was less than twenty posts away from my 3000th post (right near my fourth anniversary). I had plans for that. I cared about it in part because I never really tried to boost my post count. It really did show my nearly four years of contribution, and because on the memberlist page I could see the members who had been in Pweb for a really long time. Whose names were legends to me. That sort of thing.

Here, in the world of Pweb 3.0, post count means nothing to me. It's just all too new. The members who are most foundational are no longer in the crazy active posting phase, it seems, and so their actual contribution to pweb culture won't show. So, right now, it means nothing. I think it'll take a long time before it means something again, and I'm not sure it'll ever really mean that much to me.

[ValentineNicole]

I think Kristen pretty much summed up my feelings entirely. I think Ye Olde Pweb is when it meant most to me. I was the top poster for a looooong time on the most recent version. It began to not really mean anything to me back then, but especially now that the board restarted, it just feels like everyone is sort of on equal grounds. I can see it making a difference in the way future, I suppose, being that all of the oldest members will have been posting since the start.

[eriador]

I know that I shouldn't care, but (however petty it is) I do care, at some level, about my postcount.

Anyway, regarding deletion, if the consensus was that they would be periodically deleted (preventing posts in those threads from affecting overall post count) it should have been announced more clearly, instead of being sprung on us out of the blue.

[ValentineNicole]

I know that I shouldn't care, but (however petty it is) I do care, at some level, about my postcount.

Anyway, regarding deletion, if the consensus was that they would be periodically deleted (preventing posts in those threads from affecting overall post count) it should have been announced more clearly, instead of being sprung on us out of the blue.

Dude. You have 600 posts, and I don't even really know who you are..
Many extremely established members I've known for years, who only have maybe 100.
Get over it.

[fawkes]

For those of us who are new here (myself included), all we have to go on as far as how long someone's been here or how much they post is entirely dependent on join date and postcount. I don't know anyone very well, I don't know how many incarnations you've gone through, and when I look to the left, that's all I get about who you are and how long you've been here. Some of the people who've been here the longest have maybe 200 posts, but have been here since the forum restarted. I can't tell that just by looking. Also, I think it's exciting, trying to achieve a higher rank. Again, I'm new here, and it's so much fun trying to rise through the ranks like a battle school kid. I try not to reply to messages unless I have something relevent to say, but when it comes to the games, I'm just having fun. If my rank goes up because of it, cool! I know it doesn't make me better than anyone else.

[hive_king]

Eriador, you don't understand. This isn't any sort of touchy-feely poster-run board. It's run by mods, they are the authorities, and if you don't like their decisions, that's too bad. If you care so much, make posts that actually matter and actually enhance pweb, instead of haunting the game room and making totally useless posts in Religions that do nothing but to derail and denigrate the entire debate. Real, substance-filled posts is what really makes you a pwebber, not post count.

[ValentineNicole]

That's all good and fine, but the forum only restarted a few months ago. A lot of us have been on pweb for years and years

It doesn't say much at all. Personally, I don't even really think it should be displayed at the left. If you're really curious, there are other ways to find out who has the most posts. Having it at such close access only provides more inspiration for nonsense posts..

[eriador]

I posted this in the sticky, but it belongs here:

Please do your best to preserve postcount, it is useful (to me) in sizing somebody up.

Then your attempts at sizing people up are inherently flawed anyway.

I will find myself glancing at postcount as a "how much has this person done?" I only count it as a "how active" meter, nothing else. I don't use it as a basis for determining how much they contribute, I look at content for that. I see postcount in (very roughly) three catagories:

0 - anwhere between 25 and 60: Not very active member, or new here

mid/high double digits - between 150 and 250: Good, substantive poster. Probably "old timer" or discriminating poster.

high: good poster. very active.

ONCE AGAIN, THIS IS JUST A ROUGH GUIDELINE THAT I USE AND IT IS A VERY SMALL PART OF MY OPINION OF SOMEBODY. MY LARGEST FACTOR IS POST CONTENT, NOT COUNT. I USUALLY ONLY USE THIS ON PEOPLE WHO I DON'T IMMEDIATELY RECOGNIZE. I ALSO DID NOT CONSCIOUSLY COME UP WITH THIS, BUT RATHER IT DEVELOPED AS I KEPT SEEING POSTCOUNTS UNDER USERNAMES.

I think that posts in the game threads should count, given the way I consider postcount.

[Eaquae Legit]

I've been away for the weekend, so I wasn't aware this was going to be done so soon. But this is just to confirm what JL said. We have been talking about this since the boards came back up, and we did reach a conclusion.

I cared about my count on the old boards, to an extent. I miss the number, still. But it's not worth it for me to post a bunch of nonsense posts just because I miss a number. It'll get back to it eventually, unless the boards crash again. Slow and steady and all that jazz.

*shrug* I don't care too much right now. But I do like the idea of deleting some of the more pointless threads - there are people that pay for that bandwidth, you know. I also like the idea of postcount being a marker of contribution, not merely the ability to hit "submit."

[Jayelle]

Anyway, regarding deletion, if the consensus was that they would be periodically deleted (preventing posts in those threads from affecting overall post count) it should have been announced more clearly, instead of being sprung on us out of the blue.

Can I ask - what difference would it have made if it had been "announced"?

A few months ago the entire board went down with no warning whatsoever. That was five years of posts. That was alot of life for the people on this board.
I have trouble sympathizing over a few one word posts lost.

[Gravity Defier]

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The requested post was not found.

[puppets]

Trying not to offend anyones personal opinion here, but I am a new user to the forums, I remeber reading alot of what people of the past posted here, but never made an account or joined in, mainly because I felt out of my league. Some of you are simply intelligent people, and I feel inadequate compared to what you have to say most the time. Butt-kissing out of the way, I prefer they remove the postcount, instead maybe... a day count? How long has a person been a part of this community, and also maybe how many hours they have spent posting on the boards. There are other alternatives that make it much more... *thinks*... accurate? Its to easy for me to say moo, poo, goo, over and over again each post. I won't say I haven't made any irrelevant posts. If anything, most of my posts are irrelevant, mainly because I'm still not a member of your community, and my opinions probably won't be as respected until I prove my worth.

And anyways, the people who post on here enough, know the ones who have given to the community, and they know the ones who have not, what is the opinion of the ones who don't participate so well?

[Young Val]

i really miss Kirsten's old post on the last forum about in what ways this is a community, and how we have our own little town drunks and lovers and wisemen and vagrants and all that jazz.

in fact, i remember quoting it several times in other totally unrelated internet places when things got all shirty every now and again.

it was so simple and well-said and really true in a way. i loved it.

[anonshadow]

But I do like the idea of deleting some of the more pointless threads - there are people that pay for that bandwidth, you know. I also like the idea of postcount being a marker of contribution, not merely the ability to hit "submit."

And, in reality, is there any archieval value in the "word association" and "last post" threads?

... no. If you think there is, you need a life. If you spent time combing through the "word association" thread, you really needed someone to put you out of your misery, and you should be thanking Ollie, JL, EL, John, etc.

[Virlomi]

Puppets, I dare you to add moo at the end of all of your posts. That would make me happy.

Just to say, I realize that this, like most forums, can be a kind of forbidding and strange atmosphere when you first stumble across it and hang around for a bit. Personally, I love it when new posters come in and add their own flavor to the mix, and the last thing I want to imply is that you're unwelcome, or intruding. It's a complicated balance, because to some of us Pweb has been an incredibly influential and precious part of our lives at one time or another, and it can be a little bit unsettling when a new batch of fresh posters make it their own, because we can start to feel a little displaced. And now more than ever, while everything is inherently displaced and lacking context I think I at least am a little on edge about the whole thing. Anyway, I just thought I would express that for some of the newer members who are maybe catching some mixed messages. All of that to say that I'm glad y'all are here, and I hope you'll be patient with us crusty old farts while you settle in.

(Officially my very first opportunity to refer to myself or anyone else as a "crusty old fart.")

[zeroguy]

Butt-kissing out of the way, I prefer they remove the postcount, instead maybe... a day count? How long has a person been a part of this community, and also maybe how many hours they have spent posting on the boards. There are other alternatives that make it much more... *thinks*... accurate?

There are many (some complicated) systems for rating/moderating/etc posts (and members) on message boards, among other things. But when it comes down to it, really the only way of "rating" someone on the board is to be around for a while, and get a feel for who that person is. Can you even assign a number as to how involved a member is in a community? It's not even objective.

[anonshadow]

Its to easy for me to say moo, poo, goo, over and over again each post. I won't say I haven't made any irrelevant posts. If anything, most of my posts are irrelevant, mainly because I'm still not a member of your community, and my opinions probably won't be as respected until I prove my worth.

When I first joined PWeb last summer, my opinions were respected when I posted in some of the religious/moral question threads. Your opinions are respected if they deserve respect--there are several (okay, one) new poster whose input I really respect, and many older members whose opinions make me laugh my ass off.

And if you wouldn't call randomly saying "poo" irrelevant, what would you call it, exactly?

Immature? Obnoxious?

Those don't necessarily negate the label of "irrelevant," you know. Don't feel like you have to limit yourself.

[Eaquae Legit]

Elena made me laugh.

[anonshadow]

Can you even assign a number as to how involved a member is in a community? It's not even objective.

On another message board I frequent, we can rate each other positively, negatively, or neutrally. And if you add a comment to it, the negative becomes -2 instead of -1 and the positive becomes +2 instead of +1. You can only rate any one member once.

Some people get very upset at negative ratings. I cherish my negative ratings. They're really amusing.

One girl said, "I was totally shocked to hear you're 18" after I berated her for posting all these myspace quizes and s*** on the site (there were six or so different threads) and called her whining about how unfair the mods were because they locked a thread of hers stupid and puerile.

That one was a gem.

[Rei]

I may as well start with the fact that I am a little sad that I lost my post count. I worked hard to get where I was. I guess I see post count as reflective of someone's dedication to a forum. It doesn't mean that they're a good poster or that they are a bad one, but that they show that whomever is posting has a history and a dedication to these fora. And honestly, game room posts do not reflect that at all as some of the newest people can jump to incredibly high post counts in almost no time at all. So I love having post counts and I find them important. But all they should be used for is to show evidence of history and dedication.

[anonshadow]

Is it possible to assign different waiting periods to different forums?

And if so, would the mods be amenable to making the waiting period for the game room 5 or 10 minutes?

[AnthonyByakko]

who the hell cares

post count = how little life you have.