My "6000th Post" [discussion On Some Core Omb Posting Elements]

[ThatOneFox]

Well it isn't really. It's just how many of my posts OMB considers useful discussion. In reality i have above 15k, but apparently those aren't official posts.

A year or so back, the decision was taken to discount any posts in forum games and pigflags, and instead only show posts made in the other sections. This was to discredit the whole proverbial pissing match that was the post count.

In hindsight though, this has not solved the issue. Instead it has just given us an inaccurate number of any given user's post count. I mean it literally says .

Even when taking account of the "discussion" based boards, there's always going to be joke posts, so in reality disregarding pigflag posts didn't really add any insight to how many discussion based posts a user has made.

No matter what happens, post count is going to be a pissing contest whether it includes post count from forum games/pigflags or not. So was it really the best decision discounting them, instead offering any given user an innacurate number of their contribution to the site and forcing them to actually individually count how many posts they have made to find the true number?

In my opinion, no. It wasn't. I think we should have the old counting system back, or even better, two post counts. One for overall posts and one for posts made in discussion boards.



Slightly off topic, but OMB really needs a post rating system similar to facepunch. Basically when a user makes a post, the other users can rate it "agree" "disagree" "funny" "dumb" "useful" "informative" "friendly" "optimistic" "artistic" or "late". This would be a better indicator as to who has provided most to discussions as it could display on a users post how many of each rating the post has received. It could also display the total number of each rating each user has achieved.

Anyway, TL;DR is OMB should reintroduce the counting of posts in pigflags/forum games and introduce a rating system for more accurate post rating rather than just post count.

[papaya]

as someone recently banned from facepunch yes the rating system is great but i dont see it working on a small, sensitive forum like this. imagine the chaos if some users (not mentioning names) got rated dumb. does nobody remember when boberto got really really pissy that me and my meme crew were rating his posts negatively on voxelus?

and yes the only people who care about post counts are the people with really high ones, so i see no reason not to allow counting of posts again
i could argue to not include it for forum games for the simple fact that both the count to 10000 and mods vs users threads would bump everyones up by a couple hundred surely, but if we're making pigflags count might as well make forum games count. god knows they're the only two active subforums anyway

[ThatOneFox]

I proposed the rating system because the initial discounting of forum games/pigflags was because the admin team wanted the post count to be something that shows how much a user has contributed actual discussion to the website, and personally I think a rating system would be more suited to that than discounting posts made in forum games and pigflags.

imo post count should be what it says on the tin.

[Phantomboy]

Just to toss my little cent into the ring, I've never had a massive opinion on post count as I feel it is just a utility thing more than anything. You do raise a point that if given a statistic in which user may compare, some will feel an incentive to do so. I have been pretty proud that no one has taken it too far and turned into too much of a personality contest. I would posit that if it ever does become too much of a field for gloating or boasting, then we should just drop the number entirely-- maybe display the date joined there instead. If we could implement some sort of user/post voting system, I'd worry that it would turn into the same debate.

Although I am pretty flexible when it comes to these opinions!

[ThatOneFox]

Well it never was a massive boasting thing, apart from the occasional milestone threads in pigflags.

[Sebastian Lawe]

Even now, the stats continue to disregard the forums counting system. Of course, it will never be as accurate as it cant read deleted threads or posts.

[ThatOneFox]

Even now, the stats continue to disregard the forums counting system.

And yet they dont show post count for any one individual user.

[Sebastian Lawe]

And yet they dont show post count for any one individual user.

[ThatOneFox]

Definitely not accurate.

[Sebastian Lawe]

Definitely not accurate.

Of course, it will never be as accurate as it cant read deleted threads or posts.

[ThatOneFox]

Deleted posts never counted towards overall post count anyway.

[Phantomboy]

I don't think we should digress to arguing if the forum statistics are true or not, because regardless of if they are, it does not really define rather or not we should change the post count criteria on the forums themselves.

I feel, particularly in Forum Games it is an odd thing as you have some threads which essentially are all about posting frequently and continually very short messages. For instance, Mods vs. Users and Count to 10,000. While I understand the desire for accuracy, it is true that threads like those essentially artificially boost post counts.

But putting all of that aside, if other users feel it is a major issue, then I will happily fold and turn post count back on for the sections it is currently disabled for.

[ThatOneFox]

I feel, particularly in Forum Games it is an odd thing as you have some threads which essentially are all about posting frequently and continually very short messages. For instance, Mods vs. Users and Count to 10,000. While I understand the desire for accuracy, it is true that threads like those essentially artificially boost post counts.

How do they "artificially" boost the post count? They are posts on the forum nonetheless, and are still notable participation in forum activities. That's why I suggested a rating system would be better for determining valuable posts.

[ElectroYoshi]

Even back when it was first introduced I thought it was kind of stupid. It effectively changed post counts from an indicator of how many times a user had posted to "This isn't actually the user's full post count, but we're sure as hell not gonna tell you what is". And besides, actual discussion is on pretty much the same level as it was before.

I would like the idea of having a post count for pigflags and forum games and another for everything else. States how much actual discussion the user has partaken in while still being an indicator of overall activity.

[papaya]

an arbitrary activity level
remove total posts, replace with posts per day?

[ThatOneFox]

Even back when it was first introduced I thought it was kind of stupid. It effectively changed post counts from an indicator of how many times a user had posted to "This isn't actually the user's full post count, but we're sure as hell not gonna tell you what is". And besides, actual discussion is on pretty much the same level as it was before.

I would like the idea of having a post count for pigflags and forum games and another for everything else. States how much actual discussion the user has partaken in while still being an indicator of overall activity.

To give an example with electro's post, this is where a post rating system would come into action. At this moment in time I would simply rate electro's post "agree", but since such a system doesnt exist, i would have to 'artificially boost my post count' in order to state my agreement.

[ThatOneFox]

an arbitrary activity level
remove total posts, replace with posts per day?

Surely the same supposed issues would occur in this as they would in an overall post count.

[papaya]

yeah but one of the main arguments against post count is that it means pretty much all the newbies are gonna have the lowest amounts

and one argument for post count is that its an indicator of activity, posts per day is a MUCH better statistic for that. who's more active - the newbie who posts 100 posts in a week, or the old user who posts 100 posts across like 2 years?

[ThatOneFox]

yeah but one of the main arguments against post count is that it means pretty much all the newbies are gonna have the lowest amounts

and one argument for post count is that its an indicator of activity, posts per day is a MUCH better statistic for that. who's more active - the newbie who posts 100 posts in a week, or the old user who posts 100 posts across like 2 years?

The point is, post count should never have been an activity or contribution measuring device. It should literally be used for what it is supposed to. Measuring posts. We already have a way to measure the most active user (even if it is slightly flawed) in the form of sebs statistics.

This is why i was arguing for a rating system. People could look and be like "hey this guy has 3000 posts, but only 300 or so are rated as useful/agree, wheras this new guy only has 200 posts, but hell 90% of them are rated useful/agree.

[papaya]

only way ratings are gonna work in htis forum is if they're all positive ratings i.e no dumb ratings