In my opinion, that's fine, but they'd have to hire a whole phalanx of moderators to go through every single thread deciding if every post is worthy of being counted or not. It's simply not realistic.

Post count measures exactly that - posts. It says nothing about quality. If you're going to impose a standard for posts that are quality and contribute, then it should be a totally different category of number.

ALSO, I believe that if the rules are going to be changed, editing past post count would wind up being arbitrary and inaccurate because of how long this forum's been around. If new rules like that emerge, it should start at that moment and affect future posts.

Most members don't, but some do, like Cobalt (who created an "official bump thread" in the wasteland) and Matthew (Matt.au, who used to actively pursue postcount milestones).


The Wasteland is, as defined, where threads go to die. It has also become the place where inane game threads reside. There's no reason why posts in it should count towards someone's visible postcount, even if there happen to be a few good posts amongst all the waste. And there's no reason to create a whole new subforum just so the few game threads there are can be excluded from people's postcounts.

Don't hate on my Official Bump Thread! I found a loophole in the rules about spam and decided to abuse it.

ALSO


Third post in that thread, thank you very much. You're just as guilty.

I maintain my view that if these rules were to apply, changing current post counts would become inaccurate slashing of entire threads off post count and that it should only apply from the point the rule is instated onward.

post counts matter, people look at them all the time. I think join dates carry more weight, but... just look at any time a fight breaks out, most posted in board/thread always gets trotted out as evidence of irrelevance

I'm not saying anyone's guilty of anything. I'm saying those kinds of threads and posts shouldn't count towards the most instantly-visible indicator of forum presence.


What rule? It's a matter of applying a setting and being done with it.

Oh, whatever. It's the fricking wasteland. Posts shouldn't count there because, really? KILL THEM, DAVEY. KILL THEM.

Rule, setting, whatever. I don't think it should affect past posts.

Oh, so you just argued against me for the lulz?

BAN SIMON.

Nah. I just realized how idiotically prissy I was being. It's the damn wasteland. Land of waste. Waste them posts, someone, please.

Well, I think to do that anyway René would have to run some process to retroactively alter all the posts, whereas simply changing the setting now would only apply to posts made in the wasteland. Meaning, I believe, that posts made in a thread before it gets moved to the wasteland will still count — only posts made while a thread is in the wasteland won't.

Well yeah, but in order for that to be accurate you'd have to take into consideration when a thread was wastelanded and figure out which posts still count. It would be an enormous waste of time to make it accurate and just doing it the easy way would make it inaccurate. Which was why I was saying it should apply to future posts.

Who cares? More posts will be made. I don't think post count accuracy is hugely important.

The turn of events in this thread further prove why the PMDT is necessary for this forum. We need to be secluded!

This.

Who would have to figure out such things? Inaccurate? What?

Let me clarify: *adds a word to last post*

How else would we know which posts were made before the thread was Wastelanded? Is there even a record of when threads got Wastelanded? There's no way to know when the thread was wastelanded and which posts SHOULD count because they were posted there beforehand, so excluding all of the posts in those threads from post count would be unfair.

EDIT: OHHHH okay, now that you added the extra word I get it now.

Why does visible post count need to be such a stringent measure? It's not a reputation mechanism; this change is just a solution looking for a problem.

Also: "even if there happen to be a few good posts amongst all the waste"... can't that be said about the entire site?

It's not a reputation mechanism according to whom? I certainly payed attention to a member's post count when I joined, as did many others. Just because you say it isn't doesn't make it so.

This.

If you're going to exclude wasteland posts from post count because they aren't quality or contributing, that sets the standard that only quality and contributing posts should count, and then it would have to be applied to the entire forum.

Do you know what a reputation mechanism is? A feedback loop is what I was hinting at.