Improve the forum experience - Ditch the post count!

Because seriously, at the end of the day, does it really mean anything if a person has 5,000 posts to his or her credit? Or 5? Or 50,000?

Nope. It means absolutely nothing. It doesn’t tell you anything about the person’s expertise or ability or anything of that nature. It doesn’t really aid you in forming an opinion about whether they know what they’re talking about, their knowledge base, etc.

All it really tells you is … nothing, really. Although for those who feel compelled to reach for that ever-changing goal of “highest number of posts,” that quest frequently serves to clutter things up for the majority of readers not so enamored.

So do us all a favor, FSM, and improve the forum experience in one fell swoop - ditch the post count after each forum member’s name. Those of us who recognize the banality of such things will appreciate it a great deal.

Yes,it means nothing. Yes it is foolish if you are just trying to accumulate numbers.

But keep it because it doesn’t bother anything and it’s fun

Im extremley proud of my 2000+ post count, and heck 80% of them were meaningful posts…i think. It doesnt hurt anyone.

And if nothing else it lets people know about manny…[;)]

LOL.

It doesn’t matter, but neither do names, location, avatar, badges, and smileys. It’s just fun. I see no problem with it.

I simply ignore the post count, it means nothing to me.

But how would it improve the forum? I don’t look to see how many posts someone has made, or if I do, I don’t make any judgement based on it. I don’t get the problem?

I’m going to be the voice of dissent and say I find the post count to be very useful at times.

Not at the high side. I could care less. Some people post a lot. Some people have been posting for a long time. Others have been doing both. Awesome. Let’s give them ding dongs (or in Manny’s case, ho-hos).

Where I find it useful is when someone has a post count in the single digits. Just one small factor, but I’m a lot more hesitant to put a ton of time into a response to someone asking “tell me how to do weathering?” with a total of two posts to their name, because who knows if they’ll even be back to read it? Doesn’t mean I won’t respond, but I won’t go “all-in”, and will usually try a qualifying question to 1) see if there’s a response and 2) narrow down the topic.

So from that standpoint, yes, I find post counts very handy. Though I could care less if they just stopped at 1000+.

Im sorry doogs, but that really bugs me.

The saying is actually “I couldnt care less” indicating you care so little theres no more room to care less.

Saying “I could care less” indicates you have the ability to care less, therefore you seem to care at least a little.

Sorry if im nitpicking, just really rubs me the wrong way every time i see it.

Yes it means something if only because it caused you to post that it doesnt mean anything .

No need to be eliminated .

[dto:] It still doesn’t indicate their experience/skill level, but it is good to know that someone is new (or sorta-new) to the forums. I have also seen gorgeous finished pics, and very helpful tips & responses from posters with a very low post count. Maybe we need to add a “lurk-count”! [^o)]

Long live the post count. In fact, we should add a “thread count” to indicate how many threads a person has started.

If the post count is meaningless, then in my arrogant opinion, its harmless. If something this meaningless and probably harmless bothers you, then that says a lot about you. Maybe you should focus on model kits and ignore the meaningless items (threads, post counts, my comments about anything) within this forum.

Make it great day, or not. The choice is yours. [:D]

Gently, gently, there MAJ Mike,

You may not like mfsob’s suggestion, but that’s no reason to insult him.

Regards, Aaron

In 10 years online I have seen this topic appear numerous times.

Some say but it is harmless. Bullshit we all know the truth, it’s about little boys needing to have that high post count. Otherwise they would post messages that have content, and there suddenly would be no reason to post comments that said nothing aside from making it known ‘I was here’.

I have heard grumbles on this forum and on several other places on the internet infested, and yes I said INFESTED with little boys hiding in the bodies of old men concerning the usual problem of post counts. As well as the rep function another scourge of internet forums.

Harmless? no it’s not harmless. I have seen the comments leveled at good ole boy cliques where people of marginal post counts get ignored in favour of high post count forum commandos.

Don’t tell us it’s harmless when it isn’t or so help me I’ll smack you a good one the likes of which would make your granny smile.

Avatars serve a function especially with high speed scanning of a thread. It allows rapid visual identification of people you follow. Because that image sticks out easier than your actual name.

The sig lines though are a bit much. Yes we all know you like your badges and your banners and your bragging rights options. But at least they are not as abused as post counts are.

Yes they are abused. If you had no post count total, every single post you posted would need to stand on it’s own merits each and every time just like a letter to the editor would. I actually miss the good old days of needing to actually write a letter in to an editor for inclusion in a print medium that had to make it past all the others for it to see the light of day in circulation.

The newspaper never had any +1 posts. Magazines would only print comments that actually had something to say. Forums seem to be a bit too much of the attention getting spoiled brat indulging for their own good.

Yes it can all be ignored, in much the way your mother would ignore you when you were being a brat. Which likely explains why sometimes some people leave and don’t return, to leave the place to being just the haunt of people desperately posting comments that essentially are all variations on ‘look at me’.

That the post count is a problem does NOT say something about me that is a negative, it says something about the people that need it, and it IS a negative. If you can’t all tell the staff here, go for it ditch the post count function, then you really DO have a pathetic need.

And if your reply, is I need a life and I should be maybe making my models instead, maybe I just will eh. Because at the end of the day, maybe some of us simply don’t need to hang out with little boys that can’t survive without their ego stroking post counts.

Aaron, show us that Finescale Modeler Forums is truly a place where the comment is what is important, not the post count. Show us you actually CAN delete a function that has no true value. It DOESN’T have any true value and you know it.

There’s more than a few members here that clearly would either be making a model more so than posting pointless posts, or simply would post a lot less if they had to make a real comment because the sum of their comments had no gainful use.

If they’re going to get people this incensed, fine, do away with 'em.

I still say it’s useful to know when someone has a very low post count. At the high end, meh.

Ummmm… excuse me? You wanna rethink that?

Keep the count, fine Delete the count, fine

Does not really matter to me

Although, there seems to be some strong opinions either way…

"Little boys in mens body’s " ? Looking at that comment makes me think about the fact that most of us started building models when we were little boys and a good percentage of us here on these forums are adults now and still have the desire to build models that we acquired as little boys …maybe thats just a fact about us model builders , we are little boys in mens clothng . Well thats not insulting to me at all ! . [Y]

Are you really trying to make the argument that removing post counts is somehow going to dramatically increase the ‘intellectual’ quality of posts here? [:S]

It also seems like you are suggesting that not only should post counts be removed, but each and every post placed on the threads should be reviewes to make sure they are a “real comment” and not one that was “the sum of their contents [having] no gainful use”.

Don’t take this personal, but I think that’s naive.

By they way, for the record, the only time I really pay any attention to posts counts is to click on them to find a post by a particular user.