Make post counts public
 

This suggestion is prompted by the AS Moderating Staff's recent decision to disable rep, as announced here.

Now, I didn't put a lot of weight into rep points. I knew some members with "one green dot" that made some great posts, so I wouldn't assume something about the quality of a member's posts or anime knowledge based on how many green dots they had or didn't have.

However, I did see, and continue to see, rep points as being a good indicator of at least one thing - AS Veteran status.

What I mean by that is that if I saw someone with several green dots (5 or more, say), I could safely assume that this person has been a regular and active member here on AS for a fair bit of time. While some people build up rep quicker than others, I think it's nonetheless true that a certain number of rep points indicates a certain longevity of posting here on AS.


Now, back when I myself was fairly new to Anime Suki, recognizing such veterans on the basis of their "green dots" was helpful to me. I remember noticing Vexx, Irenicus, TinyRedLeaf, and some other members as having lots of green dots. One thing that conveyed to me was "veteran status". So when trying to learn the ropes around AS, and in trying to get used to the sort of community culture here, I found it helpful to pay attention to their posting style and in some cases to ask them for advice directly.

With this in mind, I think it might be good to make post counts public, now that the rep system is going to be removed. Public post counts would enable future new members to the boards to recognize current veteran posters, which can be helpful to them in the same way that those little green dots were once helpful to me.

Now, I know that some might be fearful that this could lead to a sort of elitism. But honestly, on most boards I've been on, that's not the case. People recognize those with large post counts as veterans of a particular online community, but that is it.


Public post counts is a suggestion that was made before on this subforum, but I saw such a thing as redundant at the time precisely because we had the rep system. But with the rep system going away, I think that one of the benefits it provided could be captured by introducing public post counts.

To be clear, what I mean by public post counts is that under your avatar picture would be a display of how many posts you've made since joining Anime Suki. In fact, we could put this display precisely where those little green dots are now. It may be fitting.

If I recall correctly, the post count was visible at every post in the past. Now it's only available in your public profile.

I think the reason was because they don't want you to use post counts as some kind of mark of status.

Basically yes, and we don't want people to try to "level up" their post count by posting useless drivel (and having posts like "5000 posts GET!" or whatever). Post quality is way more important to us than post count, so it was felt that de-emphasizing the count helped communicate that just posting frequently isn't an important measurement. Perhaps there is some sort of gap caused by the retirement of the current reputation system... but I personally don't think filling it with the post count is the best direction. We do have the Join Date visible, so between that and actually seeing posters in action, I think you get a sense pretty quickly of who has been here for a while and can show you the ropes.

No, the post count was never displayed under a user's account, and that was one thing that made AnimeSuki somewhat unique among message forums at the time.

As far as I'm concerned, the lack of green blocks will cause the "join date" to act as a sort of indicator of "veteran status" (although it's arguably not as good as the green blocks, or as join date + post count). I guess we're becoming too concerned with being recognized as veterans on the site, eh? :)

The problem with including the post count is that it encourages people to post a lot when they first join, in order to gain respect in the community and to raise their number to be closer to those of other people. I don't think I'd do it now (and I certainly don't care about post count - I actually like the idea of trying to get my "post per day" statistic down to 1.0), but I remember posting a bit more than usual when I was a teenager on new message forums for that reason. Having a larger number made it seem as if you were deeply embedded in the community, and that other members would respect you.

Yeah, I think it's fine the way it is. If someone wants to know how active a member is, they can go to the public profile to look at some statistics, including post count. Thanks for the correction.

Is new members wanting to post and contribute a lot right away necessarily a bad thing?

To be clear, I actually don't like post counts as a sign of veteran status as much as I liked the rep system. The rep system essentially acts as a filter against drivel posts, after all.

Nonetheless, I'm not sure if join date alone is a very good way to determine veteran status. You could have someone who joined back in 2007, and has been active for maybe a month since then.


To be fair, this isn't a major concern I'm raising here, but nor do I think that publicly displaying post counts would cause major problems. ANN's forums seems to function fine with them, last time I was there. And I think some newcomers to AS might find it a bit strange for it to have neither a rep system nor public post counts. I myself can't think of any other internet message board that has neither a rep system or public post counts.

Of course not, but - at least in my experience - the additional activity is forced. I'll admit that back when I did it, I would go hunting for threads where I could get a word in. It wasn't necessarily that I had something valuable to say, I just wanted that number to go up and had to so in such a way that wasn't technically spamming. I feel that we already have a small issue with "comment bomb"-type threads and lack of true discussion; I worry about how much further that would go if people felt encouraged to post just for the sake of posting, rather than because they were interested in the conversation and/or had something that they really wanted to contribute.

That scenario went through my mind, too, which is why I wrote that join date + post count is better than join date alone.

Of course, none of these things really would impact the forum that much.

Edit: An alternate thought is to use the "post per day" statistic underneath the profile. This number fluctuates wildly during a member's first few days on the forum, but it quickly smoothes out. Nearly everyone who is active has a "post per day" number between one and five, as far as I've seen; I don't think that anyone has a number above 10. It's also very difficult to maintain a very high number. The fact that everyone has relatively low numbers might help deter people from trying to have the highest number possible (which is impossible to maintain, anyway); at the same time, it would be a good indicator of activity. Combined with the join date, it could be a nice way of telling "veteran status" and gauging true activity. It does nothing for knowing the community's interpretation of that member's activity, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Honestly, I'm not good in forum discussions but I'm very active in the Avatar and Signature request so most of my points came from those who appreciated my efforts. It's really saddening to the point of having a tear on one side of my eyes but... What can we do to stop it? Even being "veteran" can halt it....

I still wish for the best... Long Live Animesuki...

I wouldn't go so far as to claim it'd be impossible to maintain (some people have a lot of time...). I think this would still encourage the same sort of "posting drivel to elevate an arbitrary stat" factor that contributes to the reason we don't show post count.

If we did any sort of activity indicator (which I'm still not totally sure we need), I think I would prefer it be somewhat obscured and more difficult to game... but I don't have a specific idea.

I'm actually somewhat embarrassed by my 3.18 posts/day figure! But then retirement is not far off. (Checks his retirement savings.) Well, maybe it is...

why are people so fixated on judging other posters based on how popular they are or how much they participate in ~the community~

How about you treat other posters as human beings with lives beyond this forum and realize that they have many different opinions, some of which you may agree with and others that you may not agree with? If I was actually interested in debating the merits of Japanese popular culture I'm pretty damn sure I'd want other people to value my opinions because they thought they had merit or because they were well formulated, not because I was a popular member of this particular internet circlejerk.

Seriously, guys. What the heck are you thinking?

Nope.As much free time as I travelling from one place to another at work, the postcount is a pretty unfair way of determining a poster's post quality. There shouldn't be any "VIP" status in the forum because everyone is the same- they are all here to discuss and understand.

I really hope everyone reads this because I can't possibly agree more and think it's a much-needed reality check. This is an internet forum. How long you've been here and how often you post isn't relevant; the content of posts is what matters. Post because you have something you want to say, not just to seek approval from others or demand respect for your "forum seniority". And if respect is all you're interested in, earn it through good posts instead of some pointless arbitrary number. Many people here have earned mine, and it has zero to do with post count, join date, or green boxes.

You can see it in the profile anyways, so it's not necessary.

Post counts are the worst indicator of anything IMO since they encourage spam. In fact, a general rule of forums is that people with extremely large post counts are terrible posters thanks to spam. /walks away.

I don't think so. There are people that have been here a long time and have a lower post count that let's say, mine. I have a 500+ post count (reached 500 recently) and most of them are just random trash not worth counting. The join date has always been more than enough for me to tell how long someone has been here.

So you are saying that I am a terrible poster? :heh:

The post count system shouldn't reflect on how much respect a certain person should get. I think this rep system is a pretty good way of representing a member's image rather than postcounts, since a series of one-liner posts to get a cookie means naught about the person.

Then again, there are people like Anh Minh and Ascaloth who post 1-liners of criticism (sometimes caustic in Ascaloth's case, so thinskins don't like him for that) well worth their weight in merit. It is still the content of the post that determines the amount of respect that a person should get - as fair as it can go.

Well, that's up to your interpretation.

I don't know. You can spam worthless one liners and get rep still if you took a popular opinion "X is super cute!" There are definitely mediocre posters with both high posts and high rep and good posters with low posts and low rep. Pretty much every combination exists and I end up having to read their fucking posts in the end. Effectively rep really just shows how well you conform to the forum norms unless you took the challenge and actively post actually thoughtful posts without caring about what the majority thinks, but there's only a handful of people that reflect such a thing and status, and no that isn't me either.

It's pretty easy to rig the system anyways. I could just post inoffensive stuff that constantly shits out sunshine and rainbows but what would be the fun of that?

Rep IS better than post count. Just still not worth much.

Giving status through post count is the same as weighing people's intelligence by the size of their shoe (not to say something else).

No relationship at all. Look at me for example. 730 posts of sheer argentine-ness which few enjoy.

Arty

Can I present an opposite view? I think a really large post count is...embarrassing. I'd automatically calculate the average of how much I posted per day since the join date and then I got really disappointed at myself and stopped posting because anything above a 2-to-1 rate seemed so, so wasteful and anything above 10-to-1 felt absolutely awful. So, yeah...

Yeah. I'm sorry Triple_R, but um, please no. :heh:

Less "personal confession"-y, I think post count is far worse as a system to rep, for reasons others already suggested.

Speaking of which, I didn't recall having that many green dots by the time of your join date...? In fact our Asuki birthdays are just a month apart! You're making me feel old. :<

I've always appreciated the fact that this was not displayed.