Let's Democratize Post Counts!

[Smiley]

Who wants Deity, Emperor, King, Prince, Warlord, or Chieftain in this day and age?

FORUM ELECTIONS 2001
It's time we put aside our differences and forge together a Democratic Forum.

We'll elect a President (Mark) and some Mods, and the rest of us can become Citizens.

[Juggler_Bob]

That is for his majesty to decide... Visigoth!

No, really...

The benefit that I see for keeping the current ranking system is that it instantly allows newbies (like me) to evaluate the relative merits of any given message in the forums. I'm not saying that someone with a settler or chieftain rating doesn't have anything to add, but before you learn who everybody is, it is helpful to know whether a response to a question or strategic advice comes from someone who had been around Apolyton for a while, or someone who is newer.

Just my $.02

-Bob

[Winston]

Heh. Some people have been known to make nearly 1,000 posts in one week in the OT, most of them utterly meaningless. So post count has absolutely nothing to do with seniority in terms of the usefulness of posts.

I've been saying this all along: Why not scrap post counts altogether, thereby ensuring that people will make a post because they have something to add, not to raise their post count?

You know, post count-envy is a very common phenomenon among young men lacking selfconfidence...

[Lefty Scaevola]

We should be civers all. Down with spamers. Down with post count status.

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Gaius Mucius Scaevola Sinistra
Pontificator Pendanticus
older richer & wiser than you
Did I mention that I like spellcheckers?

[MarkG]

(thinks: let's throw a bomb.... )

what if each poster could rate other posters?

[Smiley]

Well, in that case we can have fewer categories... such as Visitor (less than 50 posts), Immigrant (less than 100), Permanent Resident (less than 300), and citizenship at 301. That ought to keep out the drift-in type, but stop the "emperor wars". That's right, emperor wars, there's just no limit to how big some of them want their empires to be.

[Narck]

Granted, putting deity level at (for example) 1000 instead of 10000 would probably stop a lot of the spamming that's now going on. Then again, since this is apolyton after all, maybe not

[Juggler_Bob]

What if we did away with the current system and instead allowed users to choose which one of the various Civ units best represented their personality?

Instead of Settler, Cheiftain, Prince, etc. we would have Diplomat, Marine, AEGIS Cruiser, whatever....

Perhaps we could still tie in the # of posts (maybe not OT posts...) to limit the choices to the various ages (Ancient, Medieval, Modern) for those who care about such things...

-Bob

[-- but not Snapcase]

I like MarkGs idea, actually, have a feature like the ratings of a map or scenario for each poster, which would show up in their profile. Cruel, but fun, fun, fun.

[:) Smiley]

Yes, it would be so much fun. (watches trolls take it out on Ming with votes of -10)

[Chaos Warrior]

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font><font size=1>Originally posted by winston on 02-10-2001 07:37 PM</font>
Heh. Some people have been known to make nearly 1,000 posts in one week in the OT, most of them utterly meaningless. So post count has absolutely nothing to do with seniority in terms of the usefulness of posts.
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>

I think Comrade Dan made 600 in one week. I doubt there have ever been more in that short time. But they were al meaningless, indeed.

[Lazarus & the Gimp]

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font><font size=1>Originally posted by MarkG on 02-10-2001 08:24 PM</font>
(thinks: let's throw a bomb.... )

what if each poster could rate other posters?

<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>

Brilliant idea, although it might require titles considered unacceptable in polite company.

[Sprayber]

If you want to change it, then make the posts on the on-topic forums count and not off-topic. The off-topic forum is great, but there are so many other people on this site.

edit: If you are serious about post count reform â„¢ Then this is the only way to do it. Or you could come up with a separate system for the off-topic.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Sprayber (edited February 12, 2001).]</font>

[Ming]

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font><font size=1>Originally posted by Sprayber on 02-12-2001 03:06 PM</font>
If you want to change it, then make the posts on the on-topic forums count and not off-topic. The off-topic forum is great, but there are so many other people on this site.
If you are serious about post count reform â„¢ Then this is the only way to do it. Or you could come up with a separate system for the off-topic.

<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>

It was tried...
AND YOU WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT WAS THE END OF THE WORLD!
The complaining just got louder and louder until posts in OTF counted again. Plus, people started spamming the on topic forums
So that didn't work

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Ming
CivII & Off-Topic Forum Moderator
Ming@Apolyton.net

[Paul]

Of course that didn't work. The people who care most about their postcounts are posting mostly at the OT. And those are also the people with the highest postcounts.

I think that the people who post mostly in the on-topic forums couldn't care less about postcounts. But I may be completely wrong about this.