IMHO post counts are used primarily to enhance the authority of the poster. I.e., the more posts, the more correct/right you are. I say post counts have no validity other than to prove the person’s been here awhile, or posted a lot. But then you say, “This person has less than 100 posts. Pshaw, newbie jerk!”
Whats YHO? Before you give it, check some the the links below out. Yeah, expand you’re knowledge, Doper! It’ll be good for you.
I belong to a number of forums/message boards. Below are some interesting comparisons:
The following keep a post count, but you have to look in the profile of that person to see it:
The following don’t keep a post count, as far as I can determine:
The following allows Avatars from the time you register (Little pictures under your user name, supposed to symbolize you, I guess)
It depends entirely on the nature of the discussion as to whether a poster’s post count matters to me, but on the whole, I’d say that in ATMB and GQ, I am liable to give more credence to people with higher post counts. This is not to say that I automatically discount a response from a person with a low post count, only that I am more likely just to take some people’s word for something where I might need more evidence from others.
Example: Say someone posts a question in GQ and the first person on the scene gives an answer that prima facie sounds reasonable, but that’s all the give is the answer. No citation, no “and-I-know-because-I-do-this-for-a-living” explanation. You know, the kind of answers I tend to give. If that person has a post count of 4000, I’ll be more likely to assume they’re right. Not because they have such a high post count, mind you. Because they’ve been around, and because I know that charlatans don’t usually last long 'round here. From someone with a post count of 4, I’m going to ask for a citation or something to back up their answer. Again, because I don’t know them or what their track record is like.
Now, there’s a flip side to this. I expect more from people with high post counts, too. (handy excepted, of course :D) If you’ve been around long enough to have a post count over, I don’t know, say 500 or 750, then you ought to know how things work. If you don’t, you become very frustrating to deal with.
I think that after you’ve been on a board for a while though, you just figure out who has useful things to say and who doesn’t. On this board, for instance, someone could have 6500 posts but that doesn’t mean they’re qualified to answer a GQ or GD. Hell, 6499 of those posts could be in MPSIMS. On the other hand, someone who specializes in a topic might only have 40 posts total, but they’re all in GQ talking about mating cycles of insects. If you have a question on that, there you go.
Of course, someone with 6500 posts might very well know the answer to a lot of GQs and you pick up on it. In other words, the existance of forums devoted to idle chatter discredits the value of post counts in my estimation and I rely on past experience.
On another message board I frequently post to, you get a star under your name after 50 posts, another at 150 or so, another at 500 and so on until you get your four stars at 1000 posts. People would ‘star farm’ by posting useless things just to up their count and get another star. I guess it might look impressive to board newbies, but again after a week or so, you learn who knows things and who’s wasting your time. Of course, there’s only about 20-30 real full-time regs on the board, so you get a feel fairly quickly for it.
An avatar is just a little pic that loads up under your name and post count. Personally, I think they’re cute on small boards and annoying as hell on large ones. Nothing worse than going to some nutjob’s MB and clicking on a 30 post thread and having it take 4.5 min to load on a 56k because it’s picking up stolen anime images and Photoshopped bits of Britney Spears.
My take is that the higher posts counts indicate the person has READ a lot. They have to read in order to post, see? Thus, the more they have read, the more they know who & what’s on the board.
I guess I should write it again, but Im deafened & the written word is for me, equal to the spoken word for hearing people. Thus, a message board equals us out.
Post counts don’t mean much of anything to me. Some months back in ATMB, there was mention the administration was thinking of just not displaying them anymore. I think the fact that they’ve either decided against that, or simply haven’t done it yet, is a minor sadness.
If that person has a post count of 4000, I’ll be more likely to assume they’re right. Not because they have such a high post count, mind you. Because they’ve been around, and because I know that charlatans don’t usually last long 'round here. From someone with a post count of 4, I’m going to ask for a citation or something to back up their answer. Again, because I don’t know them or what their track record is like.