U.I. closed down a post padding thread saying that “You know, Arnold and Cajun Man get really shirty when you pull something like this, especially with the server so loaded down and all.”
So why aren’t all the postcount padding threads closed down? There have been half a dozen of them in MPSIMS in the last week, which is why I usually avoid MPSIMS.
Because (with no insult intended to the mods) moderation on this board is hit-and-miss.
The (all-volunteer) moderators and administrators, most of whom have other jobs and moderate in their spare time, simply aren’t going to catch every thread that should be closed, every instance of a poster Acting Like A Jerk, etc. They catch what they can monitoring the boards, and otherwise rely on emails from posters upset at some particularly egregious conduct.
I’m glad you started this thread, Wikkit, because I was getting frustrated because I think those threads are so stupid, but I couldn’t justify opening another thread to talk about it. Before I saw that it had been closed, I was thinking of posting something negative in that thread, but I couldn’t decide if that would be hypocritical, which was only adding to my inner turmoil.
Y’know, I would really really like to see the post count removed from the information under the posters name. That might cut down on some of this kind of nonsense. If the info is available at all, it should only be shown in the profile.
I wouldn’t mind if it stayed under the profile, but was removed from under the name as people have said. We have enough problems with the speed of the board without people posting when they don’t really care just for the sake of a number.
Then again, I’m not going to rally that hard for it, either. I just tend to avoid the forums where post-padding seems most prevalent (like IMHO).
Seconding the removal of the post count. Then people could be judged solely on the quality of their posts, not the quantity. The Registered date would still distinguish a little between old member and raw newbie (if such a distinction ever needed to be made).
I pay a small amount of attention to post count. It’s handy to know at times–for example, if you want to see what else someone has posted, it’s nice to know whether you’ll have to look through a small or large number of posts.
Hiding the post count in the profile might be good, as it might cut down on those fucking asinine post count parties. I hate hate hate those.
I’d agree there is some value in keeping the post count available in the profile, because it gives some index of how familiar the poster is with the conventions of this board. Registration date is a partial surrogate for that, but some people have been registered a long time and post rarely.
But I wouldn’t mind if post count were completely hidden.