Unnecessary Posts

[Mauiby de Fug]

Simple solution: make postcount not increase when posting in outworld.

I've seen that elsewhere, it seems to work. A bit.

I think it's a good idea - but I also feel it would be a shame if the reporting of spam was not "rewarded" with an additional +1 on the post counter.

(Although the spam thread could be moved I guess)

I have to say I'm not sure I see the point in this. Either you have a post count, or you don't. Otherwise it turns from being a post count into a "number of posts which certain members think are worthwhile or relevant" count... (And I still don't really think that people were posting for the sake of increasing their count anyway.)

For what it's worth I would favour keeping the three O/S sections. As DH said, it's good to have a 'home' for your O/S related problems.

I was strongly in favour of keeping the separate sections too as that's where I first look when I have a problem, until I had a quick look through the Linux one. And to be honest, 'tis only really the stickys that I've checked more than once for reference, when having trouble with installing. T'others are things which do tend to crop up in "Testing and Bug Reports" repeatedly. So if they do all merge into one, I'd probably recommend keeping all the individual sticky threads as stickys.

Thanks again for posting your suggestions, but positive or negative, please spare a moment to look at their profiles, meaning age and their ambitions and their personal websites. And you will understand what I mean. And even this thread is being sort of spammed by the person I meant.

*sigh* I fail to see any spam here. I can only see people asking questions, and posting their opinions on responses and suggestions that other people have made. Is this not what you asked for in the first post of this thread? How are you defining spam!? That sounds to me like you want to exclude people based on age, and turn this into a "grumpy old men's club", which is not what this board is supposed to be about at all! Hopefully I'm misinterpreting what you're saying...

[Okti]

*sigh* I fail to see any spam here. I can only see people asking questions, and posting their opinions on responses and suggestions that other people have made. Is this not what you asked for in the first post of this thread? How are you defining spam!? That sounds to me like you want to exclude people based on age, and turn this into a "grumpy old men's club", which is not what this board is supposed to be about at all! Hopefully I'm misinterpreting what you're saying...

I don't want to exclude members on age, but don't want to see this forum to be their playground, I believe any forum member will be willing to help them on the problems they come across, but I am looking at contradictory posts they made and makes me think.

[DaddyHoggy]

I have to say I'm not sure I see the point in this. Either you have a post count, or you don't. Otherwise it turns from being a post count into a "number of posts which certain members think are worthwhile or relevant" count... (And I still don't really think that people were posting for the sake of increasing their count anyway.)

I disagree with your parenthesised statement - in a thread created where the object is to increment in each posting a counter that runs from 1 to 1000 and only two posters were playing, I'd say that that particular thread could not possibly be interpreted as being anything other than a post-counter-adder.

And nobody is saying that there's some hidden elder committee on the forum where secret members meet, dressed as snakes and issue the secret hiss - it was suggested that "Outworld" does not increment post counts - full stop - no agenda. Threads pertinent to Oolite that add to Oolite get post counts, things which *might* interest Ooliters but does not have anything to do with Oolite do not.

Seems reasonable and open and fair.

I post a lot in Outworld (spam thread notwithstanding) - about science, tech, modelling, simulation etc and personally, not getting additional posts added to my counter for these wouldn't bother me.

I think the post counter is there so people can gauge (based also on membership duration) on the reliability of an answer. If somebody like Griff makes a comment about shaders to a newbie question with his sub-1000 posts and somebody else (hypothetically) who has spent his/her entire time spamming outworld and has 2000 posts also makes a comment, the newbie *might* see the 2000 poster as more believable. Of course, on this type of BB, this would be quickly pointed out, but in the meantime, the newbie could have still acted upon the potentially duff information.

I am actually quite proud of my post-counter now, because it's obvious to me now that by a process of osmosis I have started to remember stuff that has been previously posted and can, on occasion offer assistance to the stray noobie. I've accidentally become part of the Oolite BB corporate knowledge. I would be interested to know what forum/thread I've post to the most, but the BB doesn't have that info for myself of Commander McLane. I suspect it would be YAH and/or spam tagging, as, before I was granted my super-powers, I tagged hundreds upon hundreds of spammers (now I just edit others posts - so don't generate any count).

[Rxke]

And nobody is saying that there's some hidden elder committee on the forum where secret members meet, dressed as snakes and issue the secret hiss.

You didn't get the invite?

[RyanHoots]

*sigh* I fail to see any spam here. I can only see people asking questions, and posting their opinions on responses and suggestions that other people have made. Is this not what you asked for in the first post of this thread? How are you defining spam!? That sounds to me like you want to exclude people based on age, and turn this into a "grumpy old men's club", which is not what this board is supposed to be about at all! Hopefully I'm misinterpreting what you're saying...

I don't want to exclude members on age, but don't want to see this forum to be their playground, I believe any forum member will be willing to help them on the problems they come across, but I am looking at contradictory posts they made and makes me think.

If I want a playground, I go here: http://dancingword.net/crosspen/index.php

I disagree with some people's use of the word "Spam" in this topic, and I completely agree with Maulibly's post.
I think the post count is a total fail when it comes to judging a poster's reputation. Something like http://askubuntu.com's system would work better. If somebody's first post was a completely relevant post that helped many users, I would personally treat it like I would if it had been DH or Smivs (posts by Ahruman or Aegidian are different).
If only ranking systems were more accurate. On one forum I like, all the ranks are given by the Admin, who gets recommendations via PM from the moderators. On a bigger forum like this, that sort of ranking system wouldn't work well, because of all the members to promote or not, but it seems to work. More admins would be needed for it to work here...

[Mauiby de Fug]

I have to say I'm not sure I see the point in this. Either you have a post count, or you don't. Otherwise it turns from being a post count into a "number of posts which certain members think are worthwhile or relevant" count... (And I still don't really think that people were posting for the sake of increasing their count anyway.)

I disagree with your parenthesised statement - in a thread created where the object is to increment in each posting a counter that runs from 1 to 1000 and only two posters were playing, I'd say that that particular thread could not possibly be interpreted as being anything other than a post-counter-adder.

In that particular case I agree, and have already said that it was right for that thread to have been shut down quickly. But I honestly don't believe that any other threads or posts have been created with the intention of increasing post count in mind; I think people were trying to be sociable.

And nobody is saying that there's some hidden elder committee on the forum where secret members meet, dressed as snakes and issue the secret hiss - it was suggested that "Outworld" does not increment post counts - full stop - no agenda. Threads pertinent to Oolite that add to Oolite get post counts, things which *might* interest Ooliters but does not have anything to do with Oolite do not.

Seems reasonable and open and fair.

*laughs* Now there would be a sight to see - a crow dressed up as a snake! No, I don't believe that there is a secret committee/agenda on the forum. That part was me saying out how I felt Otki's rather pointed and unfair comment about age came across. The reason you've just given for not increasing post count in "Outworld" makes sense to me and seems reasonable. I'd be happy with that, if it was done on that basis. But I got the impression earlier that the idea was suggested in order to stop people posting for the sake of increasing their count. And I can't really see how that would work...

I post a lot in Outworld (spam thread notwithstanding) - about science, tech, modelling, simulation etc and personally, not getting additional posts added to my counter for these wouldn't bother me.

I think the post counter is there so people can gauge (based also on membership duration) on the reliability of an answer. If somebody like Griff makes a comment about shaders to a newbie question with his sub-1000 posts and somebody else (hypothetically) who has spent his/her entire time spamming outworld and has 2000 posts also makes a comment, the newbie *might* see the 2000 poster as more believable. Of course, on this type of BB, this would be quickly pointed out, but in the meantime, the newbie could have still acted upon the potentially duff information.

And I've very much enjoyed reading some of those articles! I can also agree with your interpretation of the post count here - I remember when I first joined up. After searching through and reading older posts, you get a general impression on who knows what they're talking about, and, quite often, there is some correlation between post count and how long they've been a member.

I am actually quite proud of my post-counter now, because it's obvious to me now that by a process of osmosis I have started to remember stuff that has been previously posted and can, on occasion offer assistance to the stray noobie. I've accidentally become part of the Oolite BB corporate knowledge.

And a very good job you do too - either in offering assistance, or, more often, giving a proper Oolite welcome to them!

[Smivs]

Hehe, one answer is to make the board rankings match the game rankings. Mind you if we did that we'd only have two 'Elite' members (McLane and DH) on the board, and ten 'Deadly'.

As for not counting 'Outworld' posts, well a post is a post in my book, so I think they should be counted.

Maybe more use should be made of the 'Report this post' feature (the red exclamation mark), but as this is presumably intended for genuinely offensive posts and presumably makes work for the moderators, this may not be the answer either.
The board as a whole usually makes it clear when it is unhappy with something, so maybe we should leave these things to sort themselves out, which they usually do in time anyway.

[Thargoid]

The ! button normally sends a notification to the moderators and/or admins when pressed (like a PM notification, but with a different message) pointing to the post in question.

Used correctly they can be quite good for highlighting posts that need attention. But if used for trivial stuff then it would very quickly get annoying and ignored. T'other board that I moderate uses it, and it took a little "user education" (with a big spikey stick) to stop it getting pressed for anything (including "what does this do?").

[Wyvern Mommy]

some boards use kudos awarded by other members to make ranking. i bet there's a plugin for this board app

[DaddyHoggy]

some boards use kudos awarded by other members to make ranking. i bet there's a plugin for this board app

I've seen that (multiple likes of a post - increases kudos, dislikes decrease kudos) but I've also seen wars break out where groups swarm the forum, disliking posts arbitrarily over an incident lost in time...

I think what we've got mostly works very well and the incidents that start this whole debate off, have pretty much settled down of their own accord. Therefore, much of this debate, healthy and interesting as it is, is rather moot!

[DaddyHoggy]

Thanks Mauiby for your kind words.

I hold the opinions of others of my Oolite BB persona rather close to my heart (not in an unhealthy way - (perhaps!) - but I do invest quite a lot of my limited spare time here, so it's nice when others think I'm doing an OK job)