Bits are dandy, post count is rediculous.

[templest]

What's the point in decieving other people about the post count of a person? Spam or not, it's still a valid post; more often than not the most useful and interesting posts originate in --or-- end up in the "Spam" section. I think no one would argue with that.

Bit penalties, I find acceptable; this is a CompSci website, and if you're going to be off-topic, you shouldn't be rewarded for that. But a post count penalty is just stupid.

If you hit anyone's "Profile" button, and click "View All Posts" inside of it, you'll get an accurate count of how many posts they have. For example:

If you look under my name on the side of this post, you'll notice it says something like ~320 posts, but if you go into my profile and click "View All Posts By: templest", you'll notice I, in actuality, have around ~840 posts. Big difference, no?

Yes, it's a vanity thing. But I just find it rediculous to have to do post-count penalties, when there's really no practical use to pinning down one's posts count. There's no use to doing so aside from slightly annoying the person posting (which would be good, because?).

In conclusion:
Bit Penalties = Good
Post Count Penalties = Bad
Myself = Your Daddy

[Martin]

Hey, I have 1602. Well, 1603 now...

[Cervantes]

templest wrote:

Spam or not, it's still a valid post; more often than not the most useful and interesting posts originate in --or-- end up in the "Spam" section. I think no one would argue with that.

templest wrote:

this is a CompSci website, and if you're going to be off-topic, you shouldn't be rewarded for that.

As it is, post count merely refers to your number of posts relevent to computer science (or computers / the web / compsci.ca development etc.)
The reason the topic is in spam is because it is not relevent to computer science etc.
So, why should your post count increase when you make irrelevent posts?
Sure, some spam posts are intelligent and interesting, but many are not (a prime example being the Person Above Me thread). Furthermore, no spam topics are relevent to compsci.ca (if they were, they wouldn't be in the spam section).
And why should your bit count remain the same when posting in spam and yet your post count increases? Bits are merely a more accurate number representation of a person's compsci ability / helpfulness.
Finally, I wouldn't call them penelties. That implies you are taking away bits / posts / whatever, when, in fact, the bits / posts / whatever were not received in the first place.

[templest]

Cervantes wrote:

templest wrote:

Spam or not, it's still a valid post; more often than not the most useful and interesting posts originate in --or-- end up in the "Spam" section. I think no one would argue with that.

templest wrote:

this is a CompSci website, and if you're going to be off-topic, you shouldn't be rewarded for that.

As it is, post count merely refers to your number of posts relevent to computer science (or computers / the web / compsci.ca development etc.)
The reason the topic is in spam is because it is not relevent to computer science etc.
So, why should your post count increase when you make irrelevent posts?
Sure, some spam posts are intelligent and interesting, but many are not (a prime example being the Person Above Me thread). Furthermore, no spam topics are relevent to compsci.ca (if they were, they wouldn't be in the spam section).
And why should your bit count remain the same when posting in spam and yet your post count increases? Bits are merely a more accurate number representation of a person's compsci ability / helpfulness.
Finally, I wouldn't call them penelties. That implies you are taking away bits / posts / whatever, when, in fact, the bits / posts / whatever were not received in the first place.

No shit, not recieving bits / post-count. Therefore, penalties. You are being penalized for making a post non-related to computer science by not recieving bits for that post. Like you said, Bits are a more accurate representation of a person's ability and/or helpfullness. So if I see a person with -9350378592 bits, I'll know they're some kind of idiot for having that score. Even though they're post count could be 20867429682476298467296824789628946724896; likewise goes for the opposite. Post count is irrelevant, and like I myself have said, it's a vanity issue. What I don't see, is the usefullness of reducing (indirectly or not) a person's post-count, when reducing bits would be enough. Reducing someone's bitcount implies they aren't that great of a community member, where-as a post count doesn't matter, I could have 10 posts and still be the most insightful person on the site. Which is why I concider capping someone's post count when posting in the spam section, inane and childish (Just like the current legal system). It's stupid to do so. It's not like people don't know how many posts I've made anyways by just pressing the damn "View all posts by" link.

[Cervantes]

Templest, taking away posts is not the same as not giving posts.
You are not being penalized for posting in the spam section. Rather, you are not being rewarded for posting in the spam section.

[Dan]

Cervantes wrote:

Templest, taking away posts is not the same as not giving posts.
You are not being penalized for posting in the spam section. Rather, you are not being rewarded for posting in the spam section.

Yep, and if where to give post count for post in spam that whould mean i whould start to inforce it alot more, meaning in short that allmost all of your post templest whould be gone anyhow.

I think it comes down to the question, "Is a spam post realy a post at all?".


Edit: also that method of hiting the profile and view all post things is not 100% acurect method of find some ones "true" number of posts. There are sections of this site that are hiden to noraml users and if u use that method u will not get thos posts but thos posts due count for a post count most times.

[templest]

Cervantes wrote:

Templest, taking away posts is not the same as not giving posts.
You are not being penalized for posting in the spam section. Rather, you are not being rewarded for posting in the spam section.

The "Rewarding" would be recieving two bits for every post you make. Post count going up is not rewarding, or not-being-rewarded. It's what should happen, due to the very laws of math. 1 + 1 = 2 (Except for in Turing). And either way, getting two bits for every post is an expected standard on this site, therefore, being denied those bits is actually penalizing. If recieving bits was a reward, you wouldn't get them by default, you would earn them.

[Cervantes]

Templest wrote:

If recieving bits was a reward, you wouldn't get them by default, you would earn them.

You shouldn't have said that.
Reason being, you do earn your bits. You earn them by helping people, writing tutorials, submitting programs, contributing to the development of CompSci.ca, asking for help and therefore stimulating thought, or informing others of current technological events.
You don't get bits by default. You get them for all the reasons listed above.
You don't do any of those things listed above in the spam section. Hence, you don't get bits for posting in the spam section.

[templest]

Cervantes wrote:

Templest wrote:

If recieving bits was a reward, you wouldn't get them by default, you would earn them.

You shouldn't have said that.
Reason being, you do earn your bits. You earn them by helping people, writing tutorials, submitting programs, contributing to the development of CompSci.ca, asking for help and therefore stimulating thought, or informing others of current technological events.
You don't get bits by default. You get them for all the reasons listed above.
You don't do any of those things listed above in the spam section. Hence, you don't get bits for posting in the spam section.

Lies, lots of everything happens on a regular basis in the Spam section. And you recieve 2 Bits for every post made in every other section, regardless of whether it was a useful post or not.

[Paul]

w/e, does vanity carry that far?
cause I have 3056 posts in total everywhere. I couldn't care less.

[Tony]

I would scrap postcount compleatly. I got to know most of you guys personally and don't need a postcount to tell me what kind of a user you are.

Though I don't think Dan would like me messing up his PHP files

[Mazer]

I thought there was a setting to display post counts? Oh well, I simply judge people on there spelling (Dan is exempt from this scrutiny because he has a despellcheck working on his posts).

[templest]

Exactly my point, post count doesn't matter, so there should be no reason to go to the trouble of making a script to not let posts made in the spam section count towards the number, it's rediculous and really serves no purpose, aside from being annoying.

[Dan]

templest wrote:

Lies, lots of everything happens on a regular basis in the Spam section. And you recieve 2 Bits for every post made in every other section, regardless of whether it was a useful post or not.

Aucatly there are other forums where u do not get bits (or at least there shuld be, could be set wrong). And u get 1 bit for starting the post and 2 for replying to it. This was made to enougere poleop in the help sections to 1. post in the right section and 2. repley to poleops questions and to reply to poleop asking for help.

Coutsos wrote:

I thought there was a setting to display post counts? Oh well, I simply judge people on there spelling (Dan is exempt from this scrutiny because he has a despellcheck working on his posts).

Even tho u ment that jokingly (hopfully) judging any one soley on there spelling underminds some of the grestes things about the net. The smart thing to do whould be to judge poleop on the content of there messages and posts rather then there location, spelling, gramger or any other thing u could come up with that is not turtly realvent to the content of the message. (That litte rant there was not ment to be at you Coutsos just at the poleop out there who realy do judge poleop online based on such things).

templest wrote:

Exactly my point, post count doesn't matter, so there should be no reason to go to the trouble of making a script to not let posts made in the spam section count towards the number, it's rediculous and really serves no purpose, aside from being annoying.

By the same reasning (assuming you are right about posts count not mattering) there whould be no reason to going ot the trouble of taking out the script to not let posts in the spam section or to complanin about the matter at all. If the post count realy does not matter why did u even start this topic?


Now speaking perurely thechagly, it whould be alot of work to totlay get ride of the post count from the site. It is tide to alot of things incuding ranks and other parts of the site. It whould be dum to go to the effort of doing that rather then add or fixing other parts of the site that are more in need.

Now with that stated, post count is going to be statying and if the post count is staying then my next thougths have to go to the fairness of the system to all (or at least the magority) of the users on the site. If i was to let post count in spam and other off topic sections it whould mean that users that do not conorbuit much to the content of the site underwtich it was anatented (in compsci and computer realted matters) then it whould mean thos off topic users whould be geting higher ranks and post counts while users helping out whould be geting lower of them for doing more.

You could say then why not just get ride of ranks based on post counts? Well the idea may seem good but it whould also mean all rank chages whould have to be made by an admin witch whould be very time comsoming and pain full to us (mostly me).

If we go to the idea of why not get ride of ranks all together, we get back to the problem of having to recode the bored. Also the ranks, postcount and bits and not ment for active and long time users to know how good a user is but for the newer users and others to see what this users could be like. Shure if u have been around awhile post counts and such things mean nothing to u, and they should not b/c they are not ment to show u what a person is turly like but just a brefe idea as to how much they have been helping out on the site.

Adminity the system is not perfict, much like realy life..........

[templest]

Exactly, if it doesn't matter, then why go to the trouble to put that system in place to begin with?. It annoys me because it's such a useless thing, and whenever I feel like checking my progressive number of posts, I have to check back to that page. The information is already there, you're just making it harder to access, needlessy.

And at the very least, add a second string under the original "Post Count:" meter under the user's avatar that says: "Total Posts:". That way, you don't screw over the rank system or remove it all together. That's not that hard of a thing to do.

I never opposed the bit penalties, at all. But the post count is just plain rediculous.