Joseph the PRPD wrote:RP in the RP/CYOA-fandom area.

It would be interesting to see the numbers without those posts.

Oh man, this is nothing but good news.

^Indeed.

+1 respect point, for the ultimate decider of this course of action.

Just curious, are the post counts still being kept track of and not visible to us, or were they completely deleted?

Still visible when looking into someone's profile.

I honestly don't believe removing the post counts from its spot near the avatar and name is going to stop spamming in the slightest. However, if you remove the post count completely, and any way of publicly viewing the count, then that in itself may reduce the amount of competitive posting among members. Trying to stop die hard spammers is another battle entirely.

@SSD's list of Post Counts and PPDs: For once there's a list I'm not on!

Sailor Star Dust wrote:I personally find that strange because I usually post in Fandom or it's RP subforum and my Posts Per Day is less than theirs. The reason my total post count is so high OTOH is because I posted a lot as a new member and or participated in some spam Chit-Chat-threads that eventually got locked.

Not to mention that you've been here since the forum was still young and you're a moderator.

EDIT: I also like the idea of a respect/merit system.

The respect system sounds good.

Mr. Tines wrote:

Joseph the PRPD wrote:RP in the RP/CYOA-fandom area.

It would be interesting to see the numbers without those posts.

Well since you asked, these are the top posters in the RP forum. You can rejig the already posted numbers using these if you were so inclined.
[code:1]
+--------------------------+----------+
| username | count(*) |
+--------------------------+----------+
| Sailor Star Dust | 1636 |
| GasmaskAvenger | 1217 |
| Ryjin | 1194 |
| Great Genius Shinji-Sama | 984 |
| Legendary | 775 |
| Eric Blair | 606 |
| NemZ | 561 |
| esselfortium | 508 |
| Defectron | 504 |
| Sachi | 443 |
| Sammaeloo | 334 |
| GoatMan | 313 |
| Eternally Lost Zeppo | 306 |
| Themaninblack | 238 |
| Xeroko | 234 |
| TheAyanamiOtaku | 229 |
| Vegeta 20XX | 224 |
| Reichu | 223 |
| Dranzer | 172 |
| UrsusArctos | 171 |
| Adekis | 170 |
| Lucretius | 160 |
| thewayneiac | 155 |
| Anti-Goth | 153 |
| Rock-Slash | 128 |
| schismatics | 125 |
| ThePRPD | 108 |
| trueno_twentyone | 93 |
| BobBQ | 87 |
| Agentomega | 85 |
+--------------------------+----------+
[/code:1]

I should stress the following; nobody is being blamed or singled out for anything here. The above table should in fact be considered a badge of (dorky) pride for all those who have contributed to the RP forum positively. We really don't mind how much people are posting, only the quality of their posts. A high number does not necessarily mean your posts are of poor quality. In fact, here's comparative data for the Discussion forum (members of which it is generally agreed are the dorkiest Eva fans of them all)

[code:1]
+---------------------+----------+
| username | count(*) |
+---------------------+----------+
| Reichu | 4021 |
| Anonymous_Evafan | 1953 |
| Mr. Tines | 1645 |
| Sailor Star Dust | 1596 |
| Eva Yojimbo | 1340 |
| NemZ | 1138 |
| AuraTwilight | 1109 |
| Ornette | 1060 |
| ObsessiveMathsFreak | 859 |
| DatDude | 817 |
| Sachi | 667 |
| V | 603 |
| sadsadshinji | 554 |
| NAveryW | 504 |
| UrsusArctos | 492 |
| The Eva Monkey | 490 |
| Shin-seiki | 487 |
| BobBQ | 469 |
| Zuggy | 438 |
| Alaska Slim | 435 |
| BrikHaus | 368 |
| Dave | 312 |
| slothen | 305 |
| Formless One | 301 |
| Xard | 288 |
| MaggotMaster | 281 |
| Timstuff | 272 |
| The Imperialist | 271 |
| AyrYntake | 261 |
| thewayneiac | 255 |
+---------------------+----------+
[/code:1]
I think any regular discussion forum members would agree that high post count correlates well with overall post quality in this case.

The trouble with the post count field is that it might tempt people to post less signal than noise in posts. On top of this, well, it doesn't actually do a whole lot in and of itself. In fact often, it's a source of friction, so it is perhaps better off left out and simply replaced by ranks, which are too opaque to be contentious.

I suppose these actions could give credence to V's old claims about the iron hand of the EGF administrators, if one were so inclined. But the truth is the post count was removed in an effort to make the board better. Perhaps some would disagree, but we felt it would be an overall improvement. (And as mentioned already, you can still check post count in user profiles).

In conclusion; if you want to post, you can post as much as you like. The only requirement is that posts contribute to the thread. In fact, after this change, frequent posting will be even less of an issue. Amount of posts does not matter, just the content of posts, in any forum.

That's quite interesting to look at. Now you should put up the list of the top Off-Topic Posters; that, my friend, is where the real gold lies.

Those 20 post per day people can't come close to my whopping 0.05 posts per day! Thats 1 post every 20 days! Under 100 posts in 5 and a half years, LoL.

In all seriousness, post count is pretty much irrelevant and seeing them go away from the individual posts certainly makes sense if spamming has become a problem.

Sachi wrote:That's quite interesting to look at. Now you should put up the list of the top Off-Topic Posters; that, my friend, is where the real gold lies.

Seconded.

It would be really neat if we could work some of these queries into the forum, view top posters, view most active posters, view most active recent posters, view top posters per forum, etc. That's probably a lot more complicated than it sounds. If it were doable, it would be neat as shit.

^I have a feeling I'm going to be up on that off-topic list, making 4.03 posts a day like have since 3 February 2007

I think this is a really good idea and the staff here have my full support.

It's quality of posts that count, and I always strive to make excellent posts, regardless of how many I make.

I don't think I will put up the Offtopic forum list. It's not very interesting as far as I can see. (Although, the results might surprise a few who are looking for them)

ObsessiveMathsFreak wrote:I don't think I will put up the Offtopic forum list. It's not very interesting as far as I can see. (Although, the results might surprise a few who are looking for them)

I'd like to see it...

Same here. Same goes for the chit-chat sub-forum.

So would I. I want to see if my names even on any of these lists.

I'm pretty sure I'm on top of the OT list.

i like the change, it's easy to judge people based on their post count, i find myself doing it occasionally although i'm ashamed of doing it.

i don't really care about a respect system either, why do we need such a superfical way to prove if someone is better than someone else?

Mods and Admins are generally treated with more respect anyway so the "important" people don't have to worry about not standing out

I agree with the decision to remove post counts. I've never liked that mode for determining seniority, influence and importance. Many look at post count and ignore everything else, but a better method is acknowledging intelligently made posts and remembering who made them.

ObsessiveMathsFreak wrote:In fact, here's comparative data for the Discussion forum (members of which it is generally agreed are the dorkiest Eva fans of them all). I think any regular discussion forum members would agree that high post count correlates well with overall post quality in this case.

Wow! I'm shocked to know I'm just below Reichu, SSD, Tines, and AEF in The Discussion forum! Considering how much time I spend in OT and Chit-Chat. Given the notorious length of my posts it could actually be considered much higher.