I just noticed something. A thread popped up today that has been dormant for a while. I was the 2nd poster/1st reply to the thread, which I posted in March. Suprisingly, my post count shown on that post is my current post count! Why does it do that? I think the post should always show the poster's count at the time the post was made.

 

Yeah, I've noticed that. Your signature updates too.

 

Perhaps...it's always seemed to follow the user's NAM id.

 

kinda freaky me thinks... its like there is no history

 

Yeah. It could make some posts look really stupid.

 

Just a thought, but maybe signatures, etc are grabbed from the user account when the thread is displayed rather than stored in the thread itself... I could be completely wrong though.

 

Well, obviously that information is tied to the current info. But, it shouldn't be, IMO.

 

I think this is very standard forum design. Not that I am any expert.

 

Perhaps, but doesn't make it any better.

 

I'm not sure that changing it (if possible) wouldn't come with other sets of negatives/inconveniences.

 

It's Kosmic and a magnetic convergence, but we'll live through it!!!

 

Alumnium foil, the quilted type, wrapped around your head and shaped to a point helps beat Kosmic forces every time. Everybody at the instutition knows that!

 

According to studies at MIT, if, like a dork you cover only a portion of yourself with the helmet, not only will the cage not shield you, the edges of the helmet will serve as an antenna, broadcasting your innermost thoughts (or electromagnetic traces thereof) to the world.

But onto the post count thingy...

Thats the design of forums. All of them pull the users data from a database and assemble it into the post. The counter keeps on ticking and each change in that data, which includes, sig, post count, location, join date, etc is assembled on the fly when a thread is called up by a user.

 

Having the post count remain a static number at the time of the post itself would make the post count meaningless. It would be very difficult to ever tell exactly what a person's post count was, because you'd always have to first search and find the very last post they made before paying attention to that number.

I'm sorry that it bothers you LynnEl, but this is the way that all forums work (at least the ones that choose to display the post count in the first place), as that data is dynamically updated along with the username & signature, just as the other folks suggested.

Now, in my opinion, a more interesting change would be to have posts in the Off-Topic and Off-Topic:Autos forums not be included in the count, because this is a MINI-related forum, and "fluff" posts shouldn't be part of it!

I don't think that can be done either. Not sure... but it would be an interesting change. Quality (i.e. on-topic) is more important than quantity!

 

Sorry but I beg to differ... There are plenty of quality posts made in OT

 

Hey, I sometimes participate in OT fluff too... that doesn't change the fact they aren't MINI-related and therefore not part of the intent/focus of this website.

 

Keep in mind that each post has a date above it. At a glance someone might think an old post is dumb, but that just means they're too dumb to look at the date.

 

In your opinion that might be true but I think that people forage great relationships & bonds in OT & IMHO that is what the site is all about

 

Not that I think this is a big deal, but I disagree. I think it is more relevant and informative to show what the post count of the poster was at the time the post was made, as it may be, and often is, related to the experience of the poster. For example, I just saw a post from someone alleging that the MINIs are painted in the US, after being fully assembled. Although this may be an extreme example, my belief in that statement, and, perhaps my response, may be different if it was posted at the time someone had 6 posts versus 1,000. On the other paw, a post I made when I had 11 posts, asking what LB/LB meant (hypothetical post, not actual), which now shows up with a post count of 7,000+, makes me look like even a bigger moron than I am.

But, as I said, it's not a major deal. I was just surprised to notice it.

 

True. But then people would more likely post OT posts in on-topic threads (as if that doesn't happen, anyway).

 

The *most* thought provoking posts are of course in the "How Many Posts" thread, the "What's in the 6th gear Lounge" thread and "NAM Tea Time".....

 

Of course, I'd think that an even more interesting change would be to hide the post counts all together. The member group would give a range for the post number, so you'd be easily able to tell the difference between a person who posts a lot vs. someone new, but you might get fewer 'fluff' posts, as the displayed post count wouldn't change past 6th gear (or whatever is the highest number).

 

they are still date stamped... and if someone cannot denote that you were a noob due to the date.... even though you have 7000 posts now.. that post is 5 years old... etc etc blah blah...

also amount of posts has nothing to do with knowledge.... sure in some cases... but in some it doesn't... when it was first posted that 250 WHP was made back in late 02 ... people said.. yer a nooob you have like 2 posts.. what you are saying is not possible... .. but the 15 years of perfromance tuning that person had at the time didn't matter....

nice ... reaaally nice

 

Of course... I am well aware that OT has its own tight community base... remember, I wasn't proposing removal of those forums, simply going one step further to treating them just as they are - Off-Topic!After which we would immediately move them to one of the OT forums anyway, just like we do now. I don't think things would change from a post habit perspective (at least not after the initial curiosity is over). Yes, that is an option too - disable display of the post counts altogether (at least amongst the posts themselves). There certainly have been plenty of "elitist" attitudes using post count as some kind of value.

What I'd also like to see is a statistic of "# of words per post", because it doesn't take much to reply to a thread with a one-word answer like "Yes", and have it be another post in the count. However, a well thought-out and expressed reply, many paragraphs in length, is a different matter.

I have seen plenty of times that people deliberately made a bunch of small, meaningless posts just to boost their count.

 

Actually, aren't posts in the "testing" forum not included in post count already? So there's already a facility for excluding some posts.