Contributing to the Site

[lily27]

I remember the days before the hall of fame, and I have to say that there seemed to be a pretty drastic and immediate fall off of long and insightful posting in favour of quick one word replies in the fun and games forum. It seemed like very few people could be bothered to spend 20 minutes writing out a reply when they could instead increase their post count by 50 during that time. It has gotten better as of late, but I actually wandered off for several months at one point just because there was very little activity relating to BDSM anymore.

I know that some people who are active in the F&G forums also post in the other areas as well, but there are a few people that have thousands and thousands of posts that I have never even heard of before.

I have to admit that there are times that I question the value of having a fun and games forum at all. I understand that people enjoy it, but is it to the detriment of having more activity revolving around BDSM, which is what this forum is here for to begin with? (I don't actually know the answer to this question, just throwing it out there.) There was a time where at least most of the games threads required wit, humour and creativity, instead of "let's all count consecutive numbers."

As Warbaby said, eliminating it would definitely reduce the size of the site. But is that a bad thing? If people are going to leave because there isn't a fun and games section, is that really a problem for a BDSM-specific site? I belong to other forums on different topics where there are thousands of new posts in a day, and they are all on the main topic of the forum.... with nobody missing a games section.

This isn't my site, so I know there are probably other issues to deal with, but personally I would prefer to see a much more active forum based on BDSM.... I am not sure exactly how to acheive that.

I don't really have an opinion one way or another about the "Thanks" button... however, there have been a few times I wished we had a "No Thanks" one. LOL.

So that is my two cents. I am sure it will probably anger a lot of people, but that has never really stopped me. Sometimes you have to take a step back and ask if something is really working, or if it is having some unintended consequences. There have been a lot of really excellent contributors who have gone away over the years... not with big dramatic "I'm leaving!" exits, but just fading away. I would be very interested in finding out why they left.

[Phantome]

Well, I just typed out a wonderfully well-thought-out post, and I pushed the wrong button and deleted it all. Let's see if I can reconstruct it...

I agree that it seems like people put too much emphasis on post count, which should be taken with a grain of salt. I do feel there is a place for both F&G and BDSM-related threads here. The F&G section is very low-pressure, and is a great way for people to get to know members of the forum, plus it's nice to have a place with familiar faces where I can unwind if I choose, and not have to think too hard.

That said, I rarely visit the F&G section, but some of the times that I did, I have raised my eyebrows at the number of unfamiliar faces in the F&G section who have thousands of posts, because they rarely post in the rest of the forum. I have definitely wondered about how the other folks around here view the value of post counts. I have been here for years, but only have a few hundred posts. Does that make me less valuable as a friend or contributor? On the flip side, if someone has a very low thread count because they're new or just don't post in F&G, does that make their thoughts less worthy of consideration? Even though it's obvious (to me, at least) that some high thread counts are almost nothing but F&G, it seems as though that's a quickly forgotton fact.

I guess I'm just saying that I don't really pay much attention to post counts as a measure of someone's value to the forum. I pay more attention to the content which they post, and I occasionally take note of how long they've been a member. I think that if someone stumbles across this forum and finds a welcoming sense of community, then I'd say we have a pretty successful forum, and whether that happens in F&G, chat, or the rest of the forum, I don't think it matters.

There have been a lot of really excellent contributors who have gone away over the years... not with big dramatic "I'm leaving!" exits, but just fading away. I would be very interested in finding out why they left.

There was a time that I went away for many months. Whether I was missed or not (or even considered an "excellent contributor"), I don't know, but I'm back now. If you are interested in finding out why, PM me.

-Phan

[cadence]

I think I have been here for about two years, my post count would still be under a thousand, had I not become a greeter and thought it would be a good idea to greet people in the introduction thread.

I don't really care about the post count, if someone else does, that is thier perogative, I have no issues with that.

I am on another forum where post count does matter, (if you are truly a sarcastic, mean opinionated moron, that might be overlooked), consider yourself ostracized until you at least have over a 1000 posts, and even then you better be prepared to become mean, opinionated and sarcastic.

I can count on one hand the number of people I personally know here, so it is obvious I don't go to F&G much. And I must note that there is nothing wrong with having a large post count in F&G. A person could make numourous posts here and there, but I like to at least look for substance and the general tone of the post. Some of the people who do post quite a bit in the F&G thread, have made some substantial posts elsewhere.

I have also run across a couple of posters here, who may have had very few posts, but they infuse a certain attitude within thier writing that makes me admire them quite a bit.

I just realized that my post is a bit biased.
I know that I was very afraid of posting for fear of being judged and criticized. It is discouraging to some newcomers to come out and post, when they are worried about being judged based on the substance of thier writing.
Everyone has something to say.

As for rewarding post counts, last I looked it said "Forum God" (my interpretation means "god that's a lot of posts!!!!), not "Forum Contributor", we do have awards for that as well.