Quote Originally Posted by sisterhoney61 View Post
Ok, I think that I have a legit question here. Up until this thread I personally never noticed how many posts I or anyone else on this board had, because how many posts anyone has really doesn't mean anything to me. *shrugs*

My question is: what is the reasoning behind the post count in the first place? I belong to several other boards and they have post counts (in fact, at one of my other boards someone just today brought up the top ten posters on the board. Whippee?). But what is the point of post counts? I'm sure there has to be a reasoning behind it. As far as I know, the other boards I belong to don't offer awards to the people with the most posts.

I know this all sounds convuluted, but until delia started this thread I never realized that posting numbers were all that important and meant anything. I mean, I can understand a total post count of everyone altogether would be important, because then that would show the moderators how active the site was in general. And if they had post counts of each section on the board they could see which were the most popular and that would help them decide if they should get rid of certain sections or combine them with others, etc. But why the individual post counts of the forum members? Why are those posted? And it's not just this site I'm asking about; all the forums I am active on do this and I was just wondering why this was so. I'm sure there is a reason behind it.
I guess a valid reason for showing post count, time you joined and that kind is to give a quick, rough idea of how active a certain member is, how much they are around. Some people here, like myself, Jeanne, Tom, Pertez or Warbaby (just a few) are around more or less any day, while others may take weeks and months between logging in. If you're new to the place, or to a certain forum here, and you see a post or some meber who interests you, then it's really annoying if you reply or send a pm and nothing at all happens for weeks because that member has in fact made only te posts and doesn't come around for months. This is a crude mesure, but it's still useful.

I personally could care less if I have 8.000 or 30.000 posts, and actually it took me six months here to get to 1.000. When the posting rate started to pick up for real, the reason was not some wish to get to 10K but first off, that I made several new friends here who were so much fun to be with. Angel and myself - others too - share an interest in intricate word games, and when she began spending time at F&G and invented games like Alphabet Story it hit a raw nerve with me - anyone who thinks word games are bland and undemanding, or are not about bdsm practices, should take a look at that thread!

So Angel definitely helped lift the post count for me and others (and us lifting hers) but it was out of a sense of fun, not a wish to reach 10.000. I don't recall seeing it as a race to 10.000 even when I was three-fourths of the way - we do have offline lives too, and in any case, the post count was never that important a part of why I spent time here.


Quote Originally Posted by TomOfSweden View Post
How about this then. If the point of the postcount is to gauge some kind of dedication to the forum. Why not skip post count and only count "thanks".

What better measurement of a members value than its helpfulness to others?

Because ultimately two friends can agree to post thanks for everything they do, every post, even for posting in some number game. It doesn't sopnd very useful. I can think of a few times when people seem to have been up for hours poasting against each other in some numbers game too, and okay that's got nothing to do with bdsm and lifts their post count, but I thin the long run that gets eased out, while a 2000 thanks roll is a bit harder to reach up to and may not really reflect the dedication behind. But let's not get into a fight about who is th best member here.