A Serious Suggestion.

[Thom]

Right I know the idea has been flirted with in passing, but I wanted to bring it up as a formal request; Can we please abolish post counts? Seriously, who actually cares how many posts they have? It's a completely redundant statistic which serves as an incentive to make posts where completely unneccesary. And while we're at it, the whole "Today's Top Ten Posters" thing causes more harm than good. Get rid of that too?

In leiu of post counts, if people require anything, why not introduce a Reputation/Karma system, like on the Pointlesswasteoftime.com forums? When somebody makes a post, people can give them good karma or bad karma, which accumilates and their karma is shown under their screen name. This way, if people want a bigger number than somebody else, they're forced to make quality, relevant posts which actually benefit topics. And what could be more satisfying than slapping Matt Gray some virtual skin in the form of +1 karma to congratulate him on yet another successful joke.

What does everybody else think?

[Jonny]

I agree. But the reputation system would be abused, leaving people like Subrick -248 karma (rough guestimate).

[jitz]

I want to know why you immediately thought of Subrick and not yourself.

As for the idea, yeah I'm not really fussed. I don't look at post counts, and I can't say I'd look at any karma index either.

[Jonny]

But still, abolishing post counts may be a little selfish on our own behalf. As people on other forums may still want to use them, namely people on the codes & caw forums.

[Thom]

Well no not everybody would, it's more about detering the people who do pay attention to postcounts to stop doing it, and replacing it with something slightly more worthwhile.

I see your point Jonny, but that's the whole point of the system. If somebody had such a poor karma rating then it'd be for a reason, and hopefully they'd remedy this by ceasing to post superfluous topics of consistant shit after shit, after shit.

[Jonny]

Good point. I'm in favour of the karma system.

[Big Bizang]

Yeah get shot of the post count but I don't like the karma idea. I'm a bit dubious of a system that means you are constantly judged by your peers in an official way. It's a bit too invasive.

[jitz]

What if people were rated on say their....bizang instead of their karma? You could say things such as "Give that man five bizangs!". It could work.

[Jonny]

I know what you mean.

What about a thread rating system instead? For example;

If somebody posts a good thread with a heated topic, people can give it a +. The more +'s earned for that topic/post, then the more good karma the poster would get. I think this would be a better system than just being able to simply give + or - karma to somebody for little reason.

[jitz]

We've moved on from karma, we're now rating people's bizang appeal.

Right now, you'd be minus a few bizang. Simply for trying to rob Subrick of every chance he would have to earn any bizangs.

[Subrick]

What would I be?

[Jonny]

Changed your mind about the karma system yet, Bizzang?

[Big Bizang]

You know, it's growing on me...

[Aero]

the reputation system would be abused, leaving people like Subrick -248 karma (rough guestimate).

so it wouldnt be abused at all, it would be accurate HAHAHA

[Joe =/]

Yes, ditch post counts. As for the karma stuff, if you're worried about people unfairly judging you - make a system where you can only GAIN 'karma' and not lose it, so if someone thinks your thread sucks, they just don't rate it since the only option would be to add karma.

You get me, nigguhs ?

[Aero]

not a bad idea joe. with that we could then bring in additional features, e.g those with karma below like 10 can only make 1 new topic a day, then 5, 10 etc, that sort of shit. would involve everyone being started off on lowest karma tho for it to be of any real benifit

[Nemo]

no post counts, no karma, no reps. if you have anything to gain by making a shit thread, the system fails. if people can bring your points or level down out of spite, the system fails. both are problems here.

another issue is that if people dont know their post count, they will just spam blindly to get to the next user rank. therefore custom titles will have to be either available from the start, or disabled with post count.

we need something though because it seems that every time i try to stop subrick from posting, my efforts are...thwarted by homo hb.

[bigpoppn]

Let's try and if it doesn't work with the karma thing, then we put the post count back.What about that?

[Fozy]

Post count will never come back.

[Smacktalks]

I'm willing to give the karma system a go if people want to try it out.

e.g those with karma below like 10 can only make 1 new topic a day, then 5, 10 etc, that sort of shit.

I'm against this though, limiting new members to 1 post, etc. is a bad idea, why stop new members that want to contribute to the board because they've just joined? We should be trying to encourage new members to begin posting.

[Aero]

not post limit posts, limit their ability to create new topics paul

[Fozy]

He said topics, not posts. I think we've learned, not one new member have contributed with good new topics.

[bigpoppn]

They absolutely didn't.If they were allowed, the spam of viagra, pills, etc. would rise again.I think the karma thing really would work but from the moment someone's got a complain we change back to the post count.

[Smacktalks]

Even topics is the same, if someone signs up to post their caws for a new game and finds they can only post one, it's gonna be a bit dissapointing.

[Jonny]

Agreed. Lets just have the karma system, with no benefits. The only draw-back should be if a member gets very bad karma, which could result in a potential ban.