Who decides the value of a post?

Fivel

Fivel

New member
Folks,

On the back of another bit of fellow forumite bashing in the PS3 competition thread where Ichingo took another pasting, much to his unhappiness on his birthday :( ( I was one of those who did chirp Ichingo as well) I decided to create this thread.

This seems to be a topic that raises its ugly head regularly whenever anyone posts a high number of posts over a short period of time and there are competitions on the go as well.

This leaves me with a question as to who sets the bar regarding what is a valuable post or not? If we on not able to agree on this as a community should we not all this dial up our tolerance levels and let it be?

I sense that this sort of thread has all the makings of a flame war as we all will have differing opinions, but try and be tolerant of other folks views.
 
It's quite a subjective thing, so it would I guess come down to popular opinion...
 
My problem with some people's posting behavior is not that they make pointless posts, we all do that from time to time. It's when people post for the sake of posting, that really grinds my gears.

Some people are making a whole bunch of posts in a very short time, with very little thought put into them and without even reading any articles or posts related to the topic. I imagine them walking into conversation where people are discussing how much chlorine you should put in your pool, and then saying something like "I think it's a good idea to put chlorine in your pool, what do you guys think?"
 
I must agree with Eugene, and in most cases i read responses and think what on earth has that got to do with it and look at their number of posts and say to myself ahh ok i get it now.

The ultimate person / persons who decide i gather are the admins on what is regarded as spamming etc. Perhaps they could respond.
 
Roomys_ZA said:
I must agree with Eugene, and in most cases i read responses and think what on earth has that got to do with it and look at their number of posts and say to myself ahh ok i get it now.

The ultimate person / persons who decide i gather are the admins on what is regarded as spamming etc. Perhaps they could respond.
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Admin wants to have as much activity as possible, it's up to the community to determine the quality of posts. Admins and moderators will only intervene when people get abusive or actually spam.
 
Eugene said:
My problem with some people's posting behavior is not that they make pointless posts, we all do that from time to time. It's when people post for the sake of posting, that really grinds my gears.

Some people are making a whole bunch of posts in a very short time, with very little thought put into them and without even reading any articles or posts related to the topic. I imagine them walking into conversation where people are discussing how much chlorine you should put in your pool, and then saying something like "I think it's a good idea to put chlorine in your pool, what do you guys think?"
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I think the irritability factor increases when those posts just coincidentally happen during a competition and never during non competition periods.
 
From the newbies point of view:

I'm guessing the point of these competitions is to attract new members (and maybe to keep old members active... but I'm going to focus on the new members) and obviously these new members want a shot at winning the prize otherwise what's the point of joining.

As one such new member I can tell you it's pretty difficult to make posts here when you don't know anyone or how things work. Your replies tend to be short little opinions that senior members mostly ignore so you can't really add to the conversation... you just have to keep dropping these little bombs until someone responds to you. For me, once people started responding to my posts, posting became much more enjoyable (and I started making longer/better posts).

I came from Mybb so I'm quite familiar with all the little operations (adding links, videos, pictures, quoting etc.) but for someone who doesn't know how to do all of that their posts/threads could get replies like the ones found: here

Notice that the OP did change the thread, however some of the responses were incredibly dickish and I don't think it does any favours for the forum (chatting about gaming should be enjoyable).

My Suggestions/Point:
  • Senior members definitely have an advantage when it comes to making more posts here so competitions are reasonably fair
  • Don't be an ass to new members, just pm them or say something reasonable in your post
  • If someone's a blatant troll then report them... if they don't respond to point two
  • Members post quality will improve the more they post, if not they'll probably leave, if they don't leave then just accept that that's all they want to contribute (eg. a 'lol' or whatever), if you can't accept it then look at point three
 
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I'd been contemplating something like this for a while.

This is a community forum, so everyone may be entitled to a post every so often. However, in having said this, I feel that posts need to be insightful (depending on what the post is regarding) and informative. Some posts are made needlessly - all in the interest of just posting something that you're either to lazy to think up something, or you feel that what you've contributed is enough.

You're by no means obliged to post an essay (and, this is regards to the post within the parameters of the thread in which it is posted).

Bottom line. If you feel you have something to say [type], do so, just not pointless that will undoubtedly cause animosity between members. And many posts will be subjective -- but -- to each their own, right?
 
Vampothic said:
Bottom line. If you feel you have something to say [type], do so, just not pointless that will undoubtedly cause animosity between members. And many posts will be subjective -- but -- to each their own, right?
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The problem comes in where you have competitions based purely on your community activity rather than any kind of value you bring to the community, you will enjoy people to post things just for the sake of posting. To be honest I can't really blame them, hell if I had the time and inclination I may even do the same if I actually wanted to try and win something.

I consider myself reasonably active here, yet there are people who have been here for a few months and already have double the number of posts, so not sure how you would even compete with that unless you used the forum almost as an instant messaging service. :)
 
Eugene said:
I imagine them walking into conversation where people are discussing how much chlorine you should put in your pool, and then saying something like "I think it's a good idea to put chlorine in your pool, what do you guys think?"
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Hahaha I like this analogy!

BUT, although posts like that are a bit pointless; activity based competitions will have stuff like that.
Not everyone has time to read everything and construct a thoughtful/informative reply, when you can 'get away' with posting something mildy related to the topic or 'I agree' etc.
 
This is basically why I don't bother trying to increase my post count for these type of comps. Not that I'm the best person to comment on this seeing as I'm barely on the site anymore.

It does attract spammers, but it also attracts new people to the site who stay on. At the end of the day it's good for the site so it can't be all bad.
 
I seldom post on this forum, but I've been a member since it started up after branching off My Broadband. I do, however read it extensively. I believe if I don't post at least SOMETHING every so often, nobody would even know I'm a member. I doubt anyone even does, but it doesn't bother me. :p
 
I have over 2000 posts. Honestly I can say 5% of them are me just trolling or having a laugh at other peoples expense. From what I have seen, there a people signing up, and in less than 3 months get way past 2000 posts, it's just ridiculous. Yet we are not allowed to question their intentions.
 
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Fivel said:
This leaves me with a question as to who sets the bar regarding what is a valuable post or not?
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Frankly, the outcome of a post has little to do with the actual value. Allow me to illustrate.

Recently I posted:
A) High res photos of some celebrity - took 30 sec to find them 30 sec to post.
B) Skyrim investigation - took about 3 hours - unique investigation unmatched anywhere else (afaik) & fairly impressive result (imo)

Guess which one I got more forum rep for...(I'd provide the stats but I can't figure out where to access historical rep info)

Both I feel add some value to the forum - well kinda - so no major problem there. Its the relative merit that is the issue. The one is unique content which benefits the internet and will benefit mygaming as a whole (that post will draw page views thus benefiting mygaming - I included the relevant phrases google will pick up). The other mygaming will probably get *negative* google SEO results of because of the nature of the pics. (I'm guessing here). The point is - forum recognition is not fair - not even close. Such is life.

[I hope I don't offend Ichigo with what follows - if yes then sorry - if no, then take it as guidance]

Now I didn't catch the thread OP is referring to, but I can say that Ich does tend towards 50x enthusiasm (which is great) but the content needs work. e.g. The ADSL thread he created a while back. We could totally use more summaries like that...things that can be stickied. People with the enthusiasm to make the effort for that are a credit to the forum. If the info is wrong though then no amount of enthusiasm will save it. Personally I'm not worried though. It'll fix itself naturally - you seriously can't hang around mybb and mygaming without some serious knowledge rubbing off on you so any gaps in the knowledge get sorted eventually. Hell I posted some serious crap a couple of years back too.

It has its limit though. e.g. I'm very careful when arguing against say pada because I know that in some areas the guy has 10x the knowledge I have - and thats after me being here from +- the start of mybb/mygaming.

If Ich feels like he is being targeted though then do what I do when people challenge me. Make sure you've got you're fact straight, then post an ice cold response and tell them to.
 
Personally I feel that volume isn't an issue but when you posts have no context to the actual topic then I get annoyed.

With regards to an activity contest, read the rules. There are plenty of ways noobs can rack up points for jam

*rating threads
*adding members as friends
*adding images to image of the day
*giving rep (even though your powers are weak)
*voting on polls (necro an old poll, just don't comment)

I'm sure I can find other activities that give away points but I'm too lazy. However there are ways to contribute and also sneak your way in.
 
I think the key is to determine what exactly your post is adding to the forum. When you're making a post for the sake of posting instead of because you actually want to contribute to the discussion, then your post is of no value to the rest of the forum. I can't speak for his activity here, but I'm familiar with Ichigo's posting habits on MyBB and his posts are more often than not completely worthless, adding nothing of value to the threads he posts in.

However, this thread isn't here for me to take potshots at Ichigo. I merely want to point out that I understand why people get annoyed with him, and to be frank, I don't think you can really blame them either.
 
On another note, something that bothers me about these forums are how fast threads are derailed while seemingly nothing is done about it. Have a look at the 8bit Game of Thrones thread. It started as a thread about the game, now they're discussing GoT youtube videos and the series.
 
Clive Woofer said:
On another note, something that bothers me about these forums are how fast threads are derailed while seemingly nothing is done about it. Have a look at the 8bit Game of Thrones thread. It started as a thread about the game, now they're discussing GoT youtube videos and the series.
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That's just general topic progression, derailment is if people started talking about something completely unrelated.
 
Clive Woofer said:
On another note, something that bothers me about these forums are how fast threads are derailed while seemingly nothing is done about it. Have a look at the 8bit Game of Thrones thread. It started as a thread about the game, now they're discussing GoT youtube videos and the series.
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So I hear Pokemon is now part of the MSSA. Springbok for pokemon trading cards, wtf o_O


(P.s. that's derailment)
 
Ike_009 said:
*rating threads
*adding members as friends
*adding images to image of the day
*giving rep (even though your powers are weak)
*voting on polls (necro an old poll, just don't comment)
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Didn't James say that some of these will be phased out, like rating threads? Trying to find where he said that...

voting on polls (necro an old poll, just don't comment)
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As long as the poll isn't closed, that could work...

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