Forum Moderators: open
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Has post count reached the point where it is no longer universally relevant as a rating of a members worth across the entire set of forums?
Although post count clearly serves to show the commitment of an individual to the forums and as such it can't easily be beaten as it takes time and effort to build it up, there is a down side.
Post count, and to a lesser extent the stylised title, is *very* promenantly displayed and tends to suggest a rating of the members worth - if there was only one big forum focused on one topic this would be fine but there are a number of very focused and diverse forums.
Unfortunately the single post counter leads to a situation where my worth in one area should not necesarily carry over to other areas. For example I'd like to think I'm great at SQL & ASP and while I know a little about Google you'll nearly always find a little uncertainty in my posts on the subject.
The current system is totally unable to cope with anything more than an absolute answer - it's geared towards me being an absolute - my quality cannot vary - I'm limited to having my worth represented as a single variable somewhere in a database no matter what I'm talking about.
Where am I going with this?
Well really I'm just wondering out loud how best to convey to users (particularly the newer users) that the person you are getting the answer from may have posted a whole lot of stuff but *none* of those answers covered this subject area and so you might want to treat what they are saying with a pinch of salt.
We've all seen topics which have featured an answer or two which you have seen and *instantly* know that the person answering the question just gave the wrong answer, sometimes it's a little wrong, other times it just ends up worse.
Sometimes these do get missed despite the best efforts of the various forums mods, as is the nature of any high-traffic forum (as much as I'm sure the mods would like to, to they can't be expected to verfiy, read & reply on every single thread).
Why not keep the post count but make it a private thing so that I can know but it's not displayed to the world - we can still have the stylised titles but simply without the number of posts trailing it.
Why not introduce a system whereby whomever starts an "answer my question" type of thread gets the ability to rate the replies he or she recieved, so if person X gets a good rating in response to their answer their profile will reflect that for that particular subject area.
Think about the ebay rating systems and how that works - it might not be perfect but it makes a lot more sense than "how many items have I bought & sold".
<ponders>
Guess I might end up with a lot of reading to do tomorrow, or maybe none depending on how this goes.
</ponders>
- Tony
I don't think people take it very seriously though. I know I follow quite a few members threads where their post count is low because I can see that they know what they're talking about....
Nick
To look at it another way, don't even look who is posting the stuff, then post count won't matter either, then you can save the bias until after youve read what a.n.yone says :)
while it exists on pretty much every fourm in all fourm software is does not indicate a thing.
For example, you wouldn't know I was a Google Goddess by my post count now would you ;)
[rofl - jess joking!]
I don't think our members are in dire danger of being mislead by a nefarious charmer with a high post count though, because there are plenty of other people here to cry foul if someone starts spouting nonsense... and you almost always get at least two different answers/opinions for any question, leaving the original questioner with multiple options to try out and see which works best for them... a lot of people also post back as to their results with various ideas, so future forum browsers will see who's answer proved the most useful in each case.
ha - I keep my king and queen on the mantle ;-)
>post count
I look at them more as a statement about community contributions, involvement, and commitment than necc authority on any given subject.
I've spent quite a bit of time considering alternatives:
1) byte count. (just means the chatty ones look good).
2) member ratings from members. There is a msg voting system underneath the software that is turned off. accumulated votes that tally eventually.
3) message spawns. The number of msgs spawn because of a thread the member started.
Well really I'm just wondering out loud how best to convey to users (particularly the newer users) that the person you are getting the answer from may have posted a whole lot of stuff but *none* of those answers covered this subject area and so you might want to treat what they are saying with a pinch of salt.
The only users you'd have to convey that concept to would be those who've never before visited any forum, newsgroup, or other online community in their lives. Any with even minimal experience would be quite familiar with the idea that a post count means nothing about the poster's "value" or expertise.
Which would totally devalue the contributions of members who primarily answer questions rather than asking them... the very members who are a large part of the reason WebmasterWorld is such a great place to bring your questions.
IMO, there is no good way of "rating" members... nor should it be an issue. If someone gives bad advice, someone else will be along shortly to give another viewpoint. If someone gives so much bad advice that they become a problem unto themselves, it will come to the moderators' attention and be dealt with.
The current system gives an idea of how long-standing any given member is, and how active within the community... and that's about the best you can really do, without bringing a whole bunch of subjective valuations into the mix.
Was it ever really relevant? I consider the "post count" and "member since" to be too subjective to be used as yardsticks.
I personally think that you can never tell the likelyhood of getting a quality post from one person until you get to know them and the only way that can truly be accomplished is to join in the conversation. After a while we each figure out who's good at what - and everyone has a place. What I consider a useful post is usually because I need that information right then and there and that person came through for me. I've had people with far less posts than I help me out. Could be a sign that I'm particularly dense or they're extremely smart if you go strictly by the numbers. It's just too subjective to try and measure by any means other than your own experience.
devalue the contributions of members who primarily answer questions rather than asking them...
People that ask questions usually get them answered in a few posts. Question posts on the average don't spawn many messages.
I recently went to Google, type in "webmaster world" + fathom and almost every thread I have ever posted in was indexed.
I had a good "laugh" over some of the early posts, the apparent intimation factor (in both directions, towards: senior and junior members, reconsidered some of my more heated discussions and previous personal points of view, my sarcasm, jokes, and so on.
Over the course of that 6 month and thousand posts... did I contribute more as the counter and dates went up. I think so, and would tend to believe most would say the same.
On considering the orginal question and possible changes, the content of what we post says alot more than the number. Learning from information and advice can develop knowledge and knowledge leads to wisdom, particularly with all the "grey areas" we all contend with. But all of this, paticularly in an open forum takes time, not just on quality but also the inferred tone, and this you can't get on the first post, jumping into a foreign environment.
Changes... some forums I post alot, some a little, and a couple (I believe) I've never entered, or at least posted.
Would post count by forum possibly be better?
In Microsoft .NET and Related Technologies, Linux, Unix, and *nix like Operating Systems and PDA and Mobile Computing, I doubt very much that I could offer much in these discussions, and wouldn't want junior members acting on possible information (advice -- but more likely guesswork) I provide if a did.
I have seen very few (if any) completely wrong answers in the threads since I'm in here and I think that is one of the things that make WW such an outstanding forum.
I've got to admit, I don't look at a person's numbers until after I've read their message. If I think their suggestion has some merit and I might want to follow their advice, then I read their name/rank/rating/whatever.
I may be a bit atypical in this, but I believe that even some of the junior members have good answers and solutions to some problems/questions. It really depends on the situation and what kind of an answer folks are looking for.
Sometimes a junior member is posting a question on a rather complex topic. They've got plenty of knowledge of the topic, but they're missing some specific piece of the puzzle. A junior member may not have been a member of Webmaster World for long, but that doesn't mean s/he doesn't have any good info.
On the flip side, I've tracked read a few posts from senior members where they're learning something new and I have an answer for the question. (Okay, someone else beat me to providing the answer, but I still had the answer! :0 )
So what I guess I'm saying is that I don't think all the junior member are necessarily taking the answers provided by senior members or higher as gospel truth.
On the flip side, I answered one guy's question and he sent me a sticky note asking for more depth on the topic than I was able to provide. It could have gotten messy if I thought more highly of my abilities than is warranted. I think if anything, it's the potential for private messages that can get folks more wrong answers than the reponses to forums by somewhat uninformed individuals.
In the forums you can get answers from all different levels of experience and knowledge. There's plenty of time for folks to interact and hash things out if a preferred member gives an incorrect or incomplete response to a new or junior member's (or even a moderator's question) question.
Sorry if I'm rambling a bit here, but I'm just trying to think the whole thing through from a "newer" member's perspective.
Excellent post Syren_Song! :)
Thanks for the kudos, fathom.
I just figured it was mostly folks that had been posting a while that were writing on this topic. Seemed you needed a "fresher" viewpoint.
I sometimes look at post count and member since but I more often look in their profile and read recent messages to get a feel for someone I might not know. Those three things together, most times, give you weighable information.
Although now that it's been brought to my attention, I may in the future....
i barely noticed the post count until april when someone (marcia?) reversed mine and i ended up with a negative count!
Never take anyone's advice on blind faith, we all know that. Incorporate what people tell you into your own research. In the business we are in there are no absolutes, so why should a definitive resource such as this contain anything different?
If there was a member voting system why would that give you any better info? Then you would just have to check out every person who made a vote to see if they were qualified to vote.
I dislike the member voting scenario only because it encourages blind faith. If you don't know whether to believe someone then search out other posts they have made and figure out their credibility. Advice should be considered, tested and researched. If someone gives you a right answer you sho7uld be able to cut your research time in half because the information will weigh out.
At any rate, Dreamquick, you're right, post count is irrelevant by itself. I don't think that rating someone's posts will help make the number more relevant, I just think it will keep people from posting newbie questions for fear of a bad vote and make some people believe what bad advice with out engaging their brain.
my 2 cents.
<afterthought>so if someone has 503 total posts and 499 of them have been in the everflux preupdate threads, should I take them as a paranoia expert? ;)
I post a new thread and get an answer that sounds good from a person who is a Senior Member. I give that person a high vote because I liked his/her answer and thought it was a wonderful solution to my problem. I implement that solution on several of my customers' websites. Next month when Google spiders, all the sites where I implemented this solution are banned because Google considered it spamming.
It may well be true that if I had followed up on my thread, I would have seen that several members chimed in to warn against the bad advice. It could as easily be true that the one person's advice was the end of the thread. Whatever the case, I have now made someone look good who gave exceedingly bad advice.
Member voting may not be a good idea for this type of forum. Why allow people who themselves aren't knowledgeable on specific topics to lend authority to others who may be equally uninformed?
The other side of the coin, people with high post counts and long-ago signup dates, might be a little more significant -- you'd probably be safe to assume that someone who's been around and exceedingly active for a year or so has probably absorbed a little bit of knowledge.
But many who've been around and posting still may have large gaps in their knowledge.
So really the bottom line is that post count is meaningless. As I said earlier, I think anyone with much experience in forums or newsgroups or whatever will have come to that conclusion. And I really don't see any other trick -- byte count, messages spawned, member voting, whatever -- will really produce an accurate measurement of such an elusive thing.
Draw conclusions by reading what people write. There are no shortcuts. We should be getting used to that.
There are no shortcuts. We should be getting used to that.
Seriously, though, I think it might help, at least a little bit, if there was a way to set the archived and closed threads in stone a bit more. It's rather disconcerting to see someone with a post count of over 3,000 asking an extremely novice question. (Sorry, I can't think of a good example right now. Too early in the morning here.)
I've searched through the archives on a couple of topics and, unless I'm very much mistaken, it looks like a person's posts and "rating" (junior/senior/moderator) continue to be updated after a thread has closed. It looks kind of funny when you've gotten a really great answer from someone after seeing a posting in a search that seems to indicate they shouldn't know what they're talking about on the topic.
Am I making any sense? *yawn* ;)
Check Brett over 8k, RC is over 7k, and there are a few over the 3k mark, many over 2k, and loads over 1k, and the rest below.
I ask, answer, or post topics that i feel are generally rewarding to myself and to other members, and could not care less about my post count what ever it may be.
Just a thought. :)
That would at least give people an idea of where a users interests and experience lie.
JOAT
;)
Mumbling in front my notebook: Today will be the day that I will become a senior member and everybody will value my posts that much more. ;)
