How about replacing "post count" with "member since: XXX XXXX" where the XXX XXXX would be something like "FEB 2003". :D

I think that would take care of everything :)

I also think that if you took post counts out all together....you'd be one of the first sites to do it...and it would be great.

I'm behind you whatever decision you make. Regardless of your decision on this topic.....this place will ALWAYS be a great place.


Peace,
Whitehat

Um....I must be blind. I just noticed that you have registered date already. Right under the username. Hmm.... Sorry bout that.

On that note....you could replace "posts" with "Favorite Forum" :)

hi jeremy, haven't had the pleasure of conversing w/you to date, so, nice to meet you. i love this forum, i spend a couple of hours here every day(sometimes more..when the wife will let me), and, it is invaluable. thx for setting it up(w/ the help of anyone else involved that i don't know about). w/that said i am grateful for the help i receive here and grateful for the opportunity to learn and share as i help others. it's not a matter of post counts, but, the fact that another linux user is born w/ every successful "problem solved". while i don't see a need for post counts at all there are people here who have earned a high post total, and, to be fair to them i think you'll have to read their input. if the general consensus is to eliminate posts from general from the total post count, then by all means i'm in. if the general consensus is to eliminate posts count all together, then, by all means i'm in. i'm just happy to be here, and, happy to help, and, happy to have a group of folks that i think of as friends here at lq. thx to anyone who reads my humble opinion. thx for this forum.

Definitely stop adding post counts in General. As far as to continue with post counts at all. It doesn't matter to me. This site will be good either way. Great job mods and Jeremy.

Thanks PEACEDOG and twilli227. I'm still a bit up in the air on this one, so if you have an opinion either way feel free to post.

--jeremy

<rant>
people are geting like 600 post without ever installing linux.
(sorry to point you out)
ChasidishHarry: 370
99.5: 353posts in general He just installed mandy 2 weeks ago
There are others but he is the best known.
At the rate that he was going before he installed Linux he would have been a Guru in 3 months without ever using Linux. How hard is it to get an knoppix cd. You can lear nto use linux without killing windows. People like him are why people think that kids+LQ=bad, people like that are the reason that people that use linux don't think that kids can take the time to learn Linux. People like that are why the people at my LUG's jaws hit the floor when they find out that I took the time to learn RH then SuSE and now slackware. Why should people like ChasidishHarry be able to get credit for there useless posts in this mindless fourm called general.
</rant>

-Joey

You might want to follow the advice of your signature for now ;)

Hi jeremy,

Glad that you are bringing such an important matter to our discussion. I have already mentioned that I support you about the removal of post count from general. But I think that the post count by itself should not be removed as it gives the total time a person has spent here on LQ, a little status indicator about the time and energy he has spent on LQ and consequently Linux.

This is important for some people, including me, and so I think you should not do away with the post count system altogether.

I must also say that I like that LQ Addict title(as I am one), and if you do away with the system without me getting that title, I would be sad and disappointed.

Think you will consider this in your decisions.........

I'm all for posts in general not being counted. Retroactive would even be fine with me. This is my first post in Gerneral for awhile just because it increments the count. And I've heard other people state that they don't for the same reason.

It's nice to post in General and not having it increment would keep the people who think guru's don't post here off everyone's back.

some argue post count is meaningless, others that is demonstrates something, while most seem to agree that gen'L deserves a different weighting than other forums.

regardless of the weighting of the two types of forums, it seems if you log/display both tallies, one from gen'L, one from .not. gen'L, users could both retain any perceived posting investment from wherever they posted, and others (who care) might be aware of each user's concentration.

Yeah , but that'll be quite a tad more work than simply exclude "General" from postcount ; Every decent forumsoftware has an admin-panel where it's possible to tag certain forums to exclude from PC(postcount).
They usually don't provide a split-PC-exposure , like you described and it would require quite a bit of scripting and tinkering with the forum-software to implement it.

I don't think it's worth the hassle.
Just tag/untag "General" from PC is the easiest way and should suffice.
I have the feeling , this would work retro-actively as well , which is good.

I am totally for it. In fact, I was discussing this in person with a few people today before I saw this thread. I remarked how many people there are lately that registered a few months ago, are still newb enough not to know how to install software etc, and have almost 1000 posts!!! It is a definite possibility that some Brand Newb will come along, see these people are Guru's and take their word as gold when really they are just as new.

I know when I was a complete n00b I always put more stock in the 1000+ guys... Unfortunately, it seems most of this drivel is going on in the actual Question forums so this won't eliminate all... I recently unsubscribed from like 10 threads because the same 2 or three people are posting 10x a day in them about nothing. I got tired of reading the email alerts ;)

Jeremy,

I'd like to add something else. My issue with the titles under the name is because of what Scruff mentioned. I believe that if you allow guru to be there, it should indicate something more than how many posts someone makes to a public forum. Now if it just says LQ addict, that may be more appropriate.

The first thing I think of when I read the word guru is a Tibetan Monk (remember I live in China). This is not someone I would rely on for either Spiritual, or Linux advice. Another definition from the dictionary.com site is this:
With all due respect to you, and all LQ members, the current status of "guru" doesn't indicate Linux knowledge at all. There are some teenage boys (especially one 15-year old who comes to mind) who don't know much about Linux but are about to have the option to append guru to their posts.

I am the least of all LQ members. My Linux knowledge would fit on the head of a pin with room to spare. That's why I asked to keep Contributing Member (thanks for allowing it, I'm honored). This site has been an invaluable resource to me, and I'm grateful to you for it. It would be wrong for another newbie to read guru as my title, because I'm not one by any definition.

On the other hand, though LQ is my homepage, and a great resource, I'm not addicted to LQ. I am "addicted" to Jesus! He changed my life!

Thanks for asking and letting us air our opinions.

What kind of system would you like to see? I believe I have mentioned before in another thread that I think a good system would be to only allow the "Guru" status by peer review (such as by recommendation by Mods or Jeremy) and Jeremy editing their profile to add that string to their 'status'. However, there is talk of removing the status thing completely, in which case this would be negated anyway.

I think the peer review thing is a good idea Thymox. The mods are all through the forums all the time and would spot a member that consistently helps others with accurate information. I was on the fence about removing the titles altogether because there are people here who know enough to deserve the Guru title and if it were assigned by merit instead of post count only those worthy would sport it. It would at the very least make it a bit more reliable for those that can't tell a CLI from a RTM :)

I've been bantering this one about in my head for a while. Here's my end result.

The goal of nixing General posts from the post count is to keep the title of Guru/LQ addict from being devalued by people that are more interested in chattering in General then helping out in the forums. I'm not passing judgement on General chatter, I've probably got somewhere in the ballpark of 500 in there. It used to be a sideline look through between posts in hardware... it also used to be that I could read and reply to the active thread (probably 3) in ten minutes, but that was 2002. Now you can do loop throughs where there are replies to the first thread by the time you're done with the 10th, and a lot more replies then I was used. Its really really populated here now, so it makes sense that people never leave their stump in General. You don't have to, you can't get bored.

As much as some people have suggested actions from zapping titles to getting rid of post counts entirely. I never believed in altruism. You just have to have something to go on, even if its flawed, the current system is the best that there is, and really... titles and post counts are on every other web forum of our subject and size because they help users know who they're getting help from. We've got I think 65 users that have broken that 1k barrier, and I for one would always like to be sure that they actually know their stuff.

So, are the chatter to guru post counts in General devaluing the title system. Yep... and zapping the post counts in General is probably the only way to fix that. Again I would like to ask that no one loses post count over this, some guys with 950 that jump back to 780 or so, aren't going to be that happy, and with cause. Grandfather the change if that's what happens.

Also, I don't know if this is the right time to bring this kind of idea up, but Chinaman gave me the idea, Jer added LQ Addict from a joke that started... in no kidding, a General thread. I know Contrib member is going to stick for you Chinaman, but you can suggest a third option, Jer will take anything reasonable into consideration. So, what about expanding the title system. If we're going to protect its integrity, we might as well augment it a little. A new title for 3k, maybe 5k, and one day a non-mod is going to hit 10k, and they should be called The LQ Crack Monkey. Old jokes die hard.

Cheers,

Finegan