post count bug???

[Ram Mohan]

the total no. of posts is not "refreshed" on all the user posts....ie., the posts counter contains only the number of posts the user had posted at that point of time....
i'm sure people will come up with the classic explanation that it is indeed a feature, and not a bug...
but personally whenever i see somebody's post i'd like to know at a glance how much they've posted instead of clicking on their profile.

[Jeroen Wenting]

I consider it indeed a feature rather than a bug.
It shows how much the poster had posted AT THE TIME which is IMO a lot more helpful if you want to know something about a person.
But who am I? I think that the whole post counter thingy is way overblown, as is the constant "XXX hit YYY posts" thingy.
If we're not careful it will turn into a race to post as much as possible without consideration for quality, in other words a popularity contest with the most prolific poster winning out?

[Ram Mohan]

Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:
But who am I? I think that the whole post counter thingy is way overblown, as is the constant "XXX hit YYY posts" thingy.
If we're not careful it will turn into a race to post as much as possible without consideration for quality, in other words a popularity contest with the most prolific poster winning out?[/QB]

i disagree....there is a limit to how much you can post without any knowledge....well, there are some exceptions to that rule (including this post... )

[Lasse Koskela]

Well, if someone posts only for bumping up his post count, it will not raise his image as helpful, intelligent or whatever. The opposite, I would say.

[Jim Yingst]

I tend to agree that post counts are not really very important. Of course if Thomas weren't still way ahead of me I might well change my mind. But I also view post count celebrations as sort of like birthdays - it's not so much that it's necessarily an accomplishment in itself (depending how much thought goes into each post) but it's an excuse to have a little party where we can show our appreciation for someone. The post count is an arbirary and flawed metric, but we don't have a better metric so readily available, and I see no harm in periodically saying "thanks for all the helpful posts" when someone crosses a milestone.
As for the original question: bug or feature? Well I'd say it's a bug really, but for the most part it just doesn't seem very important. It would take some (probably minor) effort to change it, and it would make the server work a little bit each time someone looks at a thread if the server has to look up the current post count of each participant. And I think you're the first person to call attention to this particular behavior. Others have noticed it, but not been too bothered by it (I think). So unless there's a sudden groundswell of support for post count reformation, I think fixing this "bug" will remain pretty low on the to do list here. No offense, that's just how I see it. Thanks for the input though, we do appreciate feedback on this sort of thing.

[Davy Kelly]

I would say that the labels of ranch hand and greenhorn should be changes, but not that drastically, I would say a greenhorn should become a ranch hand either after say 200 posts, instead of 30 something, or when the person has passed their programmers exam, I have made a good few posts, but these were more asking questions, instead of helping.
But who am I to argue, I think it is going good anyway, I am on this site every night now, for help and advice.
Davy

[Ram Mohan]

Originally posted by Jim Yingst:

And I think you're the first person to call attention to this particular behavior. Others have noticed it, but not been too bothered by it (I think). So unless there's a sudden groundswell of support for post count reformation, I think fixing this "bug" will remain pretty low on the to do list here. No offense, that's just how I see it. Thanks for the input though, we do appreciate feedback on this sort of thing.

the idea was to point out the bug......but now that you're mentioning "groundswell of support" and things like that, maybe i should start getting support from people.........

[Thomas Whalen]

I think that post counts result in nothing but senseless posts.

[Thomas Paul]

the total no. of posts is not "refreshed" on all the user posts....ie., the posts counter contains only the number of posts the user had posted at that point of time....
This is not quite right. If a thread has not been updated then it will pull the cached version. This is for performance reasons. In that case the counts will not have been updated.

[Ram Mohan]

Originally posted by Thomas Whalen:
I think that post counts result in nothing but senseless posts.

i saw a nice idea in a forum where they don't show u ur number of posts, just the title keeps changing according to your number of posts...