Post Count Accrual and Top Ten Posters Display

[Illuvatar]

Hey folks,

In light of recent events, we have made some modifications that we hope will remove the emphasis and importance that has been placed or appears to have been placed on the number of posts that members accrue here within the Community.

From the onset, when we created this community, we have always allowed post counts to be tabulated for all forums, and we even have our avatar/title system hooked into post counts. Now while this does reward members as they go along the journey with more avatars and title changes, this was never intended to encourage post "races" and/or competitions.

We plan on having this community thrive for years to come, and we want to make sure that everyone's journey here is entertaining, sometimes educational, and mostly fun. The system is designed to grant new avatars and change titles rather quickly and we have continued to add new avatars as we go along. With all the chapters of all three books included for the progression, we feel that the journey should be both long and rewarding.

However, it has always been our viewpoint here that its the quality and not the quantity of one's posts that matter, in as much we felt it an important enough of an issue to include in the Forum Rules that are agreed upon at registration time, and are posted as an announcement in each and every forum.

And with that in mind, the first change is that as of today, posts that are made within the Games forum in Bree will no longer count towards your overall post count. There will be no adjustment as a result of this, so current post counts will not be reduced. Posts in that forum will just not be counted that's all. There are other forums of course when semi-rapid posting occurs, but the Games area has come to be known as a "Spammer's Paradise", and that is not what this place is all about. And of course if problems arise in other areas, we can modify that area as well

The second change is that I have removed the "Top 10 Posters" link from the Members List display. This was a standard VB Forum feature, that we just left in place and it was never intended to generate any type of status, although, we understand how it could.

Please understand that the primary thought behind both these ideas is to reduce the importance that's commonly placed on post count tallies. When in all reality, the only thing you really get besides more avatars is a bigger number! And while I can understand this to an extent, when it creates problems within the community as a result of spamming and or pointless posting, adjustments need to be made.

We hope that you will see that what we are doing, we feel is in the best interest of the entire community. We really want this to continue to be a pleasant place for folks to come and have fun.


In Fellowship,
Illu

[Periantari Andruil]

that's cool...i agree that it's quality and not quantity... and it's good that we realize this before there will be like junk posts
i think that was a good move :thumbs:
=)

[Illuvatar]

Hey Folks.......

I had indicated above that after switching off the post count accrual for the Gaming Forum, that there would be "no adjustment and that current post count totals would not be reduced". It appears that I was sadly mistaken and as such I will attempt to explain.

I suppose I should have done this straight away when I disabled post acount accrual for the Gaming forum, :blush:, but yesterday after altering a member's username I had need to be in the Admin panel in order update forum and thread info. While there.....I got to thinking that things might not be reflecting accuratly due to the database errors that we received last month. (A couple of these errors were severe enough for us to have complete threads disappear even! :o) So it seemed logical to me to go to the Update Counters area and go through them to ensure everything is reflecting as it should.

One of the counters just happens to be "Update User Post Counts, which goes out to the database and verifies all post counts for accuracy and resets them as needed. Like I said, I probably should have done this straight away when I turned off the post count accrual for the Gaming forum. I did not think it would, but it makes sense now, that if the posts within that forum do not count that it would need to adjust accordingly.

My apologies for the surprise and any mental trauma that this may have caused. :p Just know that there is not a problem with the database and that the current totals are accurate.

[Adunauriel]

Ah just the Announcement I've been expecting... Thanks for letting everyone know Illu... But darn, now i've got like 3,300 posts left to go to reach 10,000.. Before I only had 900....;)

[Bonos-Girl]

lol...pooor Adu! i'm sure you are terribly disapppointed and mentally scarred for life! lol

[Adunauriel]

Well, it does really stink, but I think I'll survive.. But if I faint or anything, just leave me where I fall.. I'll wake up eventually...;) lol

Actually I saw it last night, so I've known about it for awhile.. And I'd already found out from Illu what the deal was..;)

[Igtica]

Originally posted by Illuvatar

My apologies for the surprise and any mental trauma that this may have caused. :p Just know that there is not a problem with the database and that the current totals are accurate.

*falls from gigantic trauma* lol, at least I don't go too mad when posting, and I guess that the title thing doesn't affect me anyways. Still I was almost an active member there mecry lol! Never mind Illu it's not your fault anyways..*blames the electronics that have always had a grudge against her* lol! No worries....*returns to ultra hyper state* :hyper: :hyper: :hyper: :hyper: :hyper: :hyper: :hyper:........Thanks so much for that smilie, that makes up for it for me anyways.....:hyper:.....

[Galadhrim]

Goodness gracious, I had over 300 posts in the games forum! :o Well, I do spend loadz of time there... :blush:

Anyways, I have a question - what does this mean as far as avatars are concerned? Because I see mine hasn't changed, although technically, I shouldn't be allowed to have it, because I'm now 300 posts short of the group it's in. Can I keep it? *bats eyelashes*

[Periantari Andruil]

hehe i see that mine hasn't changed either... yeah thanks for that announcement..when i saw that i was back in Council of Elrond with barely over 500 posts i thought there was an error...
but i'm glad it wasn't so..it was just reducing everyone's post count because of the past Game posts they had....
but question... when we search our own posts under profile, there will still list the Game posts that we had in the past, right?

[Illuvatar]

Yesssss...Gala....you may keep it! :p

I'm not about to go about and try and sort THAT business out!

I think once you've chosen your avatar, it's yours, however, your choices for avatars may have lessened now. :(

And ...Andruil....oh yea.....the search just list posts that you have made....it does not care about counts. :)

[Galadhrim]

Phew... *wipes sweat off forehead* I've grown very attached to it. Thanks, Illu! :grin:

[Adunauriel]

Ah man, our avatar choices have lessened.. I had almost all of them.. I only needed like 3,000 more posts, and I would have had the complete set...:( ;) lol

[Amoraq]

lol Adu. I'm sure you'll never recover...

It prolly won't take you that long to recover your posts and regain a complete set of avatars to choose from.

[Adunauriel]

Ah, I don't care, I'm not planning to change from the one I have anyways..;) lol

[Luvara]

Oh, so this is why I got so confused!!! lol I thought it was something wrong with my eyes or something! :p

[Frodo's Love]

lol Poor Adun! :elfeek: ;) And I thought I had lost a lot of posts... lol
But I realized I'm spending a lot of time at the Game forums... I lost about 800 posts! :o lol But actually, that doesn't matter anyway. ;)

[Luvara]

lol I'm glad I only lost about 50 posts, and that it wasn't the I love... forum!!! :o ;)

[Winyaél Greenleaf]

Well, I only lost about 800 to 900 posts? yep, I only need just that amount to climb back to 5000. *tries to soothe her broken heart* lol
Well, but it's the quantity and not quality of posts that matters anyway, so good move, Illu!

[A! Elbereth]

Oh, I lost at least 1,000.... I feel quite the lazy mod now that I have so many less posts.

But never fear! It is summer and I will finally have more time to spend here, anyway! :grin:

[Ralenquil]

Thank goodness :)

[Elfdaughter]

Rats! I was looking forward to getting 2,000! Now I have to start again! lol Ah well, it doesn't matter! good move, Illu!

[Saruman]

I only lost about 100 posts, I think, but it's okay, because I managed to enable this balrog avatar before the rule was enforced!lol

[Tirithel]

OK so there were whole threads lost? So THAT'S where the "Say something about the previous person's sig" or whatever thread went! I was wondering about that- one day I went to post there and my computer kept going "Unknown address" or some goofy thing like that. I thought I was just losing my mind...like, faster than usual. :huh: lol

[Adunauriel]

Yea that thread was lost, but has been brought back to life since.. And it's no big deal that I lost so many posts.. I'm working on getting them back..;)

[Frodo's Love]

Hehe, Tiri... lol I was also looking for this thread and wondered where it was. :huh:
...at least we can all say now that our amounts of posts only show those including some "quality" .;) :p lol

[Elfdaughter]

Eh? The 'post something....' thread's back? I never saw that!

[Luvara]

yep, it's right here (http://www.warofthering.net/forums/vbulletin225/upload/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4070)

[Elfdaughter]

:D Thanks Luv!

[Tirithel]

Yeah! I just jumped back in, like, 47 pages into it. Bit late, perhaps, but oh well!:thumbs: Thanks much, Luv!

[Stone Drake]

I must say there are certain (not named) posters that just post on every thread they see, and wait for someone else to post on a thread, so they can immediatly reply to it. If it takes too long for someone to post on it, they just reply on themselves... Since there are quite a lot of those, threads and forums get filled up with spam in no time.
I do wonder what those ppl think they're accomplishing.

[Tirithel]

I dunno...sometimes I start to feel guilty cuz like everything says "Last post: Tirithel." But honestly, I'm not spamming, HONEST! Like in the RP forum right now...everyone abandoned me...mecry so I'm just waiting for them to come back, and I"m not double posting, really!

*Starts sobbing uncontrollably and wailing out of repressed guilt*

My posts are quality! My posts are quality! I try I really do!

[Stone Drake]

:) I didn't name anyone, did I? In fact.. I don't think I've seen you posting on the forums before..

[Tirithel]

I know I'm just giving ya grief...that's the problem with typing vs. talking: you can't get all the melodrama I poured into that.lol

[Stone Drake]

Grief? Now that's an emotion I rarely feel :p And well.. smileys help if you want emotions in typed messages lol

[Tirithel]

Yes but they don't make a sarcastic smiley. And even if someone had a mind to do it, how in the world would you portray sarcasm with a little yellow face?

For real, I've tried to come up with one and it just ain't workin'. :huh:

[Bonos-Girl]

lol...i guess you just have to figure it out by what you said...i kinda guessed you were being slightly saarcastic before! lol it was quite obvious!! hehe

[Illuvatar]

Well......this is the closet thing we've got to a sarcastic smilie :hmppf:

This little guy can be used for hmmmpf, not listening, and even HAH!

So I suppose that would help there Tiri......

Oh and Yay made this one for me........she's very good with the not-impressed face! lol

[Tirithel]

Yeah Illu I've used that one a few times before, and paired with the lol smilie it's the best I've found. Ah, hope is not lost! :)

[Stone Drake]

Talking about smileys.. you can take a look here (http://users.pandora.be/4/stone/files/smileys/)

Hrm.. I tried to input some here with .. but that doesn't work.. it just transforms them to urls, instead of showing the picture.
I like that big smile,btw: [IMG]http://users.pandora.be/4/stone/files/smileys/icon_smile_big.gif

[Mirkgirl]

That's because [img] is off... posting smilies and other images from other sites is not wellcomed anyways.

[Little Devil]

How cool are the new smiley? It's so great I love it! :hmppf: lol Specially love all the Lotr characters ones very good :aragorn: :thumbs:

[Adunauriel]

All the new smilies are really cool.. Yay! has been doing a wonderful job...:thumbs:

[Stone Drake]

Originally posted by Mirkgirl
That's because [img] is off... posting smilies and other images from other sites is not wellcomed anyways.
I always use my own webspace.. and I thought the [img] was on not long ago... :hmppf:

[Illuvatar]

The IMG code has indeed been enable in certain forums where the displaying of images is important to the topics at hand, like Art, Movie Forums, BTS, etc.

IMG code is not needed in forums like this one, Books, Music, etc.

There.... you can put your nose back down now SD! :p lol

[Stone Drake]

Our clanforum has 707 smileys lol Although I spent most time finding a good one now...