Jump to content

Why do we crave post count?

michaelsteele3

By michaelsteele3
in Kerbal Network

 Share

Recommended Posts

Superfluous J

Superfluous J

Posted
Posted

I never thought until this thread to compare rep to post count. Note, though, that you don't get 1 rep per 1 person clicking the rep button. You get more rep when someone with higher rep gives you rep in return.

My rep/post ratio is 1779/4605 or about 0.39 rep/post. I will say though that I'm pretty happy (and very aware of) being in 4th place in rep on these forums (if you ignore the bogus Kermans at the top of the list), but didn't even realize I had such a high post count until writing this post caused me to look at the number.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Fel

Fel

Posted
Posted (edited)

I think I'll contest a few things here... Let's say that my name is HarvesteR and I just posted a fart joke on the dev channel.

Now, let's say, in an alternate universe, I, Fel, get boosted to community manager or something... and post a fart joke on the dev channel.

I doubt that I would get a single rep point for that; but HarvesteR, due to name recognition, MAY get repped just for being HarvesteR. The point here is "same content, different rep."

There's also a question of what the "rep" means. Let's say I am an expert in the underworkings of KSP's framework and have a large amount of rep... I then tell someone working on models that the software they are using is inadequate for their uses. My "rep" was given, not for my utter lack of skill in modeling, but for my skill in programming; but here it can be used to mean something completely different.

We also have "thread starter rep" where people will rep the first post in a thread; or "popular mod" rep where someone gets rep ONLY because the mod is popular, not because it was a difficult mod in any way. Of course, in mods that are designed to force other mods to become dependent on it, this means someone gets repped quite a bit for being in a position of exploitation. (Or donated to if they decide to shove a giant "give me money" button on their work... even if they only offer minimal updates between version changes.)

There is no LOGICAL argument to be made for the importance of rep points, post count, or join date influencing the authoritative power of an individual; which points to it being purely psychological.

In this, I point to how well "social media" has taken off; given it has strong anti-social roots. You get a "like" *cough* rep *cough* from 1000 strangers that you claim you know, but don't really... and the whole followers/friends nonsense... these are numbers. Purely arbitrary numbers. That we use to associate a status with. One may as well have the forum software count your spelling/grammar mistakes and we can rank each other based on that. Or word count! Or post length! I average 2 words per post, usually a combination of "that" and "sucks." Of course, those two words could be very enlightening... such as "that really-sucks".

In short, it's psychological, we try to find meaning in everything, even when there is no meaning in it. Like Apollo 13; the book listed all kinds of crazies people had where they found the number 13 in everything from the launch date to the names of the people on board. And, if we look at some of thought patterns of children; one particular experiment that comes to mind is that, when asked to tell who the oldest person in a room was, a child would most normally pick the tallest person. As we know, height is not a good indicator of age, but the association that as someone gets older they grow taller (or get a higher post count) is. Don't dismiss this just because "I am not a child", this is a question of how the mind works, and childhood development is increasingly important in this discussion.

What I'm trying to do (poorly because this area of psychology is harder to understand and touches upon cognitive science) is explain that the mind is an associating machine (err, analogy, we have so many disputes over what 'model' the mind is; such as the connectivist model http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/connectionism/); but let's stick with this... the mind, when learning something new, will try to associate it with something it already knows. This is strongly seen in children; but we can relay it to other things such as racism.

Of interest is how a connectivist model, in learning a language, actually began forming words correctly as it learned words on an individual basis. It then, upon making the association that English words have prefixes and suffixes, began forming words incorrectly while rapidly expanding its vocabulary before going back and correcting those faults on an individual basis... the important thing is that this behaviour is ALSO seen in CHILDREN.

So really, this is a point of a study of the mind; which can be... complicated...

Edited by Fel
Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...
Columbia

Columbia

Posted
Posted

Well.. I don't really regard post count that much myself. To me, it just indicates how often you are online on the forums, compared to your join date. (I've seen some poeple who joined in 2012 and posted.. 5-12 times.)

About rep.. well, It feels like a user's motivation to do good acts on the forum, be nice and stuff. I remember getting my first rep point about someone complimenting me on my comment in a question thread. For me, it gives people the reason to strive with their posts. And giving rep to someone might not be much on the repper's view, but it can change people for the better. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Zucal

Zucal

Posted
Posted

I'm with a lot of people on this thread. Post count is an indicator of how active you are, but rep is an indicator of the good you do. Join dates also don't mean much to me, people can be old or new, high or low post count and the post quality will always be the same.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Tweety

Tweety

Posted
Posted
About rep.. well, It feels like a user's motivation to do good acts on the forum, be nice and stuff.

This! I only post if I feel like I can actually add to the discussion/congratulate a fellow member on something well done. You could hand out the best advice but get almost no rep simply because someone doesn't know how to, but they may still appreciate it just as much as someone who reps you for saying something witty yet doesn't actually contribute.

I was given rep once for disagreeing with someone, I just did so in a friendly manner which in turn means I will be less likely to just shoot someone down later down the line when I don't agree.

Tweety

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 1 month later...
Ival70

Ival70

Posted
Posted
I'm with a lot of people on this thread. Post count is an indicator of how active you are, but rep is an indicator of the good you do. Join dates also don't mean much to me, people can be old or new, high or low post count and the post quality will always be the same.

This seems to be how I feel. Though I find that members who have an older join date, along with a high post & rep count have more experience, such as sal_cager, Red Iron Crown, and ferram4.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Leszek

Leszek

Posted
Posted
It's strange. I may be the only one, though I doubt it highly, but I really enjoy seeing me with a high post count. But why?

Is it so we stand out in the community? Let me know what you think.

Because it has electrolytes. It is what posters crave. (For those who think about Rep/Post Ratio, I get rep for posts like this almost as much as I do for well thought out serious posts. But this post isn't supposed to be serious so shhhh, ignore the point made.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Tex

Tex

Posted
Posted

I've never really striven that hard to gain post count or reputation, I simply want to have a good time discussing the game with others and showing off projects I've done/am working on. Though I will admit a post count higher than 1000 posts has been on my list of wants for a long, long time, and it was so great to finally bust past that mark!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Vaporo

Vaporo

Posted
Posted

I always try to disassociate a person's post quality from their post count. It's hard sometimes, though. If I see someone make a dumb comment, my eyes automatically jump to the post count and join date, so that I can see how long they've been around. It's just human nature, I guess, to trust people who have been around longer.

When I see someone who joined just a day or two ago and have less than than twenty posts, in spite of my best efforts, part of me instantly assumes that their post is of very low quality. Then I read it and have to kick myself when it's an intelligent and insightful comment. At the same time, I've seen some some incredibly dumb posts from people who have have a thousand+ posts, a green reputation bar, and have been around since 2012.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
xtoro

xtoro

Posted
Posted

Only things I look at is the join date and if the post count is over 20.

Reps don't mean anything to me. Someone can post 4-5 nice looking ships in the spacecraft exchange and get 1000 reps. Someone else can post good mission logs and have 1000 reps, but suck at actually making ships. In other words, the reps don't mean anything in particular except for the fact that for some random reason, someone clicked on the little star icon...

Link to comment
Share on other sites
This thread is quite old. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...