Lack of interest [Suggestion] Remove Postcount & Replace With Total Activity Count

[Ruven]

XenForo is about the future and not the past.
Postcount is as much a standard part of forum posting as it is a bane for many admins and users alike.
Its important as a gauge of activity, but its imperfect, and often times leads to those with lesser postcounts feeling like they are less important to the site.

Have Xen total all of the various things people do on the site into one simple count... Activity.

Remove "posts" from being the main thing to count and replace it with Activity.
Sure, within your profile page somewhere have a count for posts, threads, likes, profile comments, conversations, etc... but have the displayed focus be on Activity and not any one Postcount.
Activity then becomes the main marker with which to gauge who contributes the most to your forum in most possible ways.

You do away with the controversy or confusion of what constitutes a post, you give admins a better understanding of who contributes a lot to the site, allows members to do what they like to do and not feel like their contributions dont matter as much as those of others, etc...

On vB there have been a few ungainly plugins that allow you to do something like this.
Usually they are too involved and too much of a separate entity for people to enjoy them much.
But if its part of the core, and if it sort of replaces the way we normally experience something like "postcount"... i think it goes with the spirit of Xen, which is to take the forum experience to its next evolutionary step.
Breaking away with something as standard as postcount is doing exactly that imo.

 

[Onimua]

They don't use "Posts" though, they use "Messages" which is much more broad and does describe the various people type wherever they are.

Replacing it with "Activity" and putting a number next to it leads to some confusing thoughts, especially since "Activity" is already being used to describe what the user is currently doing (reading a thread, in a PC, etc).

 

[James]

I would like the idea of some kind of "experience" count where the admin can set milestones of achievement.

 

[Onimua]

I would like the idea of some kind of "experience" count where the admin can set milestones of achievement.

Couldn't you do that by awarding a new trophy based on how many points they've gotten? Just figure out how many trophy points they get from completing X amount of trophy requirements, and then just award a new trophy for that.

That or I don't get what you mean.

 

[Ruven]

They don't use "Posts" though, they use "Messages" which is much more broad and does describe the various people type wherever they are.

Replacing it with "Activity" and putting a number next to it leads to some confusing thoughts, especially since "Activity" is already being used to describe what the user is currently doing (reading a thread, in a PC, etc).

The word "Activity" is not the focus of my post.
The Xen devs could use whatever other word they want.
Just an example word.
Contributions being another such word that could be used.

 

[James]

Couldn't you do that by awarding a new trophy based on how many points they've gotten? Just figure out how many trophy points they get from completing X amount of trophy requirements, and then just award a new trophy for that.

That or I don't get what you mean.

Yeah the trophies work. There used to be a modification called vBExperience which is what I'm referring to. It's a fully-fledged experience system. The trophies are a great alternative though

 

[anotheralias]

I think post count does reflect activity, since the whole point of a forum is conversation.

 

[Paul B]

I'm considering going really radical and removing post count from view altogether.

I'll still have user titles and trophies but the members just won't know when they're going to hit the trigger points.

 

[Ruven]

Yeah the trophies work. There used to be a modification called vBExperience which is what I'm referring to. It's a fully-fledged experience system. The trophies are a great alternative though

The trophy system already in Xen + a revamping of the Postcount system to a more all encompassing system would make vB Experience modification pretty much unneeded for XenForo.

 

[Brandon_R]

I'm considering going really radical and removing post count from view altogether.

I'll still have user titles and trophies but the members just won't know when they're going to hit the trigger points.

That't not radical, just innovative. It's a better way to do something

 

[Paul B]

That't not radical, just innovative. It's a better way to do something

I started another thread on it to see what the reaction is to that idea.

http://xenforo.com/community/thread...er-removing-post-count-from-their-forum.4022/

 

[Carlos]

no. No. no. NO. No. no....Hell No. No. No. No!

+1 like to anyone who can catch the reference here.

 

[Acans]

I'm considering going really radical and removing post count from view altogether.

Lots of forums have disabled post/message count from view. I've seen others replace it with a reputation system instead.

Personally I won't remove post count. On my forums, I control certain permissions depending on a members post count.

 

[Forsaken]

Lots of forums have disabled post/message count from view. I've seen others replace it with a reputation system instead.

Personally I won't remove post count. On my forums, I control certain permissions depending on a members post count.

Then people just start to use Like count as a way to discriminate against new users.

I tend to just make users aware that any discrimination against new uers, or other users for lesser post/like/thank count will meet with consequences if it goes to far. 

 

[Been Told]

XenForo is about the future and not the past.
Postcount is as much a standard part of forum posting as it is a bane for many admins and users alike.
Its important as a gauge of activity, but its imperfect, and often times leads to those with lesser postcounts feeling like they are less important to the site.

Have Xen total all of the various things people do on the site into one simple count... Activity.

Remove "posts" from being the main thing to count and replace it with Activity.
Sure, within your profile page somewhere have a count for posts, threads, likes, profile comments, conversations, etc... but have the displayed focus be on Activity and not any one Postcount.
Activity then becomes the main marker with which to gauge who contributes the most to your forum in most possible ways.

You do away with the controversy or confusion of what constitutes a post, you give admins a better understanding of who contributes a lot to the site, allows members to do what they like to do and not feel like their contributions dont matter as much as those of others, etc...

On vB there have been a few ungainly plugins that allow you to do something like this.
Usually they are too involved and too much of a separate entity for people to enjoy them much.
But if its part of the core, and if it sort of replaces the way we normally experience something like "postcount"... i think it goes with the spirit of Xen, which is to take the forum experience to its next evolutionary step.
Breaking away with something as standard as postcount is doing exactly that imo.

Amen to that, couldn't agree more!
I think the advent of XF's stepping on the scene is a good time to abandon old concepts and I think we should be bold in doing that. To me that includes rethinking things like postcount. Postcount, in many cases, means nothing. It's an old way of measuring activity. Today we have many more ways to do that and that is why I believe that it's a good idea to - if not abandon the postcount, at least put it on the back-burner.

 

[dutchbb]

Too vague for me 'activity', but nice idea for add-on.

Facebook uses 'Your progress', something similar. I still don't get what that means and how it's calculated?

 

[Tim]

I like this idea but I would need details to consider it. Can you give some concrete ideas as to what would go into calculating this rating? Is it posts, days on the forum without posting, article contributions, how to's, etc...?

I'm trying to figure out what you think should go into this rating... but the idea is great!

XenForo is about the future and not the past.
Postcount is as much a standard part of forum posting as it is a bane for many admins and users alike.
Its important as a gauge of activity, but its imperfect, and often times leads to those with lesser postcounts feeling like they are less important to the site.

Have Xen total all of the various things people do on the site into one simple count... Activity.

Remove "posts" from being the main thing to count and replace it with Activity.
Sure, within your profile page somewhere have a count for posts, threads, likes, profile comments, conversations, etc... but have the displayed focus be on Activity and not any one Postcount.
Activity then becomes the main marker with which to gauge who contributes the most to your forum in most possible ways.

You do away with the controversy or confusion of what constitutes a post, you give admins a better understanding of who contributes a lot to the site, allows members to do what they like to do and not feel like their contributions dont matter as much as those of others, etc...

On vB there have been a few ungainly plugins that allow you to do something like this.
Usually they are too involved and too much of a separate entity for people to enjoy them much.
But if its part of the core, and if it sort of replaces the way we normally experience something like "postcount"... i think it goes with the spirit of Xen, which is to take the forum experience to its next evolutionary step.
Breaking away with something as standard as postcount is doing exactly that imo.

 

[Ruven]

I like this idea but I would need details to consider it. Can you give some concrete ideas as to what would go into calculating this rating? Is it posts, days on the forum without posting, article contributions, how to's, etc...?

I'm trying to figure out what you think should go into this rating... but the idea is great!

Not trying to get that far into it.
Sure you could assign a value to content, like posts could be worth 3 points, new threads 5 points, comments 1 point, etc...
But then you have a point system, thats vB Experience.
I would like to still keep it somewhat of a standard count system without any calculations.
Just adding everything that an admin considers as "content" and putting that as part of the content count for users.

Im not saying change anything per say, but simply add in more options.
Give admins the opportunity to include likes, comments, and other things that he may want to include.
Those that want to keep postcount still be postcount can just leave it as the default.