[Permonic]

I just got an idea: many people here complain about useless posts, so why not include the length of the post into counting.

Call it PROGRESSIVE COUNTER.

Majority of useless post consist of several words, or 1-2 sentences. It's always more difficult to write a long useless post. A user who spend more time to write a valuable post/quote should receive higher mark. Therefore a length of the post should be considered in posts counter.

This would require a good written program, it might be a hard task, however I guess it's feasible (we have many programming freaks here, haven't we???). The program should do the following: add the length of the string (based on number of characters) to a variable, increase the the posts counter according to specified presets. For example:

String variable = 0 - 50, number of posts = number of posts + 0.1
String variable = 51 - 200, number of posts = number of posts + 0.2
String variable = 201 - 500, number of posts = number of posts + 0.5
String variable = 501 - 2000, number of posts = number of posts + 1
String variable = 2001 and more, number of posts = number of posts + 2 (REVIEWs, etc.)

This means that it would avoid useless posters to increase their post number rapidly. The program should also detect and tag "quote" and "img" to obviate counting the quoting text or an image to the string variable.

Also the word such as "f(ck", might be filtered. In this case the additional value would be 0.0. Or the post consist of "

".

What do you think about it, guys???

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

Sounds like a good idea to me, even though this post wouldn't count as a "full post"

 

[Ebonyks]

That, or we could just add a "karma" system like many other forums do, where to gain a post count, someone has to qualify your advice as useful, and you get many, many points from a single well-written post or review

 

[Hajime]

I like that idea, Ebonyks.

 

[Oddball]

Interesting, but you'd have to do something to make sure something like this:

iotuifd;shgfdhvba;fow8aifh dskfldsjfkhf fdhfhscv eirywfn askjhf fhdskf fghdsjfhf fhsdf dkhfkdg thuirefd jhfjkdhf fhsdf 48rfhdsf 5uewhfsd ghdf; ieruoiewjf flgjfkldg jfhdsj eitidfdn dshfjds jhfkds euwrhsahfj dfjdlkshf

or this:

grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks! grado sucks!

doesn't count.

or even random words:

funny eleven walked down rainbow butterly paper gum pencil coin green cat knife soda lamp phone tape button blue p why reamer redwood parse java bear zippy scooter cut burn carat mesh grill rubber band brushfire world want the up something plus overhead tape poster push pull twelve redo haste

don't count. It would have to be a pretty detailed program. Because my post is most valuable than all of the rest of yours. HA! Maybe do some sort of penalty system if funky patterns are detected. I know this sounds stupid, but you gotta check for all the border cases! And I've seen many posts that were best responded with a

. You're also rewarding really verbose people over terse people. But cool system.

 

[Ticky]

Do we win something if the post count hits a certain mark?

If not... count away... like monopoly money, it ain't worth much.

 

[MD1032]

Quote:

Originally posted by Ticky Do we win something if the post count hits a certain mark? If not... count away... like monopoly money, it ain't worth much.

I have an idea! For every 100 posts you make, you earn a $100,000 gift certificate to an audio store of your choice!

 

[chadbang]

Well, as they say, brevity is the essence of wit, so I think by deleting shorter posts we might be losing some gems. A lot of short ones have been funny in the past!

 

[Permonic]

Quote:

Originally posted by Ticky Do we win something if the post count hits a certain mark? If not... count away... like monopoly money, it ain't worth much.

If you have 10 or more posts, you are eligible to get 10% off from Headroom.

http://www5.head-fi.org/forums/showt...threadid=59165

 

[rsaavedra]

The scheme would need to have all the heuristics a SPAM detector has, which can be very tricky, and some times can be easily defeated anyway. Also, some small postings can be very informative and helpful. More practical might be to have a minimum of "helpful" or "useful" votes from other members on your posting, for that posting to count as one, as suggested by Ebonyks.

 

[Permonic]

Good point, Oddball.

I think that it would require several complicated procedures. The simpliest solution here are moderators. To filter and deleted harmful post like you mentioned is a job for moderators. I think a certain number of these posts exists, but it's rather small. Head-Fi is full of intelligent people.

Chadbang & Oddball,

as for the 0.0 count for Smilies: it's a preliminary suggestion. I personally think it's very easy to write a post like this " ". You even don't need to touch your keyboard. However I agree, it's not only about quantity.

Anyway, if Jude & mods will like this idea, the post length classification should be discussed.

 

[stereth]

Quote:

Originally posted by MD1032 For every 100 posts you make, you earn a $100,000 gift certificate to an audio store of your choice!

Is it regressive?

Keep it simple. One post, one increment to post count.

Another alternative to a 'karma' system: rates. If someone makes a great, informative post, give them a rating of five. If someone is spamming, give them a rating of one. Once they have five or ten rates, display the average next to their avatar. The Megatokyo forums used to have this. I don't think it quite did what it was supposed to do, but if you really want something like this, it's not a bad alternative.

 

[Edwood]

I don't know about that.

I, for one, like a post to be three things:

1. Organized

2. Informed

3. Succinct

-Ed

 

[Oddball]

Agreed, I don't really like ramblers who take forever to get to the point. Is there a way to implement a voting system so if someone's deeming an ultra-annoying useless poster that we take away post counts? Kind of a Head-Fi members check other members thing. Of course...that could be abused as well.

Edwood, I love your hamsters. I showed them to my non-audiophile friends and I think that's the most interested in headphones they've ever been.

 

[Edwood]

Yes, on the other hand, an often overlooked and underappreciated extension of our physical and spiritual beings, there are just insanely long winded (winded, where does that come from, perhaps when one is referred to as being full of hot air? But why hot air, necessarily? Aren't most people endothermic, or warmed blooded, so that point is pretty moot, kind of like this post) posts where people take several minutes to state their point. I would like it if the post were more organized, perhaps in a heirachial order, maybe with bold face, italics, bullet points, and/or a numbered or alphabetical list, so that the list of points in the post can be determined if someone were skimming the post. But if I spent alot of time making the post, perhaps I'd like people to spend alot of time reading too, after all, I contributed my own precious time to share my valuable experiences with everyone else. They should appreciate the amount time and care that went into my post. I even go back to correct spelling and grammar as I see it. Not always perfect, but I always try to fix my typos. It just makes me self-conscious. My most common typo is having two consecutive capital letters, like THis. WHere I GUess I HOld DOwn MY SHift KEy a BIt TOo LOng. I suppose I could learn to type qwerty in a more proper fashion, but at least I don't type with two fingers. Speaking of fingers, people should point out their information. (maybe not figuratively, more literally pointing out their information, but "figuratively speaking" implies body language, which would not be applicable here. Unless you are referring to images. Perhaps that fact is why posting images speaks more often than typed words in a post) Getting to the "meat" of the post can often be a reall pain, when trying to skim through hundreds of words trying to find that one little piece of info that could have been put into a far shorter and organized post. Being succinct is a good feature, where we can determine what the hell you're talking about without having to wade through endless posts of inane, long winded, and redundant information. But, hey, I just massively increased the overall length of my post without posting stupid cut and paste repeating words and/or letters that a filter can easily discount. Not to mention that people will often just skim through, or skip altogether this post, and if you actually read this entire post, you are waaaaay too bored and need to leave immediately! But I guess that would be me, the kettle calling the pot.........

-Ed