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Martyn

Bushcrafter through and through
Aug 7, 2003
5,252
33
58
staffordshire
www.britishblades.com
I can't stand it Gary.

Same here. Awful hack, nice idea but in practice, it just ends up being an ever growing list of names keen not to be the one left out, cluttering up the place. It's all very forced and contrived. Nice idea, but no thanks.

Now if we were talking about a "have a nice day" add on...... :D ;)
 
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Toddy

Mod
Mod
Jan 21, 2005
38,937
4,570
S. Lanarkshire
You're preaching to the choir here; I've got the highest post count on the forum :eek:
I've asked three times for Tony to kill mine so that it's just not seen, but he won't. I keep hoping British Red or someone else will overtake me.
That said, compared to sites like BB I'm not high volume really, and mine is a double one because posts in the Mods count too.

If we can thrash this idea out and come to some concensus I'll happily pester the Admins and see if we can get something organised.
Not sure if they'll do it though, because they're still sorting out stuff like skins, but it's got to be worth asking :D

cheers,
M
 
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santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
1,114
67
Florida
couldn't agree more (especially abou you and southey being gobshiites!), i no longer say "welcome to the forum" to all new members as a i used to because i realised that out of a thousand odd posts i'd only had a couple of dozen things to say

stuart

Gotta agree with eliminating the post count. I must confess though, I'd never given any thought to "welcomes" being part of it. That's a bit disconserting.
 

JonathanD

Ophiological Genius
Sep 3, 2004
12,809
1,479
Stourton,UK
Same here. Awful hack, nice idea but in practice, it just ends up being an ever growing list of names keen not to be the one left out, cluttering up the place. Nice idea, but no thanks. ;)

Spot on. That is what I meant to put across in my posts, but failed to do.

You're preaching to the choir here; I've got the highest post count on the forum :eek:
I've asked three times for Tony to kill mine so that it's just not seen, but he won't. I keep hoping British Red or someone else will overtake me.
That said, compared to sites like BB I'm not high volume really, and mine is a double one because posts in the Mods count too.

If we can thrash this idea out and come to some concensus I'll happily pester the Admins and see if we can get something organised.
Not sure if they'll do it though, because they're still sorting out stuff like skins, but it's got to be worth asking :D

cheers,
M

Posts counts are useful when people are new as it helps sort the spammers and troublemakers out quickly. When you get to the few thousands though, I think it can become a negative thing.
 

JonathanD

Ophiological Genius
Sep 3, 2004
12,809
1,479
Stourton,UK
couldn't agree more (especially abou you and southey being gobshiites!), i no longer say "welcome to the forum" to all new members as a i used to because i realised that out of a thousand odd posts i'd only had a couple of dozen things to say

stuart

No, really. I think welcoming new members is most important and the more people that do it the better. There are a few regulars that do it continually, and without those people the welcome would not be as strong. Keep it up. New blood is important to keep the forum flowing way into the future. We lose old members too remember and some new members go on to become the backbone of the forum. Welcoming such people with an array of posts, is very special.

Besides, look at No Idea. He only really replies in his own three threads and not much else. But those few posts he does post out of his own enormous threads, are usually very special and worth reading. He has a brilliant mind.
 
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Kepis

Bushcrafter through and through
Jul 17, 2005
6,689
2,104
Sussex
I can't stand it Gary. It clutters up the thread and is used by people to be rude as well, without actually having to post anything. It all seems a bit brown-nosey for my tastes with a build up of sycophants around the prominent posters and Mods. Might suit the US forum, but I'd hate to see it here. The rep system was pretty much the same.

I like to thank people by posting in the thread. Much more personal and keeps it moving.

Agree you you whole heartedly, the thanks button was seen by some over there as a sign of their supposed superior knowledge and interlect, also as also posted above, it was very clicky, in the end you saw a friend or someone you got on with post something up and you just clicked the Thanks button out of habit, it lost it's meaning very quickly, and yep, i was guilty of it too, i know a couple of guys over there who refused to use it, preferring the personal touch of actually posting in a thread to say thanks if they got something out of it.

Problem with that is, you feel a bit of a fraud/ a bit daft posting the same "Thanks for the info" or "that's nice" or the like in numerous threads through the day, i look at it this way, i post something up and get 300 views and 5 replies, i figure 300 people were interested enough to view the thread in the first place and if i get replies, well that's a bonus, sure more feedback and interaction would be nice, but i think people find it difficult to interact sometimes without feeling like a plum.
 

Kepis

Bushcrafter through and through
Jul 17, 2005
6,689
2,104
Sussex
Forgot to add thanks to Gary, Jonathan, Toddy, Southey, Decorum, my mum and dad, my sister, the hamster and anybody else who knows me:rolleyes:;)
 

Kepis

Bushcrafter through and through
Jul 17, 2005
6,689
2,104
Sussex
Not at all. Just that the THANKS system doesn't actually do that.

Exactly, all it does is promote little cliques of people like the old rep system did, it's a great idea in principal Gary, but in reality it doesnt work as it's designed to do.
 

shaggystu

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Nov 10, 2003
4,345
33
Derbyshire
No, really. I think welcoming new members is most important and the more people that do it the better. There are a few regulars that do it continually, and without those people the welcome would not be as strong. Keep it up. New blood is important to keep the forum flowing way into the future. We lose old members too remember and some new members go on to become the backbone of the forum. Welcoming such people with an array of posts, is very special..........

you're right of course jonathan, i think i shall get back into the habit of saying hello to new members
 

Martyn

Bushcrafter through and through
Aug 7, 2003
5,252
33
58
staffordshire
www.britishblades.com
I'm surprised by the amount of negativity this has produced.

Maybe it's not a good idea to be nice to people after all.

That's a straw man argument, it's not the same. A genuine and spontaneous note of thanks is always welcome, but a contrived and forced button pushing competition, just to slake a thirst for something meaningless, is equally meaningless. I do understand that if people are regular review writers, or kit experimenters like yourself (and myself, though not so much these days), that it is something of a thankless job. Probably those people would feel a little better motivated with such a thing, but it's not real. It's like those hacks that force you to post and say thanks in order to see the content. They are just junk posts with no sincerity whatsoever, made by people jumping on a band-wagon, or not wanting to be the odd one out, or in exchange for something of perceived value. It's just a cheap ego inflation device. A genuine note of thanks is worth a million such mouse clicks and takes up a fraction of the space.

I also think post counts are worthwhile, not to established members, but to new members. I would leave them, but perhaps disable them in the welcome section? I would say that though, because that's how it's been on BB for years. You get no credit in terms of a post count increment for saying welcome. You do it because you want to and get no numerical reward. I like that.
 
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santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
1,114
67
Florida
That's a straw man argument, it's not the same. A genuine and spontaneous note of thanks is always welcome, but a contrived and forced button pushing competition, just to slake a thirst for something meaningless, is equally meaningless... A genuine note of thanks is worth a million such mouse clicks and takes up a fraction of the space...

A good argument could be made that a "genuine" note of thanks is hand written rather than typed out on something as impersonal and anonymous as the internet.

Value of whatever form (typed or simply clicked) aside I dispute your assertion on which one takes up more space. That's the primary advantage of the "thanks button." It doesn't require a separate post for each person thanking the poster and doesn't unnecessarily lengthen the thread with idle chatter.
 
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Martyn

Bushcrafter through and through
Aug 7, 2003
5,252
33
58
staffordshire
www.britishblades.com
A good argument could be made that a "genuine" note of thanks is hand written rather than typed out on something as impersonal and anonymous as the internet.
I would agree, but we are communicating and are unfortunately limited by the media we are using, to a keyboard and screen.

Value of whatever form (typed or simply clicked) aside I dispute your assertion on which one takes up more space. That's the primary advantage of the "thanks button." It doesn't require a separate post for each person thanking the poster and doesn't unnecessarily lengthen the thread with idle chatter.
Yes if all the people who say thanks were to do so in a regular post, then it would take up more space. However, in use the hack adds buckets of annoying clutter. The reason being, is that ordinarily people wouldn't say thanks unless they felt a genuine desire to do so, which in practice happens much less frequently without the thanks hack. It's the rarity of a genuine thankyou, in part at least, which gives the sentiment some real value. In forums which run the thanks hack, the content seems broken continuously with huge random lists of people saying thanks for something someone said. If that happened in real life it'd drive you nuts.

If the object of such a hack is to genuinely reduce the amount of irritation a user experiences, from useless forum clutter and insincere three word posts, then for me at least, this hack fails catastrophically.
 
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santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
1,114
67
Florida
...Yes if all the people who say thanks were to do so in a regular post, then it would take up more space. However, in use the hack adds buckets of annoying clutter. The reason being, is that ordinarily people wouldn't say thanks unless they felt a genuine desire to do so, which in practice happens much less frequently without the thanks hack. It's the rarity of a genuine thankyou, in part at least, which gives the sentiment some real value. In forums which run the thanks hack, the content seems broken continuously with huge random lists of people saying thanks for something someone said...

I would agree that ultimately such thanks should not be visible on the thread itself. Just a small icon letting the poster (the one being thanked) know he has been thanked and that he can see by whom he was thanked simply by clicking the icon. But now we're really discussing format rather than principle.

I also agree that often on BCUSA the thanks button is used more as an agreement with a post than a true thank you. More like a "high five." That said, that in itself isn't necessarily a bad thing either.

Cliques occur no matter what but I'm not convinced that a "thanks button" is a cause; rather it's just another way to recognize said cliques.
 
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santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
1,114
67
Florida
I would agree, but we are communicating and are unfortunately limited by the media we are using, to a keyboard and screen...

Exactly! That's my whole point; we are limited by the media so there is no real reason not to fully use the technology if it helps declutter.
 

Wayland

Hárbarðr
Ultimately it seems that the technology or principle is not at fault but the way people use it.

On BcUSA I use the button to acknowledge posts that I think are useful or make a good point but I also use it to thank people who have made the effort to respond to a thread that I have started. I think those uses are legitimate and of value.

I like the idea of thanks only being visible if an icon is clicked and I also do not think that "thanks" need to be collected and recorded as some kind of score. I think that leads to a collector mentality that is unhealthy.

I still like the thread star rating and this need not be linked to individuals in any way, could the use of that facility not be encouraged by making it more obvious?
 

Toddy

Mod
Mod
Jan 21, 2005
38,937
4,570
S. Lanarkshire
I'm a Mod, and I only realised very recently that we had a star rating for threads :eek:
If 'I' didn't know then I suspect that a heck of a lot of other folks don't either.

I'll ask if something can be done to make that more prominant and easily found.

cheers,
M
 

forestwalker

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
I really like the basic idea, since it allows one to -- hopefully -- find usefull threads. I come from old usenet, where one can use a so called "kill" file (I know, but the name is there for hysterical raisins) to find threads that one is likely to want to read.

One way the system currently discussed could be to allow people to give stars to threads/posts, and that would be seen in some summary form on the thread list.
 

Wayland

Hárbarðr
The only problem with the current star system is that a single vote has a disproportionate influence until other votes are made.

I think a simple vote for this thread button, allowing anonymous votes to accumulate through one to five star rating might be a good way of doing it.
 

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