What do post counts really mean?

Scott,

This is good advice...

There is a certain amount of post snobbery that takes place.

"Never judge a book by it's cover"

Greg

I agree. A lot of those posts could be useless one liners...

KJ

Its very true. It matters how much one is contributing to the forum. Sometimes people ost so much just to ask not to share.

Good advice; it always helps to use more than one measure to evaluate something. Quality and content rather than quantity I say.

That's why on some forums simply don't show how much posts users have

It's true, someone can think of you as a master But I think that's ok if we can see the posts because you can see how experienced is user on this forum and I beleive that we sometimes treat that kind of users in a bit different way I guess.

Thanks for the good example of a useless "one liner" post ...

Scott, you are absolutely right we do tend to think that if someone has a lot of posts then they must be an expert in this business. Although, I would think that if someone has 100's of posts then surely they must have an interest in the business & would be contributing to the forum. People tend to love to help & share...

Wow you have over 5,000, you have reached guru status!

Yeah, exactly

Thanx alot for your advice. We should judge people from their talent. There are very nice and talented members who just joined the forums. That doesnot mean that they are new in IM. They sometimes gives good piece of advice.

I highly believe what you are saying.

Thnx

"What do post counts really mean?"

That I have no life?

Although I think there is a lot of merit to the number of posts not being a great indicator of anything, I do think that someone with a lot of posts who has been around for a while has legitimately earned a measure of respect for having some experience and commitment to internet marketing.

Agreed. And there are other marketing forums out there which experienced members post on. I don't think every marketing master in the world posts here. LOL!

Very true - and I agree with Hasan above, I generally look at the past contributions if I ever want to figure something out about members.

And it's true that not all newbies to forums like this are newbies to internet marketing. For me, I just took my time before ever posting my first post here, but I'm really enjoying it since I have.

That said, I do expect that it takes time to earn your place and reputation on a forum, and that's fine by me, I'm willing to earn it.

It is natural for people to assume that someone with a lot of posts is more of an authority. Unfortunately as some people have pointed out (and some have shown examples of) post counts can be inflated by useless posts. The size of the post count, and the size of the posts behind that count are only minimally valuable considerations.

How many posts does a user need to be an authority? Actually, none.

If someone wants to boost their post count, it's not that hard to do. Given any topic, I can, in a matter of a few minutes, put together a decent sized post (a few paragraphs) so that no one would think "there's a useless 1 liner post" or "he's trying to boost his post count.

If it's a subject I know well, I can write a very informative post in about 5 or 10 minutes. On most subjects I don't know well, I can take 3-5 minutes to pick up enough information to formulate a post that either provides useful information, asks good questions to elicit useful information from others, or makes a compelling argument (for or against, whichever I want to do) about the subject.

I've been here 3 1/2 years as a registered member, and now I'm still not to 500 posts. That's because I generally read a lot. Answer where I believe my input will be useful, join in only a few discussions at any given time, and spend most of my time AWAY from this forum.

Judging a forum member's authority, respectability, intellect, intention or anything else simply by post count, is about as accurate as judging how informative a post, article, report or book (ebook or otherwise) is, simply by its word or page count.

This post for example, I could have summed up in one paragraph (the above paragraph "Judging a forum member's..."), 40 words, 211 character (plus spaced). But a quick dismissal such as that would A) appear to be a post count inflating post. B) would be dismissed by those who think length equates to value. C) Would leave my perspective clearly defined, but my logic unclear.

So for those who do think length equals value, here are my 374 words for you.

The same can be said with the number of times a person has been thanked. While as a rule the more a person has been thanked the more helpful they have been, the thanked count can also be inflated. I've seen posts where a person is thanked and I see no reason for it. Then the person that was thanked, thanks that person in a different thread for a post that is equally mysterious as to why thanks was given.

The number of posts indicates how active a person has been, but does not reveal how helpful they've been. The number of times a person has been thanked can indicate how helpful a person has been, but it can be misleading too. I've also seen what I consider some pretty good posts that don't get thanked. Sometimes it's about popularity rather than usefulness.

The bottom line is, take any advice you see with a two grains of salt until you get to know a person - then throw one grain of salt away.

One way to go about this is to see the number of thanks a member receives in minimum post. Thou this might not apply to all member but it a very reliable way to know those that call the shot.