Show post count in posts again

[Props Valroa 26,038]

I don't understand what was wrong with seeing post count. It feels wrong to not see user's posts under your name. 

[Jeric 46,834]

@Califorum Post count was removed from posts for reasons previously explained. We do not want users in awe of statistics, theirs or others. We do not want a measure of statistical elitism that comes with that. We want to encourage users to appreciate the content quality that has value, not an artificial number.  We want to declutter the site. We want to encourage users to discover things about other users and explore each other’s profile. There are many ways that post count can be ascertained on MLPF without the visibility on each post.  We like being different than other communities that constantly broadcast all of these stats everywhere, when the post count itself has little reflection on the quality of the posts a user creates. 
 

This was a temporary visual part of the site that won’t be returning. 

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 40,278]

Removing post counts was pointless, in my worthless opinion. Most other sites display it without any issues. I never noticed any problems with it before so, I do not see what removing it accomplishes.

[Crunchypuff 152]

 Post count is gone? I can still see ranks of people's posts, like cupcake or alicorn, isn't that pretty much post count? At least I thought that was what rank was

[Props Valroa 26,038]

I do not see what it accomplishes either. It was a feature with literally no issues. I don't see why you would remove that of all things. 

[Yoshi89 5,290]

I didn't mind post count not applying to spam topics like forum games. To take it away overall just doesn't make sense.

[Clawdeen 12,109]

I do miss having my post count displayed tbh. It feels odd not seeing it. 

[Sparklefan1234 161,858]

51 minutes ago, Kyoshi said:

Removing post counts was pointless, in my worthless opinion.

 

I'm glad they removed "reputation" from your posts, I worried way too much about that. Post count didn't bother me, though. 

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 40,278]

9 minutes ago, Sparklefan1234 said:

 

I'm glad they removed "reputation" from your posts, I worried way too much about that. Post count didn't bother me, though. 

Now that does make sense. Any kind of "reputation" system being at the forefront can create an "off" environment, I have experienced that in the past. Post counts? I've not once felt there was an "elitist" vibe from it. To me, it simply can show how dedicated someone has been to the community and I see nothing wrong with that. 

[Courageous Thunder Dash 7,809]

9 minutes ago, Kyoshi said:

Now that does make sense. Any kind of "reputation" system being at the forefront can create an "off" environment, I have experienced that in the past. Post counts? I've not once felt there was an "elitist" vibe from it. To me, it simply can show how dedicated someone has been to the community and I see nothing wrong with that. 

Yea, I do agree with the whole reputation thing...

[SharpWit 2,472]

I'm a tad bit confused since I can see everyone's reputation still?

I used to stress about my own reputation because short of any mention/reply it was the only way to tell if someone had read my comment. Stopped caring when I got used to it after a few years and my posts to reputation was 3 to 1. Never cared about my overall number or anyone else's.

I get confused by the sheer number of posts and reputation some users recieve but I pretty much stick to new topics and used to stick to debate so my contribution is limited despite being such a regular user.

[Jesse Terrence 2,963]

I'll be blunt on this.

Post counts is an issue here because they start  brohoof and popularity wars. Is all fun till somepony flips their  over the day thing and start harassing other users. We've seen the public indirects when some users get upset due that.

Not much of a secret if a barely active user like myself has been aware of the dramas the post count thing causes and has seen more than a user depart from the dramas the counts cause.

We're better off without them.

Edited February 8, 2021 by Jesse Terrence
Typoed

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 40,278]

15 hours ago, Jesse Terrence said:

I'll be blunt on this.

Post counts is an issue here because they start  brohoof and popularity wars. Is all fun till somepony flips their  over the day thing and start harassing other users. We've seen the public indirects when some users get upset due that.

Not much of a secret if a barely active user like myself has been aware of the dramas the post count thing causes and has seen more than a user depart from the dramas the counts cause.

We're better off without them.

That's less of a problem with visible post counts and more of an issue with "winning the day". I think visible post count doesn't encourage anything that you mentioned, mainly because I have seen absolutely nothing like that related to it.  

[Jesse Terrence 2,963]

Moments ago, Kyoshi said:

That's less of a problem with visible post counts and more of an issue with "winning the day". I think visible post count doesn't encourage anything that you mentioned, mainly because I have seen absolutely nothing like that related to it.  

Hrm, I get what you say, but the same winning the day troublemakers are obsessed with post count. I guess is a thing that feeds back the vicious cycle.

[Jeric 46,834]

Two things to clear up confusion 

Post count is not gone. It just doesn't show in the same panel of your name and avatar in a post. Two, reputation was removed from the user post panel for the exact same reasons. I changed the title to reflect the actual request from the OP since this topic already had a user who was confused by this. 

 

It is worth noting that hovering over a user avatar in a topic shows you their profile based information including reputation and post count. 

 

FWIW, I can't stand the Winning the Day badge either, but as of this moment I haven't touched that. 

[Props Valroa 26,038]

Honestly don't get it. It's just removing superficial things for superficial reasons. I don't really think anyone has complained about the post count. Maybe the reputation being removed, sure I can understand that but post count? Nobody would be complaining about seeing that. I'm on other forums with post count and theres no issues with it, why is post count considered an issue?

Why not make it optional? If you don't want to see it you don't, but if you do you can. 

[Jeric 46,834]

46 minutes ago, Califorum said:

Honestly don't get it. It's just removing superficial things for superficial reasons. I don't really think anyone has complained about the post count. Maybe the reputation being removed, sure I can understand that but post count? Nobody would be complaining about seeing that. I'm on other forums with post count and theres no issues with it, why is post count considered an issue?

Why not make it optional? If you don't want to see it you don't, but if you do you can. 

By 'get it' I assume you mean you don't agree with the decision. The reasons have been given several times now and while the psychological influences to the decision may be somewhat abstract, the decluttering one isn't hard to understand. 

We do not make design decisions based on just feedback, positive or negative. In this case the decision was made for stylistic reasons independent of feedback, and will remain that way. We don't like it looking like that. We want it to be uniform to everyone in this case. 

[Props Valroa 26,038]

1 minute ago, Jeric said:

By 'get it' I assume you mean you don't agree with the decision. The reasons have been given several times now and while the psychological influences to the decision may be somewhat abstract, the decluttering one isn't hard to understand. 

We do not make design decisions based on just feedback, positive or negative. In this case the decision was made for stylistic reasons independent of feedback, and will remain that way. We don't like it looking like that. We want it to be uniform to everyone in this case. 

Your right, I don't agree with this at all. I don't see any reason why 'decluttering' was needed. Everything was fine as it was before in my view. 

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 40,278]

11 minutes ago, Califorum said:

Your right, I don't agree with this at all. I don't see any reason why 'decluttering' was needed. Everything was fine as it was before in my view. 

Agreed. Post count display was hardly a thing of clutter. I simply don't understand the overall logic behind this change. I have a slight feeling that we are not exactly being listened to on this one though. It be what it be I guess. *shrugs*

[Props Valroa 26,038]

Moments ago, Kyoshi said:

Agreed. Post count display was hardly a thing of clutter. I simply don't understand the overall logic behind this change. I have a slight feeling that we are not exactly being listened to on this one though. It be what it be I guess. *shrugs*

I feel the exact same way on that. Theres all these changes and yet the community never had a say in it. Why didn't this just be a proposal and a topic made outlining proposals and seeing if people would agree to it, maybe. Just an idea.

[Jeric 46,834]

37 minutes ago, Califorum said:

Your right, I don't agree with this at all. I don't see any reason why 'decluttering' was needed. Everything was fine as it was before in my view. 

We agree which is why we removed the post count and rep. What you remember isn’t the way it was supposed to be and isn’t the way it was before 2017. 

[They call me Loyalty 1,941]

I remember not long ago being pestered by a user from this forum to add his or her account as friend for sole reason of notoriety. As if this person derived self-worth from statics, which speaks of the state of human psyche in modern society.

It is constructive to have a neutral ground for interaction without the labeling of popularity or post count discouraging equality. Especially, after seeing how people in other social platforms like to compare themselves.

There needs to be a measure of balance. Especially, when "individuality" and "identity" start to engender conflict and division due to an excess of polarization between one.

[BornAgainBrony 2,395]

On 2021-02-07 at 8:49 PM, Kyoshi said:

Now that does make sense. Any kind of "reputation" system being at the forefront can create an "off" environment, I have experienced that in the past. Post counts? I've not once felt there was an "elitist" vibe from it. To me, it simply can show how dedicated someone has been to the community and I see nothing wrong with that. 

The only problem I've seen it cause in the past is the creation of spam threads. Threads that literally only exist for people to boost their post count. On some forums these ended up consuming 50% of all post data or more.

Other times, users responded to every thread they could almost like a social network bot with nothing real to contribute. Just "Cool story" or "nice." Probably why the character limit exists but that's a minor hindrance to folks who do that.

So yeah, some DO indeed use it like a social status indicator, and I guess I could've easily imagined that happening years ago. I've seen no indication of it now though.

On 2021-02-07 at 7:43 PM, Crunchypuff said:

 Post count is gone? I can still see ranks of people's posts, like cupcake or alicorn, isn't that pretty much post count? At least I thought that was what rank was

Yeah, it is. And I hope that doesn't mean those icons are next on the chopping block, since they're at least a relative indicator of post activity.

[Jeric 46,834]

14 hours ago, BornAgainBrony said:

Yeah, it is. And I hope that doesn't mean those icons are next on the chopping block, since they're at least a relative indicator of post activity.

While nothing in life is certain except my hatred for Mayo, I can just about promise you the visual rank badges are not going anywhere anytime soon. There are part of what makes us fun and whimsical. 
 

It wasn’t super long ago (by Jeric years) that @Lord Valtasar crafted an expansion of the system with new badges that brought more creatures from later seasons into the rank pool. 

I hate tossing out great ideas that have value and that absolutely had a lot of value

[Harmonic Revelations 8,833]

Back in the day, if my memory isn't simply failing me, the amount of brohoofs you got was also at some point visible on posts, and I think that was removed for similar reasons. To discourage metagaming from people who are trying to min-max stats instead of creating actual worthwhile content.