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[Rikifive 23,472]

You can still focus on grinding brohooves when on mobile tho 

Spoiler

 

 Yeah! 

[Twilight Sparkle ✨ 8,520]

On 2021-02-09 at 6:30 AM, BornAgainBrony said:

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.

The ponies that founded MLP Forums were veterans in the community management game and found many of the behaviours you described to be problematic in nurturing and maintaining an inviting, pleasant community. Human Pony attention span is finite so even if users don't "give in" to the psychological temptation to increment that counter next to their posts, it'll still constantly pull attention away from it and make one notice it a little. I'd rather that attention be directed toward the contents of the thread and personalities of its participants.

It's no coincidence as well that post counters are not incremented by "spammy threads" and that they have a dedicated place to live in in the form of the Forum Lounge area.

On 2021-02-09 at 6:30 AM, 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.

I second @Jeric on the species ranks being here to stay. They add a lot to the site's theme and are designed to function more like milestone or seniority markers than as quick dopamine hits, and so they serve more as recognition of ongoing activity than as a direct incentive to get addicted to spammy posting.

 

On 2021-02-09 at 8:49 PM, Harmonic Revelations said:

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. 

Correct!

 

On 2021-02-09 at 10:00 PM, Rikifive said:

You can still focus on grinding brohooves when on mobile tho 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 Yeah! 

That's unintended and will be "fixed". Thanks for the heads-up! Enjoy it while it lasts.

[Props Valroa 25,967]

I'm rather sad I cannot grind on my brohoof or post count anymore.

[Misty Shadow 7,062]

On 2021-02-18 at 2:00 PM, Califorum said:

I'm rather sad I cannot grind on my brohoof or post count anymore.

Don't look at it as an RPG, look at it as a game of poker. When someone who's not too active sees a good post of yours before going to your profile, their positive response will be more genuine when they don't know your hand. No more reading that initial first impression post with a bias thinking, "Oh, this member is well-liked so of course I would like this content!".