Hello guys This is something I have been thinking about for a little while and I wondered what other peoples views are of it ( I am often on my own with my opinions!). The MP at bit-tech has a fairly low post requirement ( I remember when it was lower I think!) which I think makes it quite accessible and personally I have no problems with that as we have a healthy but not huge number of posting members. This means getting higher post counts to prove worthiness isn't really appropriate. However what I am seeing in the marketplace are members who have postings exclusively in the marketplace who contribute nothing to the forum as a whole. I am not talking about people with relatively low post counts in general just people who obviously only use the forum for one thing. I see unfamiliar names and on checking post history they have often not posted outside the MP forums for years and years Call me a bit protective but I feel this is abusing the community spirit for own gain. What are peoples views on this? and even if there is a agreeable motion is there anything that could be implemented?
I am probably one of those users. I will often post in a for sale thread but not really contribute much to the remainder of the forum. I enjoy reading through build logs and other threads but seemingly don't have anything to contribute. I haven't done any big mods in years.. should I be punished for that?
This is probably how my profile looks too! I sell a few things occasionally but have the forum on an RSS feed so read all new threads. I only comment occasionally if I can really add something.
The danger is that you go the other way and have people spout nonsense just to be seen as active. Surely buying, selling and offering pricing advice is contributing to the community as a whole. More items for sale, more junk being traded (especially trades where nothing goes wrong) all in it's own way contribute. A bit of trolling but you could argue that people only post at all in topics for their own personal gain, the satisfaction they may get from trolling, to satisfy the duty they feel to pass information or to feel their opinion matters. Maybe something to address the issue of why people don't feel the need to post is more beneficial than "punishing" people for not satisfactorily ticking boxes or jumping through the right hoops like a demented seal in a clown suit.
