Posting for the sake of posting

[daveashton]

OK I would like to know if you feel we should stop people posting for the sake of it i.e. they add no help to providing an answer for the business question posted i.e.

"I am not sure"
"This is really good advise, i agree with you"
"I agree with ....."

Or posting a question from 1 forum and putting it on anther with the new classic being "how do you motivate yourself?"


or the even worse……..

the type of posters who know nothing about a subject but always have an opinion. Don’t get me wrong we all make mistakes, and post occasionally bad advise, but there is a big difference been occasional mistakes and constant posting on matter they do not have a clue about.

[DuaneJackson]

I think the problem, as with all forums, is that people want the kudos of having a higher 'posts' number on their profile.

If the message is just what you listed below with no additional comments then yes, I think if it's practical for the admins to do so they should be deleted.

Time is precious for all of us here and when you look at the list of posts since last visit it's annoying to see a post that's just been updated with something like "I am not sure" (Although to be honest this isn't something I've seen often)

There is an argument in favour of "I agree with ... " posts in that it adds weight to the initial advice given.

Bottom line is that if this was happening regularlay enough to be annoying then it'd be good to have something done about it but at the moment it's not happening too often from what I can see.

[Whistle Ink]

I agree.........

Ha ha someone had to do it and it was me!

I think its worth people putting their opinions on even if they don't know about a certain subject, because:

1. Its an opinion. We all have opinions on other things like life, crime and war and yet I'm sure not everyone has read every report, knows every bit of knowledge in order to make an informed opinion.

2. Posting 'I agree' can sometimes reinforce anothers point and point out that others are thinking along the same lines. Maybe use a poll instead.

I think its the same with the saying hello to new members - just saying hello boosts your posts in days - mabe thats what they are trying to do. Are we all a little guilty of that? I don't know!

Maybe we should be just happy that people are posting in any capacity otherwise we might have an empty forum with daveashton and maybe 10 more round a small table somewhere??? :lol:

:)

[adam]

It happens but I think people that do it soon get known and will die out eventually then when the new one comes up they get jumped on quickly by other members and everyone learns.

[SmallBizSoftware]

Are we advocating censorship here?

Who decides if an opinion is worthwhile or if a forum member has any knowledge on a subject? I think it might be time for you to read a bit more Dale Carnegie!

I welcome everybody's view, especially when it differs from my own as it challenges group think and leads to innovation. This is a business forum which means that we have customers who also might think differently to us, do we ignore there opinion too?

Posting for the sake of it will always happen, there will be those who read SEO for dummies and think that posting here will give a good page rank! So what? let them post, let the forum grow organically and the chaff will separate from the wheat.

[epiphany]

But posting here will help their page rank :P I agree with you though, forums always attract a range of people and opinions and as long as people aren't being nasty I am happy for them to be here.

[Rob Holmes]

I'm unsure that posting does help the pageranks.

I just did a reverse link search on Google and Google doesn't include any links from here to my site.

In addition I reckon anyone that just does it for that reason soon gets tired.

Rob

[epiphany]

Google's link counter is deliberately broken so people can't analyse and then manipulate their links backs to increase their page rank.

[MinuWeb]

alot of searches on google results in various forum posts, so I can see it would help, however I am not too sure how much as I am not an SEO expert......

[www.sitepal.co.uk]

OK I would like to know if you feel we should stop people posting for the sake of it i.e. they add no help to providing an answer for the business question posted i.e.

"I am not sure"
"This is really good advise, i agree with you"
"I agree with ....."

Or posting a question from 1 forum and putting it on anther with the new classic being "how do you motivate yourself?"


or the even worse……..

the type of posters who know nothing about a subject but always have an opinion. Don’t get me wrong we all make mistakes, and post occasionally bad advise, but there is a big difference been occasional mistakes and constant posting on matter they do not have a clue about.

Dave

I think it is best to let folks post what they like & those concern can remove the not so good ones.

Best

Tony

[Webstuff]

This is really good advise, i agree with you


People who post that should just be shot for their spelling ;)

Clearly people aren't grubbing for post counts, and as was mentioned before, I want to hear lots of opinions. The point of a discussion forum, surely?

Also, if people are trying to be helpful, lets not complain if they make a mistake - we all do (except me), and someone else is always along quickly to correct them.

Does google give any serious weight to forums still? I thought they were / had dropped the relevance of pages seperated by GET vars only?

[DuaneJackson]

I'm not sure if the page rank comment was tongue in cheek or not. But it wouldn't help your page rank to post to the forums here. The forum pages have no page rank to pass on to you so you'd need a stupidly large amount of links to get even a small amount of benefit

Also, I think that the google algorithm has (or it did have a while ago) a built in filter for files called viewtopic.php

Also, without getting too technical, Google would have one pagerank that covers everypost here. BAsically viewtopic.php (or any file for that matter) would have one PR value for the file on it's own and anopther for the file with a querystring, regardless of what that querystring is. As all posts are displayed as viewtopic.php + querystring, in googles eyes as far as PR goes, it's all one page, so the outbound link is on a 'page' with thousands of other outbound links so even further diluting the amount of PR that would get siphoned from here to your own site

Remeber that the results you see from doing a search are based on a lot more than just page rank.

Sorry, this is majorly off topic!

[Ravenfire]

I think sometimes people may do that just to remind others that they are still here, although maybe dont feel they dont have much at that time to contribute.

I agree with just letting people post and then admin or the mods decide if they are doing it purely for post count.

[sparklyscotty]

I am in total agreement with WhistleInk's post. I have to admit to enjoying the conversational tone of this forum too. I get a lot of valuable advice, but also some nice chat from other people in a similar boat. I suppose we could implement a guideline where if you DON'T want converstational posts you could use a key phrase at the bottom of the post, e.g. ACTIONABLE ADVICE ONLY or something like that that everyone would understand.
-Angel-

[Twokids]

I would say that there is no choice but to allow an open forum - strictly moderated to prevent abuse, spam and childish behaviour.

If a forum becomes too disiplined, free debate and the open flow of information suffers.

How do you distinguish between expert and amateur opinion? Personally I always state that I am giving a general viewpoint if the question is aimed at an expert answer - and I rarely comment on those anyway.

Anyway - if someone makes a naive comment, or daft answer you just ignore it. Nothing is lost save a few bytes on a server.

[Ozzy]

My view is as follows, so here is your opportunity to tell me if you think the forums are being run incorrectly ;)

I share the same view as Angel, and that I want the forums to follwo a conversational element. If they become too uniform and formal then the atmosphere becomes less welcoming and friendly. I like a human approach, as we are all people.
This is backed up by Twokids comments.

Ravenfire may be right, some people may reply to remind people they are still here. Again, I dont see that as any harm being done afterall.

daveashton mentions that there is a danger of someone giving bad advice. This is also a risk, but then this forum is not here to provide professional consultancy, it is a place for people to network and share information to help each other from their own experience. If someone wishes to have professional qualified advice from a consultant in that field then there are plenty on here who are able to provide those services. Afterall, this forum is a "free" service and not a replacement for appointing a solicitor, accountant, etc for your firm.

I also agree that having replies backing up a previous post simply by saying "I agree with what X says above" is fine. It adds weight to the previous comment incase there was any doubt.

[kyber]

I agree with what Richard says above.

[fastfences]

People who post that should just be shot for their spelling ;)

Also, if people are trying to be helpful, lets not complain if they make a mistake - we all do (except me), and someone else is always along quickly to correct them.



Yeah, I don't mind helping: 'lets' is actually let's, as in let us.

I'll save the bullets, though! Cheers, Nigel

[Webstuff]

Oh...you are in so much trouble now :P

And you meant 'yes', as in 'yes'. 'Yeah' is not a real word ;)

[MinuWeb]

And you meant 'yes', as in 'yes'. 'Yeah' is not a real word ;)

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Yeah

I hope I never play Scrabble with you !! ;)

[Webstuff]

That's great if WE'RE AMERICAN. Tsk. :P

[Jayne]

I think it is nice people want to reply to your posts. I spend all day with *****y women (always working)and never get time to go out, so this is the only intelligent conversation I get. Too many people like to moan and groan now adays, it's bad enough Tony Blair telling you what you can and cannot do. Maybe people post because they like to help people, even if they do not know what they are talking about.

It's the thought that counts.

(And I don't care if I make a spelling mistake, didn't harm Richard Branson)

Best Wishes
Jayne