Thread: Who are the blabbermouths ?

Another thought - a careful definition of what a blabbermouth is in the context of this forum would be useful. For example, is it someone who posts a lot (ie sheer magnitude)? Or, is it someone who posts a lot relative to the time they've been a member (the daily post rate idea)? Is it someone who posts a lot regardless of the content of the posts? Or should it be calculated on the posts substantively dealing with razors?

My feeling is that something like this needs to be a rate (e.g. posts per day), to account for the fact that someone who's been a member a long time will invariably have racked up quite a few posts.

For the people who've been around a long time, but don't have a high post rate, maybe we could come up with other terms of endearment/respect?

The problem is that some people come in, post a lot and then disappear. That was me, but I came back after a while and I've been here ever since. Therefore "posts per day" isn't such a hot criterion.

Originally Posted by FiReSTaRT

The problem is that some people come in, post a lot and then disappear. That was me, but I came back after a while and I've been here ever since. Therefore "posts per day" isn't such a hot criterion.

That's true for me, too!

But I don't like the idea of someone being de-blabbermouthed if the percentages get to high. You can just stop taking new blabbermouths until the membership goes back up.

I can't believe we're discussing this.

One of the signs of being a blabbermouth is being proud with your extrovert personality. Therefore, I CAN believe it

Right, good point. How about a mix of stats and expert knowledge? Use some sort of stats to get a general idea of who meets the criteria, then run these results past some sort of committee as a validation or cross check? I know, this is getting waaaay too complicated.

It's a toughie, actually. Can I ask, how is blabbermouth status allocated currently?

Originally Posted by JerseyLawyer

That's true for me, too!

But I don't like the idea of someone being de-blabbermouthed if the percentages get to high. You can just stop taking new blabbermouths until the membership goes back up.

I can't believe we're discussing this.

Well thats why 2000 is a good number...you know how hard it is to get to that number....as long as we keep the influx of users we have been getting the rate of growth will naturally balance it out. I think if you start using ratios its just a pain in the ass...2000 posts is a right of passage something that cant be diluted or cheated by time, ratios, or other users its a solid number.....and you can take one year or 5 years...its still there..and hell if some new guy can do it in 2 months...then hell he deserves it too.....no need for any complex math

And what happens when the blabbermouths reach 3000 posts. Do they become senor blabbermouths? Maybe it should be like the military with generals. We could have brigider Blabbermouth and Major blabbermouth and commander blabbermouth.

There's no end to different ways we could heap honors on the biggest blabbermouth's of them all.

Originally Posted by Jimbo

How about a mix of stats and expert knowledge?

How could that be a blabbermouth? The prototype blabbermouth would be a guy with 2000 posts in a month without relationship to expert knowledge. By definition, it has to do with profuseness, not quality.

I guess what I'm saying is that the term "blabbermouth" is associated with quantity, not quality. As soon as you get to quality your back to something like rating posts. We could do it but not without a lot more rating of posts by members.

JL, the 2000 standard may look good now, but that's only because we've only been here since May 2005. Sooner or later we'll all get there. When I get there, you'll probably have 10,000. So, 2000 can be a threshold to qualify (for now), but only the posts per day reveal who the real blabbermouths are.

Originally Posted by Joe Lerch

How could that be a blabbermouth? The prototype blabbermouth would be a guy with 2000 posts in a month without relationship to expert knowledge. By definition, it has to do with profuseness, not quality.

I guess what I'm saying is that the term "blabbermouth" is associated with quantity, not quality. As soon as you get to quality your back to something like rating posts. We could do it but not without a lot more rating of posts by members.

Sorry, I didn't explain myself clearly at all. I meant use data to generate a list of candidate blabbermouths, then get a panel of "experts" to look at that list and make some decisions eg so-and-so's not on it and they should be etc. But I think that's probably much too much trouble.

My only problem with an absolute cutoff like 2000 posts is that it's not relative to anything - so a person who takes 5 years is the same as someone who takes 2 months - I'd call the second one a blabbermouth, at least relative to the first. But I guess that's just symantics. 2000 is a whopping number of posts, no matter how you look at it.

James.