[Hippo]

Show them both.

If you've been around a while and have a lot of posts, you were either useful or not as spammy to the point that you got banned.
If you're new and have a lot of posts, you're spamming or possibly really involved in some project, but most likely spamming.
If you're old and have few posts, you've lurked or left and returned.
If you're new and have few posts, you're normal.

This is how it was done in VBulletin, and would make the most sense. As for allowing General Discussion posts count, don't ask me. It was a much more active forum before SMF and all the changes, but it also had the overheated personal attacks, but it at least had a page of new threads a day, most decent.

[Excalibur]

I always thought a "Spam" section would be useful, but that would cause MAJOR spamming by certain spammers and this would use up the HLP's bandwidth, wouln't it?

Besides, it's nicer to have no spam to look at.

*Thinks of the mess he would see in that section*

[jr2]

join date doesent help for telling how much you've contributed either...you can join, post once, wait a year, and post again. maybe an admin-controlled "contribution counter" that goes up every time you make something/contribute.

I've seen the solution for that.... you have a "How useful was this post" section, level 1-5, you click the number, you can vote how useful it was... and you can change your vote, I think that would be good.  However, I'm not sure this is a good idea.  Huge abuse / clique potential.

[Fury]

If you want accurate stats how much someone has contributed to the community, the best way to do that is to enable Karma.
http://docs.simplemachines.org/index.php?topic=104

In a month you'd see who are the retards and who are the contributors. In two months time the board ends up in flames and Karma will be removed.

[Fineus]

Yeah... which brings me back to thinking "just leave the whole bloody thing alone".

[Mr. Vega]

Gah...I'd just like to get my postcount back into 4 digits like it was a couple years ago, but allright.

[MercFox1]

Gah...I'd just like to get my postcount back into 4 digits like it was a couple years ago, but allright.

You could post in Freespace discussions...   
...
...
I've got to be missing something here.

[Goober5000]

Another part of me thinks that giving people back their E-Peens will stop some of the spamming that takes place in the Freespace General Discussion boards.

Of course, the other option is to completely hide post-counts in posts and only display them in profiles, so people can check their post-counts if they like, but it's not like a badge.

Or I could start getting harsher with people who spam on Gen FS.

To be honest I doubt that giving people the ability to add to post count will stop the kind of behaviour that you describe. Once it's taken root in a forum all that will happen is that they will continue to spam there and now gain post count for further spamming in Gen Disc.

I also noticed that it's been an age since anyone got their post count zeroed for spamming. I suppose I should point out that this particular punishment might be coming back.

I agree with this.  Actually, I forgot it was an option.

[Polpolion]

Just leave it like it is. And join date isn't really a good indication of contribution, either. Look at me: A two year member with maybe a small thing here and there, but mostly nothing. Now, IIRC hip68 or someone like that made a Freespace DVD about a week after registry.

[jr2]

1. That's hip63.

2.:

Or see thesizzler's Manual Install instructions

-That, in and of itself, counts for something. 

[Polpolion]

a small thing here and there,

Thanks, still.

[jr2]

Not something little.  It might not have been hard, but it is very useful. 

[Black Wolf]

The little 2^x thing is pretty cool - maybe get rid of visible postcount and just leave that?

[colecampbell666]

A Rep system would look horrible and inflate the useless (non-post) part of the forum.

One of the reasons that I don't use G-W is because of the massive avatars and sig pictures.

[Polpolion]

Think of all the bandwidth that is wasted, too.

[Koth]

Yeah bandwith that could be used to bring HLPs download service back.

[Tolwyn]

Yeah bandwith that could be used to bring HLPs download service back.

Personally I doubt it.

[Koth]

Just an idea.

[colecampbell666]

What happened to that?

[Hippo]

HLP3.0 happened, and the site lost functionality