Hardly surprising people are wary of posting when they see others that do being met with this pedantic self important shite
The people “wary of posting” are a vanishingly small number of lurkers. The vast majority don’t post because they can’t be bothered. The same is true for pretty much all other internet forums (most of which have a higher percentage of lurkers, which also flies in the face of what you suggest) - see the internet 1% rule. Those few who are wary/put off aren’t the type of people who are likely to become helpful contributors. When people read the comments you describe, the correct reaction should be along the lines of “Oh I should post something helpful before trying to gain even more info from this site” and doubly so if you’ve been leeching for a long time. Indeed this is the reaction that many contributors on this site had when they first encountered such posts while lurking, myself included. It’s why my 2nd ever post was a review. I can also point to numerous others who’s first posts have been helpful contributions or even reviews, indeed there are some very recent examples in the North West review section. There’s no good reason why leeches can’t be like those members.
with this pedantic self important shite,
I don’t know why you’re under this delusion. It’s simply about calling out leeches and encouraging them (plus the lurkers reading) to actually contribute something helpful. There is however room for debate about how best to go about that.
That doesn’t mean jump on everyone when they do post,
Many of them won’t even have read the rules so it’s good to inform them. It’s also good to encourage people to contribute something useful and one way of doing that is calling people out as leeches.
I do think the indirect snipes and the pure insults aren’t necessarily the best way (even though almost all of those being insulted surely can’t factually disagree with the insult and the nature of the insult/snipe makes it obvious what they should do if they don’t want to be “attacked”) hence I personally prefer calling out someone’s history (much more specific and justified than a generic insult) and then pointing out the rules.
do you spend all day checking everyone that’s posted’s posting history, how sad is that
1805 posts and I'd bet 99% would be moaning at other users.
I know you’re both being hyperbolic but such statements are so detached from reality that thinking anything close to them is just delusional.
I find the fact they spend time clicking and checking every posters history sad at best, and downright weird at worst.
Stating someone’s length of membership, post count and the helpfulness of those posts is very relevant when accusing someone of being a leech because it can make such an accusation much more justified.
there seems to be a clique who waste a big percentage of their posts on commenting on others posting history.
You’re talking bollocks but at least thanks to lewisjones you’ve now admitted that you have no evidence to back up your claim:
I haven’t checked a single one because it’s of no interest to me
I find it very difficult you have only checked the one poster who happens to be the one who’s activity is limited.
First you said they spend all day looking at others’ history, then you said it was a big percentage of their posts, now you’re just saying they’ve probably done it more than once. Way to backtrack!
Like access said delete the accounts then, the whole self important checking and outing is weird. On any forum you’ll get widely varying levels of engagement but all make up the user base, if you want to limit that to only those that contribute frequently then delete the ones you don’t want.
tesla has already explained very well to you. To add my own take, I don’t want leeches to be banned immediately, I want them to be made aware of the rules and warned of the imminent consequences if they don’t comply - in the the hope that they do start contributing soon.
The mods, particularly CoolTiger, are doing a good job of this but it takes a lot of time and effort so if members can have a similar effect then that’s great.
