Suggestion - Post Counts

[Schneed10]

This is a general suggestion that may help improve the quality of the discussion on the boards. First off, if you don't believe the quality on the boards could use improvement, then you can feel free to stop reading right here.

But I often get frustrated by the flood of useless posts that we see on this site. It's like people are often responding to threads without reading to see if their ideas or questions were previously discussed.

I'd suggest eliminating post count from the display under the user's avatar. Based on what I've seen over the last few days, some people on this site actually feel that a high post count actually means you are a "senior member" of the site. And often times, it seems like people are posting just to watch their post count go up. I don't know about anyone else, but more than anything, I appreciate the quality of the discussion here on this site. If someone offers valuable insights or opinions, they get my respect. Having a big post history definitely does not.

Taking away the post count is a small step. It's not likely to make a big impact right away. But I think it will take that incentive away from the next member who joins to run up his post count with useless crud.

PS This is in no way directed at people with current high post counts like TMC, Matty, TAF, or That Guy. I respect you guys because you both post a lot AND offer valuable insight. That's best of both worlds.

I just think it would be better if we didn't see post count at all. I've got a fair amount of posts myself, but I could really care less. I just want to have quality discussion.

If you have any counterpoints, what would be good reasons to continue to have the post count displayed?