Add a post count to user names / accounts....?

I think maybe a small dot next to someone's usernames which indicates they're new. That could go away after x months or x posts whichever comes sooner

I don't really like the idea- somebody could join just to post for advice, and end up being given the cold shoulder by suspicious posters. If you think somebody is trolling, report it and let MNHQ deal with it.

You could just have the year someone joined - very unidentifiable & it would follow through name changes.

I don't like post counts, they always end up being used to determine 'royalty' or such like. A 'date joined' can be useful though and I'd like to see that.

"Or even the season and the year Fru?" Yes, fair enough, Maggie

No Viv the post count would follow a poster through NCs.

I don't like the idea of a post count. I'd think oh dear do I really spend so much time posting rather than other things such as housework or getting a life. I don't see how it would help in trolling because they would have name changed anyway. Because a name changer making a first post under the new name would look just the same as a new poster.

On the forums for my fitness app, you attain cutely named statuses after every so many posts, which shows beside your name. I thought it was lame and pointless. But now I guess it shows who has been around a little while, a while, or a long while. Or who spends a lot of time involving themselves in online discussion about their own or others diet and exercise saga.

It's a bit sad that nobody thinks posters would be kinder to newbies

I think it would definitely eliminate loads of typing/reading of "NC'ing regular, pombears, cube of poo" and a lot of "Interesting first post welcome to Mumsnet" so I'm all in favour of that.

Oh and the "pah you're only band 1, you don't get how mn works. Newbies should keep quiet until they've learnt the rules from us oldies" (a sentiment I've seen many times here without tickers - I genuinely think it would increase)

The most prolific trolls play the long game - number of posts would do nothing to prevent trolling. In fact it might even add a layer of credibility to those long gamers.

It wouldn't help with the 'long game trolls' it's true but it would help with common or garden trolls. It would also stop a lot of trollhunting of NCers.

The long game trolls (LGTs) don't NC, because they are trying to build credibility so there would be no change there.

I also don't like the implication that there is a value connected to the number of posts someone makes.

Try telling that to everyone who ASs when something makes their spidey sense tingle (I've done it actually) or all those who post 'Welcome to Mumsnet' when suspicious (I haven't done that . It's natural.

The proposals would save MNHQ a lot of work and mean less trollhunting for them to wade through and would probably mean improved moderation for all of us.

Would people feel uncomfortable with just the idea of a New Poster signal/avatar of some kind ? (One which automatically disppeared after you'd been registered for X amount of time - say 10 days or something.)

I can see how it's useful for troll hunting but IMO would just introduce a heirachy of posters. Those with large numbers next to their name would seem more automatically more established and may put newbies off posting.

No secret it was just a query in Google that returned the number of posts by a username on this site. Presumably you could do it for other sites too, possibly you still can, I can't remember how though rug of very little brain

What about all the rows? I've been here for more than 10 years but I De reg and opened a new account at some point. What if my count/date/colour didn't truly reflect my royal status? Would it lead to people arguing with hq to have their status upped? What about people saying "I've been here ages but new reg so you should believe I'm not a troll" how many potential arguments there?

The most prolific trolls play the long game - number of posts would do nothing to prevent trolling. In fact it might even add a layer of credibility to those long gamers.

I also don't like the implication that there is a value connected to the number of posts someone makes.

I don't like the idea.

I see where you are coming from, but I think it will enforce the 'hierachy' that sometimes happens. Will someone be less trusted or their posts not answered much because they don't have much of a post count?

I just want Mumsnet to be as anonymous as possible.

I think ranges would be better so people are not easily identified after name changes. So 0-100, 200-500, 500-1000 etc. And then at a certain point it just says 5,000+ so there aren't any arguments about royalty etc. cause those are terribly dull.

Maybe a 'joined date' of, say, just the month and year?

Or even the season and the year Fru?

People's reluctance to change has always interested me, Malkie. I'm not one for rushing headlong into new things for the sake of it but I have had many experiences of boards changing layouts and one characteristic of the changes always seems to be that a few weeks afterwards, people couldn't really remember what the previous version looked like.

How MNHQ have managed to persuade Tech to maintain 4 different board styles on this site is a mystery to me.

I like the idea of a posting band but not exactly number of posts. As someone else said, shiny newbie 0 -100 posts toe dipper 100-1000, community member 1000-5000, part of the furniture 5000+ Etc

I quite like the idea of bands, but putting "newbie/seasoned/old hand/granny" or whatever next to your name might be a bit naff. Just something that colours up on a scrollover to indicate which broad number of posts band you're in (exact number would destroy name-change privacy completely).

Mind you, showing number of posts deleted as well might be fun.

I've been on boards that had those (the new poster avatar) and they seemed to work well, I agree. Maybe that would be a good starting point?

Yes, that alone would help.