No, I don't see much of a difference between the two. Both forums have sanctioned spam threads that get archived at 1000 posts, both have a very serious side to it, and both have a "lighter" side that tags along. The only differences I see are that one is more popular than the other, and one gets PC and the other doesn't.
And I'm not here to rack up post count and show off my e-penis, I like post count as an indication of how much work I've put into this community. It shows me how much time I've spent here, for better or for worse, contributing to the CFC community as a whole, which I hold dear. It's a massive slap in the face for the community to say back that my posts don't count, or are inferior to the others just because I choose to enjoy some forums over the others. I enjoy IOT over NES, I enjoy the "lite" OT over the serious one, and I don't touch any of the other Colosseum forums majorly because I'm not into sports, A&E, and I'm not smart enough for history. Yet, apparently my choices are wrong. My contributions don't count towards this community, or, the mods don't want my contribution towards this community, I don't know. It's very hurtful to know that I don't count, that I'm second class to other posters because of what sections of the site I enjoy, especially since I can't just leave and find another forum. I've tried, and I've yet to find another forum as dynamic, fun, and as full of interesting people as this one. So I'm stuck here because I love the community, and at the same time rejected by the same community. It's a craptastic position that I'm in, and I wish it wasn't so.
I don't actually think that post count is very good indicator of contribution to the site. I actually think its a poor one. There is an argument that it is a better indication of activity / time spent in the forums, but even then it has limited use. There is a slight distinction between contribution to the site, and contribution to the community (although obviously in some cases they are one-in-the-same).
The forum is, and will remain, primarily a Civilization gaming fansite.
Purely from that perspective, postcount is a really poor indicator of contribution to the site. When it comes to the off-topic sections, it is almost useless to use postcount to measure site contribution. How can 50 posts about Obama's birth certificate be 50 times more useful to the site than a person posting a single post in the Tech Support section that solves someone's problem and gets them playing the game? How can 1000 posts about whether God exists or not be considered 1000 times more valuable than a single strategy article in the war academy?
Similarly, postcount is a poor measure of activity that contributes to the forum. How long does someone spend writing 50 posts for 'random raves'? How can that be reliably compared to the 10s, 100s or even thousands of hours than someone spends working on a mod to upload here? Or even the time spent composing 20 well-reasoned posts on the Greek economic situation vs the time spent writing-up a game review for the Game Of The Month?
Based on this rationale, I think that postcount is a poor indicator of anything, really. To be completely honest, I don't think that Off-topic posts contribute that much to the forum mission "to present the absolute best in fanatical coverage of Civilization, Civilization II, Civilization III, Civilization IV, and Civilization V". Now: In case some people get upset and think that I don't value the contribution that the off topic
community makes to the
site, that is completely incorrect. I value the off-topic community for the fact that they are a vibrant community of dedicated people. I value the fact that people return here time and time again. I value that there are a number of posts that make me think. I value the diverse perspectives. But I cannot value 'postcount' as any sort of meaningful metric that in any way suggests that a person with a higher postcount has in any way contributed 'more' to the site than someone with a lower postount.
Specifically at Joecoolyo, it is for these reasons that I would not judge your contributions to the community or the site based on your postcount, nor on which contributions increase that number. I would in no way consider that posts in forums that do not increase postcount are an indication of 'rejection' by the community.
Personally, I get satisfaction from the odd person here and there that I can help with a tech support issue or pointing them in the right direction for the information they get. Previously I got it from helping out in the GOTM forums / competition. Perhaps you can get satisfaction from your interactions in IOT or something similar. You say that you enjoy it, so why does your enjoyment have to be defined by whether it increases a number?
