Opinion On Bean Hiding?

[IWantFroyo]

What do you guys think of it?

For those who hide their beans- Do you have a reason for it?

For those who are against it- Why?

[haqking]

What do you guys think of it?

For those who hide their beans- Do you have a reason for it?

For those who are against it- Why?

neither for or against it, i am apathetic about beans.

I dont think it matters or not really seeing as currenlty the rank image changes with a given amount of beans if you show them or not anyways.

And they are all fun and have no real consistency (apparently random-ish changes)

also beans do not mean your posts were good or useful, just that you posted and got a bean ;-)

And i believe the beans thing are going with the new layout anyways, still some kind of post count though i think.

Beans to me are on toast or in the grinder for a brew.

If the post helps i dont care if the beans are 1 or 30,000

[forrestcupp]

I don't care.

[IWantFroyo]

If the post helps i dont care if the beans are 1 or 30,000

+1

Whether the post helps or not is really what determines it. I'm just wondering what motives people who do it have.

[lisati]

I hide mine, lest some newcomer mistakenly equates a large post count with technical competence.

[haqking]

+1

Whether the post helps or not is really what determines it. I'm just wondering what motives people who do it have.

well i dont have a motive for displaying, more a lack of motive to have thought about finding where to turn them off.

And now i think about it, i think i will ;-)

Of course someone only has to visit your page to see them anyways

[IWantFroyo]

well i dont have a motive for displaying, more a lack of motive to have thought about finding where to turn them off.

And now i think about it, i think i will ;-)

Of course someone only has to visit your page to see them anyways

That's true. I wonder if this will be changed when the forum is updated.


I hide mine, lest some newcomer mistakenly equates a large post count with technical competence

That's a good point.

[LowSky]

I don't care how many beans a person has, knowledge especially, but it does give me an idea of how often they do post. It can be helpful if you know that user is on all the time or only once every few months.

[dniMretsaM]

Of course someone only has to visit your page to see them anyways

Wow, I didn't know that. Of course I've never used vBulletin before. Anyway, I personally don't care one way or another. The majority of the time they give no real reflection on the knowledge of the person. Now they can give you a general range, like people with 10,000 post tend to be more knowledgeable than those with 75. But still, there are some people with very few beans who still know a lot. If someone can help, I don't really care how many beans they have. Personally, I leave mine showing. Do I have a reason? No. I just do.

[BeRoot ReBoot]

I'm unable to hide mine, but I absolutely resent this method of counting posts - it's basically a count of how often you post what the administration team wants you to - in this case, free tech support. That's strong positive reinforcement to post free tech support, sure, but it isn't how you foster a cooperative community. If I ever bother to post enough free tech support, I'll hide mine when I'm able to do so.

[haqking]

Wow, I didn't know that. Of course I've never used vBulletin before. Anyway, I personally don't care one way or another. The majority of the time they give no real reflection on the knowledge of the person. Now they can give you a general range, like people with 10,000 post tend to be more knowledgeable than those with 75. But still, there are some people with very few beans who still know a lot. If someone can help, I don't really care how many beans they have. Personally, I leave mine showing. Do I have a reason? No. I just do.


Well i think when you get over 3500 which is when you can edit your title and customise your profile a little more you can probably hide it from your visitor page.

[Blasphemist]

I don't think you have to get to any level to tell it hide them. In your CP, choose edit options.

And my opinion is that while they give a little bit of an idea of experience and length of time involved, it is what I see from users that tells me if they are good.

[aysiu]

I hide mine, lest some newcomer mistakenly equates a large post count with technical competence.
This is why I hide mine.

[SoFl W]

I have signatures and avatars turned off, but I do give a little more credit to someone who has a few posts. I am also more patient with someone with a bean count under 15.

[Famicube64]

Hiding your beans is pathetic.

[BeachBuddah]

Before I read this post, I knew beans could be hidden but I didn't know how to do it and I was too lazy to research why. Now I know but I'm too lazy to bother hiding these beans of mine.

This topic leads me to ask the meta question, though. When the forums were started, why did the original forum designers give the membership the option to hide their beans?

[IWantFroyo]

Well i think when you get over 3500 which is when you can edit your title and customise your profile a little more you can probably hide it from your visitor page.

I thought it was 3000.

[sammiev]

It doesn't matter one way or the other to me if the beans are hidden or not.

[dniMretsaM]

I thought it was 3000.


Nope. 3500. I've heard a few people say they thought it was 3000 so maybe it used to be? I guess when haqking reaches 3500 next week (<- exaggeration) he'll be able to tell us if you can hide beans from your profile.

[Porcini M.]

I'm not allowed to decide - my account options are locked.

[dniMretsaM]

I'm not allowed to decide - my account options are locked.

That's because you have under 50 posts. But if you really wanted to change it, a mod might be in a good enough mood to do it for you. Emphasis on the word 'might.'

Just kidding btw. Please don't give me an infraction for insulting the staff.

[Dangertux]

That's because you have under 50 posts. But if you really wanted to change it, a mod might be in a good enough mood to do it for you. Emphasis on the word 'might.'

Just kidding btw. Please don't give me an infraction for insulting the staff.

LOL @ you don't have enough beans to hide them!

But no, personally I don't care, it's just a number. It means nothing and does not reflect on the quality of the posts. I have hundreds of posts and to be honest in reading back over some of them I find myself saying. "eww, I gave that advice?"

[mmsmc]

i hide mine because i like to be mysterious :D

[cariboo]

I'm not allowed to decide - my account options are locked.

That's what you get for creating another account.

[Elfy]

I hide mine, lest some newcomer mistakenly equates a large post count with technical competence.


This is why I hide mine.

Must be a staff thing.

[uncontrolable™]

I can't hide mine, but I would if I could. Some may think my advice is worthless due to the low count, but I think all advice should be taken with a grain of salt and a few minutes of meditation, before risking further damage to their systems.

If I had 10,000+ posts, then I'd be hiding them, too.

[sffvba[e0rt]

Must be a staff thing.

I see what you mean... :p


404

[nothingspecial]

Must be a staff thing.

Nope

[Elfy]

Nope

Wait a year and have a think :p

[vehemoth]

I don't think it really matters, if a person won't take your good advice because you haven't posted much, then they probably don't deserve it (it might matter a bit more if they aren't a community member)
To me the avatar matters more, I view those with an avatar as somebody who is trying to be part of the ubuntu forums community (though I doubt I'm right about it)

Anyway if it matters that much I'm sure they'll change it with the new forum design

[cpmman]

It's when they hide the beans in my chilli con carne that I get hot under the collar.

[sanderd17]

I believe beans are good to see if a person is really new to this forums. But there is not necessarily a difference between 50 and 10,000 beans.

When I see someone with only a few beans, I try to give some additional tips (how to install an application, how to open a terminal, how to copy-paste to a terminal, how to post output on this forum ...). Once they got over 10 beans, I assume they already know these basic things.

My assumptions can always be wrong (in both directions), but this method usually saves me some typing.

[haqking]

Nope. 3500. I've heard a few people say they thought it was 3000 so maybe it used to be? I guess when haqking reaches 3500 next week (<- exaggeration) he'll be able to tell us if you can hide beans from your profile.

Better not take me that long LOL ;-)


I believe beans are good to see if a person is really new to this forums. But there is not necessarily a difference between 50 and 10,000 beans.



Well beans i dont think tell you that, for example if someone hides there beans you can see from the rank image a rough idea of posts, as for time in the forum you can see their join date. So somene might have the rank image 1 or 2 but been a member here 5 years and posts alot in teh cafe say or nowhere, just hangs out and reads.

But anyways back to beans, everyone here had no beans at some point, yet might of been using Linux or any system for years so there advice might be as informed now with 30,000 posts as it was when they had 0, but also after 30,000 posts dont mean your advice still is not pertinent or useful.

beans on toast for me !

[haqking]

I don't think you have to get to any level to tell it hide them. In your CP, choose edit options.

And my opinion is that while they give a little bit of an idea of experience and length of time involved, it is what I see from users that tells me if they are good.


anyone with over 50 posts can choose to hide beans from the profile display, but when you hide them if you visit the profile visitor page you can still see the beans, i dont think you can turn that off until you get to 3500.

At least that is what i have experienced when looking at others pages, but who knows...its all beans, who cares....well alot of us i guess seeing as this thread is still alive ;-)

[overdrank]

I purchased many of my beans from ebay.
<--------- ):P

[haqking]

I purchased many of my beans from ebay.
<--------- ):P

so they are cheap copies from china ? ;-)

[KiwiNZ]

My Beans are visible because I could not be bothered with the hassle of hiding them.

[sffvba[e0rt]

My Beans are visible because I could not be bothered with the hassle of hiding them.

Could always just ask an admin to do it for you ;) But heck with that many beans it helps to show that once down the dark path you tread, for ever your destiny it will control :D


404

[BeRoot ReBoot]

That's because you have under 50 posts.

Not necessarily. It might simply be because their posts aren't on the subject the administration team consider to count as "beans".

Again, the "beans" metric is entirely irrelevant to the actual level of forum participation. It's a ridiculous positive reinforcement trick that'll never work. If you want people to post about a specific topic, give them a reason to do so. If I already have a day job that consists of helping people who could have solved their problems with google, I'm not about to make it a hobby as well.

[sffvba[e0rt]

Not necessarily. It might simply be because their posts aren't on the subject the administration team consider to count as "beans".

Again, the "beans" metric is entirely irrelevant to the actual level of forum participation. It's a ridiculous positive reinforcement trick that'll never work. If you want people to post about a specific topic, give them a reason to do so. If I already have a day job that consists of helping people who could have solved their problems with google, I'm not about to make it a hobby as well.

The main purpose of the Ubuntu Forums is to lend technical support to users that may be having problems with the distro.

No-one here gets paid a salary to help others and those that choose to do so do it because they want to. If any person here doesn't want to they don't need to, as simple as that.

Beans (or post counts as that is all it is) is a metric that can be used by anyone to mean pretty much what ever it is they like... it isn't any kind of metric to infer anything specific and hiding it or leaving it to be seen is a choice that users can make (as soon as they have 50 posts now that the anti-spam initiative has become active).


404

[realzippy]

My Beans are visible because I could not be bothered with the hassle of hiding them.

Is there anybody with more beans than you?
Can the mods show the TOP10 (just for fun) ?

[pretty_whistle]

I'm not for it or against it though I do wonder why someone would want to hide beans.

It's known beans cause gas. Is that the reason for hiding them? So no one knows who had gas? Jk...lol.

[BeRoot ReBoot]

Beans (or post counts as that is all it is)

Again, repeating the "beans = post count" fallacy doesn't make it true. You aren't counting posts, you're counting posts you like. I don't see how that could possibly work.

[nothingspecial]

Again, repeating the "beans = post count" fallacy doesn't make it true. You aren't counting posts, you're counting posts you like. I don't see how that could possibly work.

Hi,

A while back there was no option to hide your beans. Beans are not counted in non-support areas to prevent users accumulating many beans simply by playing games in the game section, etc.

It would be very easy to quickly accumulate a high bean count using the non support areas.

The forum has recently had a problem with a growing number of spammers using their profiles to spam the forums. Preventing users from modifying profiles before 50 beans has been introduced to combat this.

You have voiced your opposition to this policy many times and it has been noted. However, in terms of spam reduction it appears to be having the desired effect.

This thread is asking for opinions on bean hiding, not whether posts in non-support areas should count as beans. Can we bring it back on topic please.

Thank you.

[dniMretsaM]

Better not take me that long LOL ;-)

Yes, botking. :lolflag:

[realzippy]

Noooo,haqking is alive.

[haqking]

Noooo,haqking is alive.

i prefer to think of myself as someone in a functioning stasis ;-)

[mcduck]

I simply hide my beans because I don't think the bean count tells anything useful about how good or bad help you might get from the poster. A person with 10 beans might be a Linux expert who finally decided to give his Linux-From-Scratch -system a little rest and try Ubuntu for a while, and a person with 1000 posts might have gained the beans by making 800 threads asking for help... ;)

In the end a good support post is something you can easily detect from the style of the post itself. That tells a lot more than the contents of the profile box next to the post.

Besides, I rather prefer the fuzzier logic and all the randomness of the bean/coffee icons. They kind of give you a hint of how active a person has been on the forums, without being too exact about anything.And of course I do take pride in every latte glass and cappuccino cup I've gained... :D

[Linuxratty]

I hide mine, lest some newcomer mistakenly equates a large post count with technical competence.

:lolflag: I can't beat this!:popcorn:
I hide mine because I can.

[inobe]

just a bunch of beans, is how i see it.

but if one looks at it another way, within the statistics, many could see a percentage of helpful posts, maybe not here, in most forums, for example, 25,000 posts, only 6% spent in help forums and the additional wasted in some cafe:p

[sammiev]

just a bunch of beans, is how i see it.

but if one looks at it another way, within the statistics, many could see a percentage of helpful posts, maybe not here, in most forums, for example, 25,000 posts, only 6% spent in help forums and the additional wasted in some cafe:p

If I'm correct, your post count doesn't go up in the cafe. :)

[ninjaaron]

I don't care about them right now, but I will probably try and hide them once my post-count gets shamefully high.:p

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

I'm not for it or against it though I do wonder why someone would want to hide beans.

It's known beans cause gas. Is that the reason for hiding them? So no one knows who had gas? Jk...lol.

:lolflag:

<------

[cariboo]

Is there anybody with more beans than you?
Can the mods show the TOP10 (just for fun) ?

Staff bean counts are irrelevant, as we accumulate beans for doing our jobs.

[CharlesA]

Mmmm beans.

I can't be bothered to hide mine.

[Porcini M.]

Mmmm beans.


They're the "musical fruit", you know...

[lisati]

Mmmm beans.

I can't be bothered to hide mine.

I'd better be careful, just in case you catch up!

[chili555]

My Beans are visible because I could not be bothered with the hassle of hiding them.I agree completely. Neither could I be bothered to take time to agonize about its significance which is, of course, different for everyone here.

[Iowan]

Staff bean counts are irrelevant, as we accumulate beans for doing our jobs.I got most of mine from spammers.

[oldos2er]

I'm not for it or against it though I do wonder why someone would want to hide beans.

It's known beans cause gas. Is that the reason for hiding them? So no one knows who had gas? Jk...lol.

It's those SBD beans you gotta watch out for....

[uncontrolable™]

Beans don't have that effect on me, but they do activate my profile when I get to 50. :p

[CharlesA]

It's those SBD beans you gotta watch out for....
+1 to that. For Great Justice even!