Member Avatar for diafol

In the course of giving a hand here and there, you tend to come across the same tired leeches, wasting everybody's time with the same inane questions, no thanks, no solved, no rep etc. OK, we all know the type, they are filling my ignore list. (For example, one member, 'J' has 54 thread starters in 97 posts).

I was wondering, would a 'leech meter' be worth considering? Obviously you wouldn't call it that, you'd put an airy positive twist on it like 'altruism' or something.

I know that we can see posts, solved, rep and all that, but I'd like to see how much of a 'good guy/gal' a thread starter was before posting. So something that would show up on the thread list.

Something like own thread posts vs. posts to other members threads. But this would only kick in after a while (some number of posts) so as to not discourage new members from asking for help. Community exempt of course!

Any thoughts?

Recommended Answers

All 11 Replies

You can go into a member's profile, and in the left sidebar, it shows a count of how many threads they started vs how many replies/comments they made, how many code snippets they've contributed, etc.

Member Avatar for diafol

Yeak, that's true, but you have to go into the gubbins of their profiles. I was thinking more along the lines of here:


BTW - just a random shot of the thread list - nothing to do with these thread starters!

It would be cool if each user could create their OWN formula of what a leech is. That way there would be no awkwardness of "official" leeches", but you could set your own weed-out function like (if post count > 100 and % of posting in a thread not yours divided by overall post count not in Geek's Lounge <= 30% and (up votes / down votes < 0.25) = LEECH). Basically give the members the ability to make their own queries and "match" function if we don't want to get the old calculator out and calculate our own. And there is no statistic to see whether a poster ever posts outside of a thread they started. I hadn't thought of that as a metric of selfishness, but it really is a good one, isn't it? On the other hand, if you're a noob, you don't have a lot of technical expertise to contribute. How about a query of all your posts in threads you've started in technical forums for the words "Thank you"?

It could all be private, although I imagine every week you would post a new "10 worst leeches of last week" thread and ask everyone to vote so it wouldn't be so private. Sort of a "leech of the month" to go along with "member of the month". I like your thinking.

Basically give the members the ability to make their own queries

Or you could just, you know, remember the folks who rub you the wrong way. :icon_rolleyes: Ignoring the safety and performance concerns of supporting custom queries, consider that Daniweb's single biggest PEBKAC issue is a rampant failure to click on the [code] buton in the post editor.

Basically give the members the ability to make their own queries

Or you could just, you know, remember the folks who rub you the wrong way

Or just ban those who rub you the wrong way, if you have banning powers that is. ;-)

Or you could just, you know, remember the folks who rub you the wrong way.

I agree with that sentiment. Just going formulaically (is that a word?) based on post counts may give a hint, but every member has his good/bad points.

A straight count doesn't tell you how many "Me too!" posts the member leaves, or proportion of "love your problem, now here's some unrelated cr@p" posts. Some members can be leech-ish in one area, contribute-ish in another. Ignore list is great, but even the most annoying poster might have something of use to say. Granted, I haven't been around DaniWeb as long as any of you. But, in the end, it's up to each of us to decide what we want to help with. It doesn't appear to me to be a one-size-fits-all decision.

My $.02 worth.

Member Avatar for diafol

@BitBlt - you make some good points there.

The ignore list is great, but I can't remember everybody I've put on it, and they're not marked as such on the thread list - you have to go into the thread and then see their collapsed posts.

The roll-your-own formula sounds brilliant, but I can imagine the servers creaking with that one.

I was just wondering about some sort of instant 'good guy/gal' icon or something.

Leeches? Plenty of them in the Hardware and Software forum. You give them answers they never even reply you. No response, no thanks. When i do a check, i found out that they had already got help in another forum, a long time ago. What is the point of creating an account and a thread when you have already solved your problem.:angry:

--> Sort of a "leech of the month" to go along with "member of the month". I like your thinking.

I like that. Makes me forget about leeches for a moment. :D

I'd settle for the SO accept rate style. Show the percentage of started threads versus marked solved (exluding community threads).

I usually give -rep to such posters. I also always check the rep of thread-starters, if it's in the negative values, I'll ignore the thread.

commented: That makes me nostalgic for the little red cubes of badness (and green ones of goodness). +0
commented: Is less than 10 points counted negative :) +0

>> if it's in the negative values, I'll ignore the thread.

Especially now. Back in the good old days, I could someone red in one click. Now it takes something like four people, no matter how powerful, to turn you red, so chances are you deserved it.

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.