Posting For Dollars

I think I'm heading up on four months now since my last Ferrerman post. Maybe it's four years? I don't know. Who pays attention to such things?

Anyways, I looked at Topix and I see that this is the last week for the points game. It was an interesting game in that there was no real prize. I use Adblock so, unless I open in another browser, I don't see the results of the game or a scoreboard. I never actually played the game and sought points because there was nothing to be gained. I quit when Hegel discovered the way to opt out. I had thought I was stuck with it.

I just looked at the scoreboard and an old tippler who goes by "TallyHo" is the reigning champ...tied with seven others(!?). That's how soft this nation has become! EIGHT *WINNERS*???  That's out of ten posters- not people, mind you. This is Topix. Tally might be all of those eight posters. Maybe the second and third place posters too.

Someone, I reckon, will be crowned ultimate posting champ next week. They won't get anything for it though. Just the pride associated with posting more than any other registered poster...on the Offbeat Forum, that is. Other Forums have their own champs. Some, like the Chicago Forum, don't even have to bother with the game as there's hardly anyone there to play. The Main or "Topix" Forum is like that. There's maybe 90 some people viewing on average. Most of them are moderators.

I'm kidding! Only 6 or 7 are mods. The rest are Kevin.

Kidding again! But, not by much. I don't get why they are killing the game. Aside from Kevin and A770 characters posting, the game would seem to be the only thing keeping Topix afloat, on a forum by forum basis. People click on threads and get points. Some such nonsense. Topix then uses those clicks to show advertisers how popular Topix is. Truckloads of money are then delivered. Something like that. Topix is a volume business and they have more forums, all over the world, than I care to count. So, they do OK. Maybe they're just giving up on Offbeat and the Main as hopeless basket cases?

Topix is primarily a troll-based economy, to coin a phrase I've already coined, and Offbeat and the Main are prime examples of that. The business plan seemed to be; organize a gang in each Forum and have them harass posters for fun and profit. Start fights and get people to post. When not fighting, say hello to everyone. You know how in baseball when a guy pops up the announcer says, "It looks like a line drive in the boxscore?" Exactly.  Well, that's what it seemed like. A770 had a new gang on the Topix Forum  and, with a prolific poster like Kevin leading her crew, she just had to phone it in, occasionally showing up as some version of "Sue". Talk it up out there, guys! Let's hear some chatter! GO TEAM!

On Offbeat, I am not quite certain who the head troll is. Whoever formed the Clique, I guess. Offbeat seems more overloaded with trolls than any other forum. I think a few of these trolls might be professional.

Wait. Professional? Let's just say they "get paid for it".  They may be a pimp's bottom bitch but, that doesn't make them professional.

A couple months ago, I noticed a poster credited another poster for a thread that had wound up with a lot of posts on it. I hadn't viewed that poster as a factor on that particular thread at all. This particular asshole doesn't bring a lot to the table about anything, really. Most of his posts are masturbatory exercises in self aggrandizement. And weather. So, I checked and noticed that he had posed the question that headlined the thread. That takes some talent....

It just struck me as water-cooler, office fluffing. It was really unnecessary. It wasn't like the guy had actually done anything...

Maybe that's how it works in a troll based economy? Paid political posters or those that promote products don't make much. They say don't quit your day job. Facebook pays 3rd world folks $1 an hour(!!) to review complaints. Topix may double that for mods....It would still be too much.

But, what might they pay for someone to manage a group of miscreant posters, to promote posting on a thread?

Not too much, I hope, if merely posting first on a thread that you posed a generic question on gets you a pat on the back. I think that that idiot, Sam started 3,687 threads about Ferrerman and two of them got as many as 50 posts. That asshole is not posting for dollars- he's just a meth head. I am certainly not implying that Topix pays him anything or that anyone should.

There's just some people that, when they quit posting I always wondered if they didn't get promoted,  transferred to another forum or fired. Well, that's troll biz, I guess.