Tactics by a new generation of VGF members have proven that in order to have a stable reputation, quality has a lower priority than pure quantity.
"Newbies" constantly get bugged when they post content around the forums. Patterns have shown that this happens more commonly towards people with low post count numbers. Without any rationalization of other possibilities, it was immediately concluded that the way to prevent these events is to collect posts quickly, in any way possible. After all, how else could Knux, Tubs, and KirbyKing become so popular? In topics that reference other members, these new members are never used, which can also be explained by low respect levels due to low posts. (Another theory was that the more experienced members have no clue who they are yet, but this theory was quickly tossed aside and ignored.) Once they go from "junior member" to "member" and "senior" member, they have so many posts that others can only automatically assume they are cool and experienced.
One such tactic is to give a one-word answer that contributes nothing to the topic at all. Instead of not posting because the posters have nothing to say, they actually take time to state that they do not have anything beneficial to say. Honesty like this is a flawless way to show how mature they have become. Examples of this genius strategy in action can be found here, here, and here.
Another strategy is to participate in "games" that simply involve posting, with little to no additional rules. These games without depth, which include "WoT 546 illegally married TPAM," "First to 133,713,371,337 posts wins", and "The most recent poster is SPECIAL", have always been the fastest, most popular ones out of all the games started across the boards. Simplicity like this is what has also inspired video game companies to make easier and easier games more recently - because if it is difficult or tricky to understand, it automatically sucks.
Basically, according to the majority of members from 2006 on, they are sticking to their claim that moving up the social ladder and winning love consists of gaining posts in any ways possible. This includes irrelevant responses, useless posts, cursing, starting flame wars, claiming to hate other members, using too many exclamation points, ignoring warnings from older members and some admins, picking on the newest members when they do even one thing wrong, and admitting they are only posting to raise their post count. However, they have also agreed that double posting should never be one of the strategies included in this list. Double posting may annoy people.
