Imo, it does encourage spamming. Some people. Let's call them iCeD's (Heh I just made that up, nice eh?) or Spammers or Post eaters or whatever name you like.

I remember the JMMB having tons of posts
I HAAAvEEE 1000OOO0! pOSTA'S threads.

Some people were really spamming the board because they had nothing else to do. Some people just replied to every topic that had a new replies mark. Not that terrible. But it gets when people start to visit the board eight times a day.


And IMO, I do think the post counter takes away 'some' spamming.