How do you do it? What's to be done?

Obviously I need to have somebody explain to me the facts of life in the world of short attention spans. I have consistently noticed that in any given thread, the number of likes per image posted decreases significantly after the first two pages. Those "likes" are indicators of readership, and I do correlate the decrease with a drop in readership. So unless I am able to post a pic within the first two pages of a thread, why bother? For example, I have a number of nice 5th century Roman bronzes, and started to make some photos. But the thread on late Romans (the Last Romans) is already showing signs of death. I can't seem to locate my material and make pics fast enough to catch the eyes of readers. This isn't the first time; that is usually what happens to me.


Which leads me to my question. No matter how diverse the subject matter, some of you are able to post pics within minutes of the beginning of a thread. How are you able to do this? Do you happen to already have a stock of original pics of your coins, or are you using seller pics, or are you just that fast with photo gear. Now I'll admit I only want to show good pics of whatever I post, and I am using a rather involved setup - not at all portable. And, truth be told, there quite a few so-so and substandard pics of coins among the early posters. But some of you are johnny-on-the-spot with some really nice images. Did you just happen to have that on file, or do you just happen to have the fastest shutter in the west?

(Envious) inquiring minds want to know. How do you do it?

 

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I have a collection database to avoid purchasing duplicates. I have a photo for most entries. Sometimes it is a seller photo, usually it is a flatbed scan.

Previously I kept obverse and reverse photos separate but I did not like how that looked here. When I need to pull out a coin I haven't posted before I use Gimp to combine.

I had a blog and I have an attempt to write a book about my collection so I already have a paragraph or two about many of my coins. With a few word changes it can look freshly written for the thread.

 

Yes, and if I've already posted the coin elsewhere on CoinTalk, I simply copy and paste the image and description because that is quicker than uploading a picture or pasting it from my website-- and I'm a year behind in updating the website.

It's true that readership of any given thread declines rather quickly. Those who were going to read it have read within a day or so. Maybe the general subject matter wasn't something of high interest to that person but they wanted to acknowledge the effort of the original poster, so they click like or comment and don't open the thread again.

When time allows I like to read every thread and every new post. Sometimes life gets busy or for whatever reason I don't follow every post. I used to automatically get notifications of any activity in a thread I had commented on but now I don't use those alerts (alert toxic )

 

I have almost 1500 photos stored on a server that is also connected to my own search engine where all descriptions are indexed to. Any keyword can search the entire site in less than one second and show the results in a browser. At some point I will switch to a sql database to avoid duplicate entries.

 

I personally have pictures of all my coins, generally sellers' photos and my own along with all the pertinent information. I keep all my coins at the bank and sometimes can't get there during business hours for a week or more so having good photos and whatnot is crucial to avoiding buying duplicates as well as looking for die matches and other research.

 

I have a database of photos that I keep on both my computer and my phone. I haven't photographed my entire collection but that is the goal and that makes it easier to share those images wherever I am.

As far as likes go I understand some people don't read older threads but I always try to and to like the posts I find interesting. Some of the best posts happen on the later pages which is not surprising considering we are all spread all over the world in different time zones. I have noticed that threads die faster lately than they used to. Not sure why that is? Maybe some of our ex (pun intended) members were good for keeping threads fun and interesting

 

well, since we're on computers, i just pull most of my old pics of coins up and post..and when i get a "new" coin, i take pics when i get it.. and "viola"..you're an instaposter!..

 

My coins are saved in folders which themselves are saved in a big file named Backup Branch. Each folder has a name and a number depending on category (Greek 5,Roman 4 and 7, Byzantine, Medals, Modern coins, Islamic etc..) Whenever I need to intervene in a thread, I open the big file than click on the chosen folder and find the list of coins which are arranged by alphabetical order. Finally I transfer the wanted coin to desktop, ready to be posted in the ongoing thread.

 

Quite simply, have the photo ready beforehand. Or have it ready before you post the narrative.

 

Repeat after me: "The amount of likes I get on a forum does not make me a better or worse person in real life, and likes on a forum are nowhere close to being as important as my own sense of self worth as a human being, nor more important than the love and companionship I share with my family and friends, nor is it more important than the things I do in this life to make sure I leave this world a better place than what I found it."

Likes don't matter. Take if from me, I have over 23,000 likes, and none of those likes have paid my rent, comforted me when I was confronting a problem. None of those likes helped my child to get his project done on time or told him "I love you" . Honestly, having 23,000+ likes means nothing and adds nothing to my credibility when I say something dumb because I didn't properly read a post or didn't understand something, nor does it make my opinion more valid than someone elses. My life is no different with 23,000 likes than it would have been if I only had 100 likes. It doesn't matter. Period. Likes are not important. Stop the obsession and enjoy your hobby a little more. Coin collecting is fun by itself, irregardless of likes.

 

My thoughts on this subject:

1) Is it really that important for you to receive "likes" for your coins? Because essentially creating a need (a need for your photos to be seen and liked) based on other people's actions is a losing proposition. You can only control what you can control.

2) If your goal is to get as many eyes on your coin as possible, I suggest starting your own thread. I've asked questions for my own coins in huge threads (like World Coins: Your Newest Acquisitions) and never gotten any response, but if I start my own thread in the appropriate forum, I will usually have a few responses.

3) If your goal is to get a specific user to comment on your coin/thread, you might learn how to tag users by using @ and then their username:

@lrbguy as an example.

This requires you knowing which forum users will be experts on your coin or whose opinions you respect. Doing so notifies them, but it is again their prerogative to respond or not.

4) As for the imaging question, yes, I take lots of photos beforehand and then save them to my hard drive, so if a discussion pops up that requires a photo of mine (I have used my photo of the 1970 "No S" Proof Roosevelt Dime a number of times here) I am ready to go. If I don't have the coin imaged already, it usually takes me about 5 min total to image one coin (depending on how difficult it is and how picky I'm feeling.) My worst enemy (usually) is Finder (as I'm running a MacBook Pro and sometimes Finder doesn't search for file names when I ask it to.)

 

I think it's a mistake to say that that "likes don't matter" because I think they serve a function that seems to make the ancients section unique. They allow people to give positive feedback to a post without directly commenting on it even if they don't have much to add to the discussion and to not bump it to the top of the board as such.

The ancient section is unique with its tendency to "pile on" which I think is fun and cool and makes each thread more fun. People enjoy knowing that others are reading and enjoy the content they share. That is perfectly valid as it is the whole point of this site.

Don't get me wrong though I think people should not get needy about likes because that is annoying but I for one think it's a cool feature of CT. Just my opinion.

 

I have a database with coin info and image. Also a file with just photo images of all my coins. Easy anuf to post the image from the file folder on my desktop and copy paste the coin info from my catalog.

 

I appreciate the variety of the responses and am beginning to get a glimpse of what it takes to be quick on a response. But some of you are getting sidetracked by my reference to using "likes" as a benchmark. Let me repeat myself:

This isn't about needing "likes," it's about gauging the level of interest that remains in a topic. Will it be worth the time it takes to create an image for me to attempt responding to a thread, especially if I intend to post more than one pic? I can only shoot and edit a couple of pics per hour.

Thanks for the headsup on the use of the @ sign. I did not know it toggles an action on the site.

Nice to hear about the different systems people are using.

 

I think most of us post pictures we've previously taken rather than being prompted to shoot images specifically for someone else's thread.

As for it being worth your time to do it that way, it's hard to say. If there wasn't much interest or activity in the thread to begin with, you would likely be better of starting a new thread and referencing the other thread in your new post.

 

Bing, is that a proprietary database or one of your own devising? Somehow you are able to get your images into it?

 

I have all my coin images on my phone, which is why I generally post things with images in the early morning or the evening (I’m out of school then). Not to sidetrack the actual purpose of likes in this thread, but my personal opinion on them matches @Curtisimo’s.

 

..why yeah...who don't like likes?!?.. c'mon....(..i hope ev'rybody "likes" this )

 

I think the half life of a "normal" cointalk post is about the same as Sodium 24, or about 15 hours. Some posts last a bit longer, and a small number last a looooooooooooong time.

Just for grins, a pic of "modern" replica of a Roman Steelyard scale I bought recently. The scale is weighing a 2.5 Kg currency bar. The scale weight is probably 3rd century or later AD. The pic is from posts that are well past active.