Separate Forums Needed for World and Ancient

For the sake of argument, I would support splitting them. It is just for sorting purposes. It's not like we're talking about creating a separate website. If there was a world forum and an ancient forum, you could just visit one and then the next, just like I visit the world forum now along with the coin chat forum. It is nice to have them organized though so it is easier to find what you want faster. It's great that people label their posts as "ancient," but still when I look at the opening page and every post I see starts with "ancient," and what I want is world, that just means I click back out and don't read anything because I'm not interested in ancient. The ancient posts push the others down and that's the problem and maybe part of why there are so few discussions going on about world coins. When I started posting on this forum it was just the opposite, but a lot of the prolific posters disappeared.

 

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In my opinion there is a difference between a basically US website and one with an "international" approach. If you have a place where mostly Americans discuss coins, the almost natural consequence is to make a "domestic - anything else" split. Elsewhere that may be done differently, but even that does not guarantee a balanced mix. Another coin site where I participate is more "global by structure", but has many collectors from India. Guess what sections are the most popular ones.

Do I collect ancient Greek or ancient Roman coins? No. But would a "world minus US minus such ancients" meet my collection focus? No. My perfect (sub-)forum would be found interesting by hardly anybody else here. So what? The "New Posts" link does come in handy indeed, also because some topics that I find interesting are in the Coin Chat forum for example. The only drawback is that, if your own collecting areas are hardly ever discussed at site X, you take your posts to site Y or Z instead. But I suppose we all do that.

From my experience it is pretty rare that a whole bunch of collectors come to a forum site almost at the same time. I know why it happened with the ancients folks here, and I am glad they are active Coin Talk members - also because even I find some of the "ancient" topics interesting, and because many of these members do not limit their participation to topics about ancients. So let's leave the setup as it is.

Christian

 

I like having world coin posts alongside the ancient posts. It's resulted in me buying a few world coins I wouldn't have otherwise been exposed to, because I was drawn to the types.

 

lumpers vs. splitters hu? I like it the way it is, but I'm also interested in world coins..just primarily ancients. the ancient threads have swamped out the world coin posts to some extent, so I understand why some with no interest in ancients would want to split them.

where would I post my coins from the 1400's if they split?

 

When I first arrived on the scene at CT, it mostly world coin posts, and I argued for separate forums because I did not like weeding through the threads I had no interest. Now the tables have turned and it's mostly Ancient threads. To be honest, I did not have any interest in the world coins until I read through some of the threads just because I was bored. I find I like world coins ever so slightly now. So who can say it's a bad thing to have them combined? Not I.

 

The oldest argument...

 

Bravo!

And as an example, look at the collectors universe/PCGS boards, sure its a big board with many more members but if your a regular visitor on there, you'd see many of the sections for the dumbest things are dead.

Stamp forum alone gets maybe 2 new posts a month.

 

I think Doug's explanation is excellent. This is another problem though...from what I have seen there just isn't enough traffic to justify the change. I think if this section started to get really busy...it might warrant breaking it up. I just don't think we are there yet.

I'm all for simplifying things. But at what point is making the main page more complicated to simplify this section warranted. Eventually...it might be, but not yet.

 

Not trying to sound snarky, but are there still stamp collectors around? How do they deal with self sticking "forever" stamps? I haven't bought stamps in years, I am still using some old "forever" stamps that I bought ca. 2010 or so.

 

Theyre around. Its more old timers who still collect then young. There is talk of a $10mil stamp for auction.

http://www.cointalk.com/threads/separate-forums-needed-for-world-and-ancient.244839/page-3

But yeah, the hobby is pretty much nill now.

 

I collect stamps (age 34), although I'm not super serious about it. I buy coins on eBay, people send them to me with old stamps and I save them. You can also buy stamps super cheap on non-eBay auction sites so that's an appealing factor.

 

i collected stamps when i was a kid, i still find them interesting, and still have my old collection at my partents house. pretty descent little collectlion really. i get it out every coulple years and look at it, but haven't added to it since...84 or so?

 

I still buy stamps too but I dont have them as a main hobby. Just something I dabble in like rocks and fossils.

 

Yes it does.

No, not true. Going from 4 forum sections (oh my god!) to 5 doesn't sound complicated. Not like going from 10 to 500.

But whatever... "back in my day we only had 4 forums, and that's the way we liked it!"

 

meh...

 

Yes you can, its called discretion. But I concede. No changes, got it.

 

This place rocks!!!

=> Have you ever been to a social-gathering where the person has booked themselves a great big hall, hoping that it's gonna be a total success and everybody is gonna show-up and it's gonna be fantastic .......... only to find out that 25% of the guests actually show-up and the hall is like a fricken ghost-town and everybody is gun-shy of goin' up and dancing, etc ...

=> well, I find that I have the best times, when I'm at a hall that's jam-packed and people are pinching me arse as I'm walking-by and the dance-floor is packed full of hotties and happy people ......... sure, I may look around and see a few dudes that are lookin' kinda pissed-off because the drink-line is a bit too long, but "overall" the place is rockin'!!

.... so I kinda like our current "combined forum" (but I understand that there are probably a few folk that get frustrated)