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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;lincolncent, post: 790504, member: 22506&quot;]There are many, many pros and cons involved with online forums. Especially in the coin world. Since saving the best for last always works, lets start with the cons. </p><p>The worst thing about a coin forum such as this is that you can&#039;t see the coins in person. This makes it very hard to grade coins for others, or even to tell if the coin they have is genuine. For those who have a hard time grading things and post their questions and pictures on the forum, it is a disappointment to hear: &quot;Can&#039;t say for sure but....&quot; The next worst things are spam and viruses. Unfortunately, there are very greedy, evil people in the world who want nothing more than to destroy your computer or to at least get on your nerves. Online forums tend to be hotspots for these kinds of people since they can put on a fake personality and make you think they are great people, only to send out a virus to infect every computer connected to the forum. Luckily, great advances in science and technology have helped to limit this, but there will always be the &quot;hackers&quot; who are able to get around the system. One other thing is that if you decide to trade with someone via a forum instead of E-bay, you still never know what you&#039;ll get. A lot of trading goes on inside forums all over the net, and tons of people get scammed every day. It is mostly though of that that kind of &quot;scamming&quot; is only on ebay, however that is not true. This forum appears to be very, very trustworthy but there are many out there today that are not. </p><p>There are quite a few pros to these kinds of forums as well. The biggest one being that people can be very, very helpful. Here in my town, I only know of one other big-time coin collector. That happens to be the guy I buy from. In small towns, the number of collectors is generally limited to few or none, unless they order coins online, which I do not (except the Mint for proofs). When you get on a forum with people from all around the world, chances are someone will know the answer to just about any question you can ask. And, if they don&#039;t, they&#039;ll look it up for you. I have posted several questions on this site and have yet to have one of them go unanswered.&nbsp; I have also answered other questions that people have posted and I hope I&#039;ve helped. The more experiences you have the better. Another pro is just the content. Even if you do little posting, you can still learn a ton from reading other people&#039;s posts. I&#039;ve only been on this site for a few weeks, and I&#039;ve already learned SO much about coins that I didn&#039;t know before. This is taking me right back into helpfulness which is definately the best thing about these sites. The thing I personally enjoy most about forums are the debates which get going. Some are worth getting into and some are worth just reading. The economics debate we&#039;ve had going here on this site has been very worthwhile and anyone who doesn&#039;t know much about that subject would be able to just read it and join right on in. My final thought about forums is that they&#039;re easy to use. There is no complicated computer stuff going on, all you have to do is click and type. This makes it easy to use for ALL ages, not just us young folks. Our elders can teach us a lot if we just listen to them. They were here before we were thought about so they obviously have a bit more experience than we do. </p><p>All in all, forums are definately a good thing. I&#039;m thankful for them. Especially this one.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>THX for the contest.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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