Preferred Media?

[SPP-Ottawa]

6 hours ago, Kamnaskires said:

Since 2014 I've spent most of my coin-focused time online at Coin Community Family's ancient/medieval subforum. Sadly, there was a major exodus there years ago (as some here will recall) due to a moderator's dumb actions. CCF's loss was CT's gain at that time, just as CT's current loss is Numis Forums' gain. CCF's ancient/medieval section never fully recovered from that incident - it has had low traffic ever since. But to this day it remains a great board for the few regulars (like Spaniard) who contribute. It's a small group there - but supportive and friendly. My own activity there, however, has somewhat lessened of late.

I remember that, I had a front row seat as a CCF moderator. Renee just had a really bad day and her sarcastic side got the best of her. She apologized for her actions and was removed as a moderator, but the damage was done. Undoubtedly, it was an event I am sure she truly regretted afterwards. 

[Finn235]

- Coin Community Forum - I really like the close-knit feel of this forum, and is a good place for friendly discussion. I stopped posting as much because of the small file limit, the expectation to always re-use files, and most of the members drifting away, leaving mostly only ID requests

- CoinTalk - I didn't really have a problem with it, but just followed most of the members here. Was fun while it lasted.

- Forvm - Never was a huge fan of the stiff, scholarly culture there. It seemed like they were more interested in catalog numbers than history or art, and I always felt a little uneasy about the prohibition against discussing price, especially for a website that was notorious for charging up to 5x FMV for utterly common coins because, "Guaranteed Authentic!"

- Reddit - Fun to post occasionally, but I agree that the text-only comments are a drag. Also the number of "how much is this worth" posts with a horrendously bad fake are annoying.

- WorldOfCoins - Hands down the best subforum for Indian coins, but never got drawn in to the rest. 128kb upload limit prevented me from bothering to compress my images just to post there.

- Twitter/IG - Nope. Never created an account and I refuse to ever join. Sometimes I regret that I ever even joined Facebook or that I let myself become too attached to let it go.

- Facebook - For IRL friends only. I don't ever post anything coin-related with an account that is easily traceable to me, nor would I be comfortable with random strangers from a Numismatic group seeing pictures of my kids or being able to figure out where I live by the pictures I'm tagged in.

- Zeno.ru - I love being able to drill down into obscure rabbit holes, but the main area of interest to me (Indo Sassanian) is organized according to Mitchiner/Maheshwari, and I don't think I'd be able to post there much without trying to convince Charm to re-organize it all.

[Octavius]

 I have never joined Facebook , Twitter , or Reddit.

For many years I loved attending coin shows and would look forward to talking to dealers and other collectors directly. My mobility problems make this difficult now.

I enjoyed CT until most people I was most familiar with and enjoyed learning from moved here to NF. I love it here so far. And what's wrong with show and tell? As for seriousness, that's what I deal with at work. I look for fun in this hobby and enjoy losing myself in its history. So keep "showing "; I enjoy looking at everyone's coins.

I also agree with Doug Smith about YouTube - the Classical Numismatic series is very good.

[Ursus]

For "serious" inumismatic information, I prefer non-social media. There are numerous quality journals on numismatic topics. Personally, I more or less regularly follow the annual "American Journal of Numismatics" (published by the ANS), the annual "Numismatic Chronicle" (published by the RNS), and the quarterly German "Geldgeschichtliche Nachrichten" (published by the "Gesellschaft für Internationale Geldgeschichte"). Most issues of the former two journals are also available on JSTOR, making for an excellent archive of numismatic research.

When it come to online platforms, I mainly use them for entertainment and exchange with other collectors, and I tried the following:

- Nvmis Forvms: So far, I like it a great deal and am looking forward to seeing how this place evolves.

- CoinTalk: I've been active there (as "Orielensis") since 2018. I very much like(d) the mixture of informative write-ups sometimes bordering on serious research, showing new acquisitions, and fun stuff. For my taste, there have been quite a few unpleasant trolls and far too many "what is this and what's it worth"-posts lately. Quality content often disappeared from the first page within hours while nonsense-threads and vitriolic discussions kept going for days and sometimes weeks. I don't like this development.

- Numismatikforum: I'm regularly lurking but seldomly posting there (nickname "Orielensis"). There are mostly good discussions and a lot of knowledgeable people on this board. Technically, the website is somewhat stuck in the early 2000s. And, of course, it's in German.

- Forvm: I have an account but somehow never made it past the lurking stage. The combination of coin shop and forum seems a bit tricky to me. Still, I like reading through the threads there every now and then. Often, they contain high quality posts by experts in specific numismatic fields. Also, their fake reports and fake seller list are useful resources.

- Facebook: I mostly detest social media but still have an old Facebook account created some 15 years ago. After a couple of people over at CT recommended it, I logged in for the first time in years and joined the "Ancient & Medieval Coins" group. It mostly consists of people showing their recent purchases and/or asking about authenticity. There is little to no informative content or actual numismatic discussion. Not my cup of tea. My Facebook account is inactive again.

- Twitter: I never tried it for coins. About two years ago, I had an account for a couple of weeks after a friend (almost) convinced me that this was necessary to keep up with current events. To my taste, the sheer amount of resentment, polemicism, uncivility and reductive reasoning on this platform were appaling. I soon deleted my account and swore to never come near Twitter again.

- Reddit: I had a short look but wasn't convinced. Discussion there seems to be limited to ID-requests and showing new purchases.

 

Edited June 8, 2022 by Ursus

[DCCR]

I pretty much exclusively use Facebook and I run a group on Celtic coins there with over 3,000 members (https://www.facebook.com/groups/2375591872472089).  I'm a member of quite a few ancient coin groups over there. 

CoinTalk was good to read but not worth posting on, and I find Forum Ancient Coins too visually unappealing to look at, so I seldom go there.  I’m trying to stick with this forum for a while, but I find myself only checking it every couple of days.  The problem I have with the forums is that you only get to see the thread title to work out if it’s worth reading.  A longer abstract would be useful.

I tried reddit and discord but I didn't really like them. I try every now and again to engage with them, but it never sticks.  I suspect it’s because they don’t offer me anything I don’t already get from Facebook so there’s no great incentive to open up another page or app. 

Edited June 8, 2022 by DCCR

[Kali]

5 minutes ago, DCCR said:

The problem I have with the forums is that you only get to see the thread title to work out if it’s worth reading.  A longer abstract would be useful.

 

Put your mouse cursor over the thread title and a little window appears showing some text to what the topic is about. Cointalk has it too, but this board shows more.

[DCCR]

1 minute ago, Kali said:

Put your mouse cursor over the thread title and a little window appears showing some text to what the topic is about. Cointalk has it too, but this board shows more.

Thanks - that's good to know.  I wasn't able to get it to work on my ipad or my phone, and on my PC it takes 2 seconds for the box to appear so it's too slow for skimming a page.  Do you know how to use this feature on a touch sensitive device or if the window can made to appear more quickly?

[Kali]

10 minutes ago, DCCR said:

Thanks - that's good to know.  I wasn't able to get it to work on my ipad or my phone, and on my PC it takes 2 seconds for the box to appear so it's too slow for skimming a page.  Do you know how to use this feature on a touch sensitive device or if the window can made to appear more quickly?

No, I haven't tried this forum on a phone or tablet. Hopefully, someone else can answer that for you.

[Severus Alexander]

2 hours ago, DCCR said:

Thanks - that's good to know.  I wasn't able to get it to work on my ipad or my phone, and on my PC it takes 2 seconds for the box to appear so it's too slow for skimming a page.  Do you know how to use this feature on a touch sensitive device or if the window can made to appear more quickly?

On iOS: tap and hold, then choose preview. If you’ve already visited or previewed that link, step 2 isn’t necessary. 

But there’s a much better option for you. At the top right of the list of posts on any forum page there’s a “view” toggle where you can choose an expanded view that always includes a substantial preview!

Edited June 8, 2022 by Severus Alexander

[DonnaML]

14 hours ago, The Eidolon said:

Hopefully this site will have an active World and Non-Western section as well!  

I feel the same way. After all, my interest in World (and particularly British) coins began when I was 10 years old or younger, and I actively collected them (on and off) for the next 40+ years. I still very much enjoy them even if I rarely buy them anymore, and even though I sold a lot of the coins I already had. So far, I'm happy to say that the World section has, in fact, been reasonably active here.  And I get to see all the posts about World coins (and medals) show up on my front page, without having to worry that unless I limit my view to ancient coin threads, I'll end up being inundated with posts about U.S. coins.

[DonnaML]

5 hours ago, Ursus said:

I logged in for the first time in years and joined the "Ancient & Medieval Coins" group. It mostly consists of people showing their recent purchases and/or asking about authenticity. There is little to no informative content or actual numismatic discussion. Not my cup of tea. My Facebook account is inactive again.

 

I mostly agree, although I don't mind seeing people's recent purchases! There's definitely an absence of the sort of detailed write-ups of people's new ancient coin purchases that I like to do myself, and that people presented all the time on Coin Talk. And, I hope, will continue to present here. One thing the Facebook group does do well is that there are often posts pointing out fakes offered in current auctions. Which I find interesting and helpful, although I haven't yet encountered a coin revealed as fake on which I had planned to bid.

[seth77]

Regarding Facebook, I have just seen Jerome Mairat help some guy out with his coin identification on one of those groups. I have also replied there sparsely, mostly for helping people out with crusader and French medieval. I have liked a lot, the people there sure buy incredible coins.

[VD76]

FB : I joined a few groups. Mostly observing , but rarely made comments . 

FAC : Been a member since 2010 and I love it. But in the last couple years, it seems that activity on the forum is declining . Many posts have been ignored with zero replies .  Seems like lots of old friends moved to another forums . But it's still a great source of information . Really like that the discussion board is divided into separate categories . 

Joined CT about three years ago . So far, no problem there. Not easy to find a post  - just one big category, which includes an entire coinage from the beginning to up sixteen century  . 

Nvmis Forvms - This is my first post here. So far so good . I see many familiar names here already .  

[Severus Alexander]

Good to see you here @VD76!  If you're quick, maybe you'll have the pleasure of inaugurating Medieval Monday next week!  There will be competition for that privilege though. 😄  (I haven't a hope being on the west coast...)

Edited June 9, 2022 by Severus Alexander

[Qcumbor]

I don't have any account at the usual social medias (FB, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, or whatsoever). Never heard of Reddit or Discord...A dinosaur of some sort I guess.

I've been very active at CT and loved to post there or read other's contributions for almost two decades, it was funny and educational, unfortunately it ended up being very frustrating, reason why I most only lurk there now. I have great hope to find such a place here, but more relaxing and universalist

I've been a member at Forvm for almost the same amount of time, and still am a moderator in the French sub forum (almost dead..) but I find it has not the funniness I need 🙂

I'm a member of various french forums too, but I tend to prefer the friendly ambiance we have as a group here (and I can practice my english on a daily basis, while my french is almost OK now 😄 )

I use Colleconline quite a lot (with my other handle) as the gallery there is quite easy to deal with, and unlike that at Forvm you can change the picture without having to restart from scratch.

Q

[UkrainiiVityaz]

Cointalk - Signed up when I was living in Ukraine in 2008, never been banned but got a warning once.  I thought Peter Davis did a really good job when he was more active in the running of the forum early on - since then it has hit the fan.  

CCF - was never on there, but heard they had a forum "mom" and "dad" moderators which seemed a bit juvenile for my tastes.

Facebook - signed off and deleted my account back in 2013 - TMI for me, don't care to hear about politics, people's leaky bums etc.

Also briefly dabbled with a paper money forum, but again the political farks took over and I left that.