Usenet: They hardly knew yee

Jud wrote:
Mr. Jaggers wrote:

The person I miss the most is Amistad, who has found other interests
to occupy his hours and resources.

Larry used to run the swaps, which I miss as well. It was a thankless
and time consuming job that he took on, for the benefit of others.
Yeah...I miss Amistad too.

Fortunately I've been able to maintain somewhat regular email communications
with him. He's doing well, shooting his blasters a lot, and fixing to
retire later this year. Who knows, he may rediscover numismatics.

James

On Apr 1, 2:46*am, Reid Goldsborough wrote:

Where have they gone? I miss some, not others. Short list of the AWOL
with a little help from Google Groups:

* Phil DeMayo -- getting his law degree no doubt

Nope, just lurking

"Reid Goldsborough" wrote in message
...
Bruce Remick wrote:

Apparently, there's little else that needs to be known about coins. Most
all questions have been answered by now. The more chatty types have
migrated to Facebook or Twitter. All that's left here are the daily
Googled news reports, the occasional ForSale ads, and meaningless posts
like this.

You say this is a meaningless post, yet you respond. It's hardly
meaningless, discussing the nature of what we're using to discuss coins,
how it has evolved over the years.

God, you're the serious one! I meant that MY post-- my reply to yours-- was
meaningless. If you have a guilty conscience about the profoundness of your
original, that's something you will have to live with.


I have to take issue as well with your remarkable statement that there's
little else that's needed to be known about coins. Some scientist a few
years before 1905 said the same thing about science, and I suppose people
have always been saying similar things about lots of subjects. There's
lots left to be learned about coins, though with individuals the longer
you're around the less there's typically left to learn and with coin types
the newer they are the less uncertainty and debatability that typically
exists.

Apparently you are so buried in your acedemics and numismatic philosophy
that a faceteous remark never registers with you.


Agree with you about social networking sites. There's also the
blogosphere, with many people, particularly younger people, liking a place
to call their own where they can hold forth and let people in as they
like. I still like the open commons approach of Usenet and e-mail lists,
even moderated ones, over blogging as group conversation.

The Googled news reports by stonej and Arizona Coin Collector are the best
aspects of RCC right now. The worst aspect is the three or so attack guys
using anonymous handles who have pretty much taken over and ruined things.
One guy goes after a dealer here every time he posts with meaningless
attacks. Others seem to randomly attack people, without wit or
intelligence, telling them "Shut the f**k up!" and so on when they doesn't
like their posts, newcomers, old-timers, doesn't matter. A good number of
truly knowledgeable collectors, dealers, and academic types (and not only
the ones I mentioned in my initial post) have left RCC specifically
because of the attack guys, because they've been meaninglessly attacked
this way, and I've heard from several who still occasionally lurk, when
they've responded to posts of mine through email rather than publicly and
said they were doing this because (they felt) RCC has become an attack
group.

You still have a few advanced collectors such as Mr. Jaggers who try to
help out wherever they can. You also still have Those Who Can Never Be
Wrong, arguing and arguing no matter what, with only a minority of people
confident or honest enough to concede points, but this has always been an
aspect of online communications, one of its aspects like flaming that's
much more prominent than with in-person communication. But it's the attack
stuff, always an aspect, that's gotten worse.

It's kind of sad, the way things are here, this group having lost not only
most of its posters and posts but also most of its vibrancy and
usefulness. At least Anka is still here.

Yeah, but what about that rubber bell hose? You never rode over one on a
bike? I suppose not.

Reid Goldsborough wrote:
Ever more ISPs are dropping their complimentary Usenet subscriptions.
And people seem increasingly getting fed up with the ever greater
encroachment of the rabble-rousing rabble, disrupting for disruption's
sake, the look at me types, a worsening of a long trend made possible by
Usenet's wonderful freedom, its flip side. But the paltry number of
posts per day in RCC these days, what, about five a day on average, the
lowest I've ever seen, is mostly the fault of those who have left.

Where have they gone? I miss some, not others. Short list of the AWOL
with a little help from Google Groups:

* Barry Kutner -- local show buddy who got fed up with the dark side of
numismatics, not just RCC
* John Carney -- another local show buddy who may be sailing around the
world right now, maybe looking for sunken treasure, maybe not
* Fred A. Murphy -- old-time collector/dealer of lots of things who knew
lots about the coin business
* Stujoe -- off running his CoinPeople site, or is it now the Stujoe
Collection? or both?
* Phil DeMayo -- getting his law degree no doubt
* Alan Williams -- too many rolls of 2009 cents from the bank to go through
* Eric Tillery -- health problems?
* Steven Preston -- good doc with justifiably bad temper and lots of
Morgans and insights
* R.W. Julian -- bona fide numismatist and uber knowledgeable guy off to
less tempestuous waters
* Tom DeLorey -- another numismatist who appears to have been put off
the by increasing rough and tumble
* Alan Herbert -- yet another numismatist who no longer dares to come here
* A.Gent -- was anything but and changed his handle later
* Larry Calder -- off to a better place than this life

Lots of others too. Changing (Internet) world. More splintered, as with
television. Still lots of community, but you sometimes have to look harder.


I had a chat with Kyle Mutcher today, who has been busy with other
things lately. He said he may be interested to design another r.c.c.
trade coin. I told him the group is pretty dead these days and he said
maybe something like that will bring a few back.
btw - Reid may be interested in the Athenian Owl Tetradrachm design that
Kyle made last summer.

"Reid Goldsborough" wrote in message
...
It's kind of sad, the way things are here, this group having lost not
only most of its posters and posts but also most of its vibrancy and
usefulness. At least Anka is still here.

C'mon Reid, take some of the blame.
You're a puffed-up, pretentious blowhard much given to pontificating
with self-righteous pomposity and have turned off numerous posters with
your long-winded diatribes.

On Wed, 01 Apr 2009 02:46:45 -0400, Reid Goldsborough
wrote:

Ever more ISPs are dropping their complimentary Usenet subscriptions.
And people seem increasingly getting fed up with the ever greater
encroachment of the rabble-rousing rabble, disrupting for disruption's
sake, the look at me types, a worsening of a long trend made possible by
Usenet's wonderful freedom, its flip side.

People have been longing for the "golden age of Usenet" since at least
1993. The term "Endless September" dates to early 1994, and Usenet
has been an Internet backwater for the better part of a decade. The
only reason we don't see more spam here is that for the most part
spammers no longer bother.

Nor is this surprising. Usenet was designed for use by known posters
from trusted IP addresses. In a world of anonymous redirectors and
throwaway accounts, an unmoderated forum with no effective ability to
delete posts just isn't stable, and can easily be poisoned by just a
couple of people.

But the paltry number of posts per day in RCC these days, what, about
five a day on average, the lowest I've ever seen, is mostly the fault
of those who have left.

Isn't that sort of like blaming the passengers for abandoning a
sinking ship? I'm currently paying a nominal sum to individual.net
for Usenet access, so I'll probably stick around out of sheer inertia.
But more often than not, I'll take a quick look at the topic list and
simply move on.

--
Mike Benveniste -- (Clarification Required)
Don't succumb to the false authority of a tool or model. There
is no substitute for thinking.

Bob F. wrote:

C'mon Reid, take some of the blame.
You're a puffed-up, pretentious blowhard much given to pontificating
with self-righteous pomposity and have turned off numerous posters with
your long-winded diatribes.

That's right. People have left in droves because of the way I post. And
not because of attack posts like this from you and people like you. Gee,
I wonder why you don't use your full name. LOL.

--

Consumer: http://rg.ancients.info/guide
Connoisseur: http://rg.ancients.info/glom
Counterfeit: http://rg.ancients.info/bogos

Michael Benveniste wrote:

But the paltry number of posts per day in RCC these days, what, about
five a day on average, the lowest I've ever seen, is mostly the fault
of those who have left.

Isn't that sort of like blaming the passengers for abandoning a
sinking ship?

That was just in jest. Should have included a g. Of course you can't
blame people for moving on. Free world. Usenet is a good example of how
a good thing, freedom, taken to an extreme can have bad consequences,
same with any institution. Usenet isn't all bad and never was all good.
It has changed, is all, as everything does.

--

Consumer: http://rg.ancients.info/guide
Connoisseur: http://rg.ancients.info/glom
Counterfeit: http://rg.ancients.info/bogos

On Apr 1, 9:47�am, "Bob F." wrote:
"Frank" wrote in message

...

The downside is that the openness of Usenet also lets in the trolls who
relish in causing disruption.
snip

Frank, you proved your point. 'Nuff said.

Jerry

On Apr 1, 2:52�pm, "Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote:
Jud wrote:
Mr. Jaggers wrote:

The person I miss the most is Amistad, who has found other interests
to occupy his hours and resources.

Larry used to run the swaps, which I miss as well. It was a thankless
and time consuming job that he took on, for the benefit of others.
Yeah...I miss Amistad too.

Fortunately I've been able to maintain somewhat regular email communications
with him. �He's doing well, shooting his blasters a lot, and fixing to
retire later this year. �Who knows, he may rediscover numismatics..

James

Actually, Larry is still into numismatics. Like a lot of the old
regulars, he moved on to other interests, but hasn't given up on
coins. Last I heard, he was working on a new chord for his guitar;
A6.

Jerry