It's been a long, long time...

Hello again, everyone! Yes, I've been on an extended leave of absence
from RCC - sorry about that, if you care. If you're happy about that,
sorry I'm back! Well, not really sorry.

I just started reading RCC on and off, again, and remembered all the
fun discussions we used to have. And I kinda miss it!! Looks like
there might be a couple regulars from years past, still hanging
around! But, it looks like RCC is very quiet - is that true?

I'm reading on groups.google.com, and am not seeing very much traffic
here. I lost my News Feed (Road Runner/Time Warner Cable in WI doesn't
support Newsgroups anymore). I get just a few new posts a week on
Google Groups - that can't be, can it? Anyway - I think I'd like to
find a new News Feed service (FREE if possible), and a Newsreader (I
used to use XNews and liked it - will have to see if that still
works). Is Tera News (Free) still the way others have gone, in order
to get all the RCC posts, including
alt.binaries.pictures.numismatic??? Any other suggestions?

Anyway - so I really haven't done much of anything with coins since I
"left" reading and contributing to RCC. I have big plans to image all
my coins some day, but never seem to get to that. The "Honey-Do" list
never seems to get smaller, no matter how many things I cross off!!
And, the kids are keeping us so busy - the only free time we really
have is Friday nights. Really, the only coin-related thing I've done
is: I've just recently started reading "Crime of 1873 - The Comstock
Connection" - about the Comstock silver mines, and the history leading
up to the creation of the Trade and Morgan Dollars. If anyone recalls,
I tend to be interested in Morgan Dollars above most coins, for
whatever reason. Maybe it's my love of the Wild, Wild West as a youth.
Maybe it's the design of Lady Liberty (not particularly attractive,
but nicely designed) and the Eagle. Maybe it's because I love big,
heavy, shiny silver! I don't know. I do love other coins, too. I have
only collected U.S. coins, though, I do have some coins from other
areas of the world - mostly as gifts from others.

Anywhoo, I'm hoping to be back to RCC, at least on a part-time basis.
If anyone has suggestions on a good, reliable News Feed that'll get me
all the RCC and ABPM posts, I'd much appreciate it! I feel like I'm
missing a ton, here on Google Groups.

Have a Great Day!!!

Eric Babula

EricBabula wrote:
Hello again, everyone! Yes, I've been on an extended leave of absence
from RCC - sorry about that, if you care. If you're happy about that,
sorry I'm back! Well, not really sorry.

I just started reading RCC on and off, again, and remembered all the
fun discussions we used to have. And I kinda miss it!! Looks like
there might be a couple regulars from years past, still hanging
around! But, it looks like RCC is very quiet - is that true?

Eric, welcome back! I hope this will be the first of many nouveau posts on
your part.

Some of the names on rcc have changed, the range of personalities has not.
I see that you have already been greeted by one of our other regular
members, so I'll spare you the formalities.

It's probably true that coin discussions in these parts have diminished over
the years, which is to be expected, what with changing interests and the
competition from other coin boards. We occasionally drift off into
unrelated topics, which always brings lurkers out of the woodwork,
self-righteously wagging their tongues about how we never talk coins any
more. But, you'll always find someone who will come forward and talk coins,
given a topic.

James the Occasional Numismatist

On 4/8/2010 8:12 AM, EricBabula wrote:

But, it looks like RCC is very quiet - is that true?

RCC is a lot quieter than it has ever been, probably since shortly after
its creation. There's so little traffic relatively speaking that for the
most part dealers as well as collectors don't even bother posting For
Sale messages here anymore. The two guys who used to post news stories
about coins that they found on the Net, a really good source of on-topic
content, don't bother doing that here anymore either. A lot of other
really smart coin people have left too, including some who were here for
a long time.

The reasons are as you'd expect, mostly a continued intensification of
previous trends, which affects all newsgroups, though some more than
others. I'd list them this way in terms of importance: 1) Excessive
chitcat. Here this manifests itself through a handful of people who
appear to have lots of time on their hands or who seem to approach this
group as their primary social outlet in life and who divert nearly every
discussion away from coins to whatever pops in their heads at that
moment, a group that feeds on one another while driving lots of other
people away, 2) Anonymous flaming. A small but disproportionately loud
group seeks every opportunity to show how big and bold they are behind
their anonymous handles, 3) The ending of free newsfeeds by just about
all the major ISPs, in large part a result of the previous two phenomena
and the effect they've had on traffic. Google Groups though is still a
very viable workaround here. I don't know much about the relative merits
of the various free newservers at this moment (it's always changing),
but I use Altopia (www.altopia.com), which starts at $6/month. 4) The
other online discussion groups and blogs about coins that are moderated
and thus reign in libertarian excess, significantly reducing the
negative effects of excessive chitchat and anonymous flaming.

Still, as you're finding, there are still nuggets to be found here. You
just have to pan harder for them these days, and they're fewer and
farther between. The nuggets are mostly at the very beginning of
threads, before they've been swept into irrelevance by the chitchat,
mostly, and the flaming.

--

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

"Reid Goldsborough" wrote in message
...
A lot of other really smart coin people have left too, including some who
were here for a long time.

Unfortunately you aren't among them...

On 4/8/2010 8:19 PM, Reid Goldsborough wrote:
4) The other online discussion groups and blogs about coins that are
moderated
and thus reign in libertarian excess, significantly reducing the
negative effects of excessive chitchat and anonymous flaming.

This should have read rein in. Again. g

--

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

Reid Goldsborough wrote:
On 4/8/2010 8:12 AM, EricBabula wrote:

But, it looks like RCC is very quiet - is that true?

RCC is a lot quieter than it has ever been, probably since shortly
after its creation. There's so little traffic relatively speaking
that for the most part dealers as well as collectors don't even
bother posting For Sale messages here anymore. The two guys who used
to post news stories about coins that they found on the Net, a really
good source of on-topic content, don't bother doing that here anymore
either. A lot of other really smart coin people have left too,
including some who were here for a long time.

The reasons are as you'd expect, mostly a continued intensification of
previous trends, which affects all newsgroups, though some more than
others. I'd list them this way in terms of importance:

[appropriate snips made in following]

1) Excessive chitchat [misspelling corrected].

2) Anonymous flaming.

3) The ending of free newsfeeds by just about all the major ISPs.

#3 is eminently valid as a reason to explain why many people have left
permanently. But to say that #1 trumps #2 is absurd, Reid. And WTH are you
to determine what is "excessive"?

James the Chitchatter

On 4/8/2010 11:35 PM, Mr. Jaggers wrote:

1) Excessive chitchat [misspelling corrected].

2) Anonymous flaming.

3) The ending of free newsfeeds by just about all the major ISPs.

#3 is eminently valid as a reason to explain why many people have left
permanently. But to say that #1 trumps #2 is absurd, Reid. And WTH are you
to determine what is "excessive"?

The main reason that ISPs have canceled Usenet feeds is falling
popularity, and the main reasons that Usenet popularity has fallen so
precipitously over the past half decade or so, I'd say, are excessive
chitchat and anonymous flaming and the availability of other types of
online forums that aren't beset to the same extent by these problems.
All this is according to my observations, but others have observed
likewise. It's also my observation that the excessive chitchat is more
serious a problem because it takes up far more verbal space and is the
more likely reason any given on-topic conversation is diverted, though
it's not characterized of course by the nasty emotional violence of flaming.

James the Chitchatter

You're right about that, I'm afraid, and are more likely than anyone
here to be the first to respond to a thread, as far as I can see, and
more likely than anyone to divert it to whatever you happen to want to
chat about.

You ask "WTH" am I to determine what's excessive chitchat. Well, I'm a
long-time participant here, and like all participants I have to right to
offer opinion, which is what this is, a response to an observation of
the original poster in this thread. This is a ... discussion. But I've
put no quantitative qualifier on "excessive." It's subjective. Again, in
my view, according to my observations, the chitchat here is excessive.
Others may feel differently, and that's their right too, of course. You
obviously feel differently. Some significant percentage of those who
have left this newsgroup in significant numbers, I would say, don't.
There are other reasons too that people leave, external factors. I'm
largely a lurker here, these days, but if I had to point to one cause
above all others for this group's decline, I'd say it's the convulsion
of unrestrained and largely unthinking off-topic chatter, the profligate
paroxysm of prattle by a small group of those here about anything and
everything unrelated to coins. That was fun.

Some diversion is only human nature, as I said earlier. This is a
discussion group, after all, and people go off on tangents. But it all
has to do with signal to noise, with whether or not there's enough
that's engaging to make any given online discussion group worth
returning to. And the unfortunate reality, the undeniable reality, is
that increasingly people find that this group is not worth returning to.

Discussion of an online group's internal dynamics ... common topic. It
too can become excessive. But I'm not going to try to quantify that either.

--

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

Reid Goldsborough wrote:
On 4/8/2010 11:35 PM, Mr. Jaggers wrote:

1) Excessive chitchat [misspelling corrected].

2) Anonymous flaming.

3) The ending of free newsfeeds by just about all the major ISPs.

#3 is eminently valid as a reason to explain why many people have
left permanently. But to say that #1 trumps #2 is absurd, Reid. And WTH
are you to determine what is "excessive"?

The main reason that ISPs have canceled Usenet feeds is falling
popularity, and the main reasons that Usenet popularity has fallen so
precipitously over the past half decade or so, I'd say, are excessive
chitchat and anonymous flaming and the availability of other types of
online forums that aren't beset to the same extent by these problems.

You obviously haven't read Facebook lately.

All this is according to my observations, but others have observed
likewise. It's also my observation that the excessive chitchat is more
serious a problem because it takes up far more verbal space and is the
more likely reason any given on-topic conversation is diverted, though
it's not characterized of course by the nasty emotional violence of
flaming.

Let's see, what are in the process of doing...could it be...taking up verbal
space? Why is yours OK, but mine is not?

James the Chitchatter

You're right about that, I'm afraid, and are more likely than anyone
here to be the first to respond to a thread, as far as I can see, and
more likely than anyone to divert it to whatever you happen to want to
chat about.

I can't help it if I get here before you do.

You ask "WTH" am I to determine what's excessive chitchat. Well, I'm a
long-time participant here, and like all participants I have to right
to offer opinion, which is what this is, a response to an observation
of the original poster in this thread. This is a ... discussion. But I've
put no quantitative qualifier on "excessive." It's subjective. Again,
in my view, according to my observations, the chitchat here is excessive.
Others may feel differently, and that's their right too, of course.
You obviously feel differently. Some significant percentage of those
who have left this newsgroup in significant numbers, I would say, don't.
There are other reasons too that people leave, external factors. I'm
largely a lurker here, these days, but if I had to point to one cause
above all others for this group's decline, I'd say it's the convulsion
of unrestrained and largely unthinking off-topic chatter, the
profligate paroxysm of prattle by a small group of those here about
anything and everything unrelated to coins. That was fun.

Hmm, why did the name William Safire suddenly pop into mind?

Anyway, I have previously observed that my own coin-related posts of late
have garnered extremely limited participation by either the regulars or the
unseen and unknowable army of lurkers out there. You're certainly welcome
to initiate some numismatic threads of your own and see if you can do any
better.

Some diversion is only human nature, as I said earlier. This is a
discussion group, after all, and people go off on tangents. But it all
has to do with signal to noise, with whether or not there's enough
that's engaging to make any given online discussion group worth
returning to. And the unfortunate reality, the undeniable reality, is
that increasingly people find that this group is not worth returning
to.

Let me see if I have this straight. Your contributions represent signal,
while mine represent noise, is that about it?

Discussion of an online group's internal dynamics ... common topic. It
too can become excessive. But I'm not going to try to quantify that
either.

It is my sole opinion that discussion of an online group's internal dynamics
just became excessive with the above sentence. But WTH am I to try to
define that adjective? It would just take up more verbal space. Besides,
Mirriam-Webster can do it so much better than I.

James the Reference Librarian

On 4/9/2010 6:45 AM, Mr. Jaggers wrote:

Anyway, I have previously observed that my own coin-related posts of late
have garnered extremely limited participation by either the regulars or the
unseen and unknowable army of lurkers out there. You're certainly welcome
to initiate some numismatic threads of your own and see if you can do any
better.

I'm afraid ... well, not really afraid, this is just an expression, an
attempt at softening a comment that's fairly brutal in its honesty ...
that the reason your on-topic coin posts have generated the extremely
limited participation you speak of is that the coins you collect and
post about are for the vast majority of collectors extremely boring. But
this isn't all negative, doom and gloom. No need to get discouraged!
There's a silver lining here, a bright light at the end of the tunnel.
Use this feedback. Learn. Grow. How? Start collecting more interesting
coins.

I'd be happy of offer suggestions. I'm sure others would too. People
here, despite the negative side I discussed in my two previous posts in
this thread, are for the most part helpful, kind, and generous, as I've
said before. So dump that ratty collection and start afresh. I'd simply
dump it in a river or some such place, surprising some archeologist in
the future with the frivolous eclecticism of early 21st century
Americans, rather than throwing good time after bad in trying to obtain
anything decent for it on the market.

Just trying to be helpful here.

Let me show you, as an example. I'll start a new thread, later today
probably, on a coin type I collect. Watch all the enthusiastic comments
and curious questions it generates.

--

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

"Reid Goldsborough" wrote in message
...
On 4/8/2010 11:35 PM, Mr. Jaggers wrote:

1) Excessive chitchat [misspelling corrected].

2) Anonymous flaming.

3) The ending of free newsfeeds by just about all the major ISPs.

#3 is eminently valid as a reason to explain why many people have left
permanently. But to say that #1 trumps #2 is absurd, Reid. And WTH are
you
to determine what is "excessive"?

The main reason that ISPs have canceled Usenet feeds is falling
popularity,

Unless you've got data to prove it, I don't accept your flat fiat assertion
that newsgroup posting traffic on the whole has shrunk to any significant
degree, or your conclusion as to why ISPs have dropped newsgroup service.

True, we must have lost some users when the ISPs pulled the plug, but not so
many that I have noticed. Most non-casual newsgoupies seem to have migrated
to other forms of access.

As to maintaining overall volume and interest in UseNet, I occasionally
visit a newsgroup that still gets 300-400 posts a day. I don't subscribe to
it because I can't even come close to staying abreast in it. But whenever I
do look in, I find a wealth of interesting rabbit holes to dive into, some
on topic, some OT. Conversely, I stopped reading a moderated coin forum
operated by a TPG because at least a third of the posts I was reading were
moronic, cheer-leading atta-boys to people posting photos of mediocre coins
in the hope of getting an affirmation that their modest purchase or find is
really a significant, enviable prize. "Hey, Jimbo, that really is a superb
1907 Indian Head cent in G-8 you got there! Wow! Whatta find!
Congratulations!" Moderated groups have their own sources of high
noise-to-signal ratios.

From my viewpoint, the overall newsgroup landscape hasn't changed to any
significant degree since I went online in 1983. IIRC, when Verizon dumped
newsgroups last year it had about 10,000 listed. When I started, the number
was in the low thousands.

Okay, but what about rcc? A year ago I identified a little over 100
"regular" posters here. If this were a moderated group that allowed
absolutely nothing OT, my guess is that by now rcc would be a semi-deserted
Internet ghost town with maybe a handful of hard-core contributors. Average
daily traffic would be paltry and rcc would go the way of most moribund
newsgroups, i.e., devolve into an almost empty echo chamber for its
dwindling in-crowd.

Not being a masochist, I'm not going to do the leg work on the following;
but it would be helpful if we could compare the raw number of on-topic rcc
posts today with your putative Golden Age of years ago. How many regulars
did you have back then posting on topic? More than 100 as we do today? Or
a handful of hard-core types? Absent the data this is all supposition, but
given the presumably larger number of posters now participating, I wouldn't
be surprised if we were to find that there are as many or more on-topic
posts today as there were then. They're just surrounded by more of the
chit-chat that bugs you.

As to the ISPs, what clearly and obviously has shrunk is the relative size
of newsgroup traffic *in relation to* other types of Internet traffic and
related forms of community-based communication. The major ISPs also offer
mobile and cable services, many at obscene mark-ups. Texting, photo/video
sharing, and related Web services have been the growth sectors for social
intercourse at a distance. They generate obscene profits for these ISPs
because hordes of younger customers are attracted by, and will pay for these
new paradigms. UseNet would be too fuddy-duddy for them, even if they were
aware of its existence and that it was free.

OTOH, the older UseNet crowd continues to post but it has a history of not
being willing to pay a premium for newsgroups because they almost always had
been bundled into the monthly charges. So with virtually all new customers
gravitating to the new profit opportunities provided by smart phones and Web
gimmicks and the new online "watering holes" such as FaceBook and Twitter,
UseNet kept its existing base but had lost its long-standing status as a
draw for new customers.

To the bean counters, that made it an expendible net loss. So at some point
the ISPs decided that they could safely dump UseNet newsgroups without
harming their customer growth. Once the first one broke the ice and didn't
suffer any dire consequences, the other majors quickly followed suit.
Newsgroupies bitched and moaned, but few left their established ISPs in
protest. Where elso could you go? And if you still wanted cable and
Internet and mobile phone service, you didn't have any real alternatives
except to bemoan the loss and keep paying for the other services. Which in
turn validated the bean counters' reasoning. If their paying customers
stayed on and switched to getting their UseNet fix from free or inexpensive
third-party providers, that was no skin off their noses. So in the end, the
reason that ISPs dropped newsgroups was not because of any waning interest
from their established users. It was because it saved them money, and
because they could.

and the main reasons that Usenet popularity has fallen so precipitously
over the past half decade or so, I'd say, are excessive chitchat and
anonymous flaming and the availability of other types of online forums
that aren't beset to the same extent by these problems. All this is
according to my observations, but others have observed likewise.

I have observed differently here, both in the level of UseNet usage and in
my analysis of why the ISPs have dropped it.

It's also my observation that the excessive chitchat is more serious a
problem because it takes up far more verbal space and is the more likely
reason any given on-topic conversation is diverted, though it's not
characterized of course by the nasty emotional violence of flaming.

So what are we to make of the fact that as someone who so loudly and
vehemently decries "chit-chat" as a supposedly destructive force, you keep
coming back for more? Your self-serving reasons don't wash. You do it
because you enjoy it and because it serves as an outlet for your ego. Which
sounds pretty much like a chit-chatty, OT reason for you continuing to
participate in rcc.

Your dirty little secret is out, Reid. You love chit-chat - but only when
it's all about you.

People inhabit newsgroups for many reasons other than the nominal purpose
stated in the name and charter. In that 400 post/day newsgroup, I'd
estimate that only 10%-15% of the posts are strictly on-topic to the title
of the group. The others are intelligent, well-informed discussions of
topics that are only indirectly related to the core purpose of the group,
equivalent to, say, rcc discussions of economics and history as they might
indirectly affect numismatics. You almost never hear the core group
complaining about OT in "their" newsgroup, presumably because they also find
value in it. These are the same kinds of posts in rcc that you disdain as
strictly OT but others here find informative and useful in their collecting
pursuits - or just interesting in their own right.

....

Some diversion is only human nature, as I said earlier. This is a
discussion group, after all, and people go off on tangents. But it all has
to do with signal to noise, with whether or not there's enough that's
engaging to make any given online discussion group worth returning to. And
the unfortunate reality, the undeniable reality, is that increasingly
people find that this group is not worth returning to.

Given the example of that 400/day group (and there are plenty of others
functioning at that level despite their low ratio of on-topic material), I
arrive at the exact opposite conclusion. While some may have drifted away
because it requires a little work to sift out the numismatic nuggets, IMO
the only reason that rcc still functions at a critical-mass level is
precisely *because* we have an eclectic group that finds rcc to be the right
mix of on-topic and interesting off-topic material.

Discussion of an online group's internal dynamics ... common topic. It too
can become excessive. But I'm not going to try to quantify that either.

Net-kopping posts also can become excessive. You of all people are not in
position to be able to objectively calibrate that point either, but I'm
pretty sure that the group's annoyance threshold for your petulant scolding
is much lower.