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#11
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It's been a long, long time...
Farmer Dave wrote:
On Thu, 8 Apr 2010 22:35:46 -0500, "Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote: 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 I thought this was a coin group and not an Inglish class!! It *is* a coin group. What wudja like to talk about, coin-wise (the Sainted Mrs. Swan is probably turning in her grave over that last sentence)? James the Anglais |
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#12
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It's been a long, long time...
On Apr 9, 6:50*am, "Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote:
It *is* a coin group. *What wudja like to talk about, coin-wise (the Sainted Mrs. Swan is probably turning in her grave over that last sentence)? James the Anglais Rolling because of the spelling, punctuation or the grammar? Why for didja wanna speak thusly? Jud -My grammar is my mother's mother. |
#13
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It's been a long, long time...
On Apr 8, 7:20*pm, Alan Bruns wrote:
EricBabula wrote in news:2caddeb9-3d8c-4b11-bb2c- : 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? XNews still works just fine; certainly a lot better than Google for what I need. *I've got my copy set up to read News from AIOE (mostly) and Eternal September (as a backup). *They're both free, but neither carries abpn. * Most folks have adapted to the general loss of binary newsgroup coverage by simply posting photos to one of the free sites dedicated to that purpose and posting links to them here. *Tera News wants $3.95 to set up an account (in order to post), but so far I don't see any good reason to spend even that small amount. Welcome back... *(I've been lurking a long time - bought some IH cents from you a while back.) -Alan Bruns Alan - Thanks for the info about AIOE and Eternal September. I'll have to check them out, this weekend. Really? You bought IHCs from me? Thank you! Hope they were ok - I can't remember what they were. I was actually thinking I might want to downsize some of my duplicates and misc coins I don't really have a place for. Of course, I have to find time to image them, and get the ebay listings created. Has anyone figured out how to squeeze in an extra 2 or 3 hours per day? I could use it! Eric Babula |
#14
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It's been a long, long time...
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 |
#15
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It's been a long, long time...
On Apr 9, 12:03*pm, Reid Goldsborough
wrote: 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 OK everybody! Start collecting what Reid collects. It is obvious that those are the ONLY coins to collect, the only ones that are interesting. Hey! Maybe we can drive up the prices with demand so that Reid can come down from his lofty perch and start collecting modern (YIKES) US coins, which apparently nobody is interested in. Jud -Tongue in Cheek- |
#16
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It's been a long, long time...
"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. |
#17
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It's been a long, long time...
On 4/9/2010 4:09 PM, mazorj wrote:
Unless you've got data to prove it That's a nonstarter, as you well know. Yes, as I indicated, I have no "data," but I do have observations and I have read the observations of others. It couldn't be clearer, based on these observations as well on what's written about Usenet elsewhere on the Internet, that Usenet is long past its heyday. No, I'm not "whining" about this. This is not chitchat either, an absurd contention of yours, and my posts in this thread, sharing my opinions on the reasons for Usenet's current state, aren't about me (!), another absurd contention of yours. Your repeated spelling of Usenet as "UseNet" is also telling. On the positive side, your analysis of the financial factors involved with ISPs' decision making regarding Usenet access was right on target, in my view. -- Consumer: http://rg.ancients.info/guide Connoisseur: http://rg.ancients.info/glom Counterfeit: http://rg.ancients.info/bogos |
#18
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It's been a long, long time...
On 4/9/2010 4:02 PM, Jud wrote:
OK everybody! Start collecting what Reid collects. It is obvious that those are the ONLY coins to collect, the only ones that are interesting. Hey! Maybe we can drive up the prices with demand so that Reid can come down from his lofty perch and start collecting modern (YIKES) US coins, which apparently nobody is interested in. Jud -Tongue in Cheek- Actually I do collect (some) modern U.S. coins. Just one right now on my want list, which I've discussed here before, probably too many times: Presidential dollar that somebody finds that had previously been holed, to wear as jewelry, on a keychain, etc. I can see maybe three other people in the world also interested in such a coin. Maybe more. -- Consumer: http://rg.ancients.info/guide Connoisseur: http://rg.ancients.info/glom Counterfeit: http://rg.ancients.info/bogos |
#19
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It's been a long, long time...
In , on 04/09/2010
at 01:14 AM, Reid Goldsborough said: #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"? [...] 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, I agree completely, at least with how detrimental the chit-chatting is. It's ironic that the abusers are also so verbose when defending their practice. I see already where this thread (or was it one of the other few that I am currently following?) has already bent towards a grammar discussion, complete with a slang-like bad example competition. Wow. I am a huge advocate of kill-filing. I usually killfile when someone is nasty or pigheadedly stuck on some moronic personal mission that isn't supported by logic or real-world example. However, more recently, I've been plonking the chit-chatters. And it's worked quite well, IMO. Perhaps others have, too, and this might explain why, when someone posts a genuine on-topic article, few respond. Personally, I don't want to invest the time in trying to distill value from the static. NOTE that I would and have appreciated the genuine, on-topic posts. It's just too hard to find them amongst the clutter. Or, when found in the past, they turn to quickly to trips into the weeds. I have permanently killfiled the top 2 chit-chatters here. I had temporarily killfiled 3rd place, but I see that has expired. Yet, I'm greated with a long-winded rant from that poster giving us his views on the history of Usenet, all while trying to ultimately defend the practice. I'll resist the temptation to re-plonk, at least for the weekend, but the other 2 started as temporaries a couple of times. WTH are they for assuming their pointy opinions on chitchatting are shared with others? Simply because there is more than one and they can fuel each others' fancy doesn't make it an acceptible practice. I love the justification offered: "If we don't chit-chat (er, or offer off-topic posts(, volume drops and there seems to be a void". So, instead, lets pump up the volume and make it difficult to find anything of value. In my opinion backed by many years of personal experience, Usenet's value HAS deteriorated. I can't speak to the overall trends in volume, except to say that I've abandoned online technical discussions that used to prove so valuable. It's much easier to google for answers now and avoid the influx of static. I still follow a few groups, but not anything like in the past. Volume may still be up by count, and/or by bandwidth, but value-per-byte certainly isn't. IMNSHO, of course. Nick |
#20
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It's been a long, long time...
"Nick Knight" wrote in message ... In , on 04/09/2010 at 01:14 AM, Reid Goldsborough said: #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"? [...] 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, I agree completely, at least with how detrimental the chit-chatting is. It's ironic that the abusers are also so verbose when defending their practice. I see already where this thread (or was it one of the other few that I am currently following?) has already bent towards a grammar discussion, complete with a slang-like bad example competition. Wow. I am a huge advocate of kill-filing. I usually killfile when someone is nasty or pigheadedly stuck on some moronic personal mission that isn't supported by logic or real-world example. However, more recently, I've been plonking the chit-chatters. And it's worked quite well, IMO. Perhaps others have, too, and this might explain why, when someone posts a genuine on-topic article, few respond. Personally, I don't want to invest the time in trying to distill value from the static. NOTE that I would and have appreciated the genuine, on-topic posts. It's just too hard to find them amongst the clutter. Or, when found in the past, they turn to quickly to trips into the weeds. I have permanently killfiled the top 2 chit-chatters here. I had temporarily killfiled 3rd place, but I see that has expired. Yet, I'm greated with a long-winded rant from that poster giving us his views on the history of Usenet, all while trying to ultimately defend the practice. I'll resist the temptation to re-plonk, at least for the weekend, but the other 2 started as temporaries a couple of times. WTH are they for assuming their pointy opinions on chitchatting are shared with others? Simply because there is more than one and they can fuel each others' fancy doesn't make it an acceptible practice. I love the justification offered: "If we don't chit-chat (er, or offer off-topic posts(, volume drops and there seems to be a void". So, instead, lets pump up the volume and make it difficult to find anything of value. In my opinion backed by many years of personal experience, Usenet's value HAS deteriorated. I can't speak to the overall trends in volume, except to say that I've abandoned online technical discussions that used to prove so valuable. It's much easier to google for answers now and avoid the influx of static. I still follow a few groups, but not anything like in the past. Volume may still be up by count, and/or by bandwidth, but value-per-byte certainly isn't. IMNSHO, of course. Nick Five paragraphs of your personal creed chitchat containing nothing coin-related? So you thought a "long winded rant" of someone else's views was irritating, eh. I just can't resist citing the standard "pot-kettle...." thing here. |
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