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#1
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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 |
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#2
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It's been a long, long time...
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 |
#3
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It's been a long, long time...
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 |
#4
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It's been a long, long time...
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#5
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It's been a long, long time...
"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... |
#6
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It's been a long, long time...
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 |
#7
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It's been a long, long time...
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 |
#8
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It's been a long, long time...
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 |
#9
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It's been a long, long time...
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!! |
#10
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It's been a long, long time...
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 |
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