Markn and I are thinking about integrating a type of our own forum wikipedia into the forum structure. It would be able to be viewed by those who are logged in only. It would work much like wikipedia where members could add images under their types so we'd end up with some sort of encyclopedia of errors, varieties, coin types, world coins or whatever really. It would be on the same website as the forum but under a sub-domain. I guess too it would be a means of cataloguing what is out there and how common or rare they might be also proving that some such things exist.
Before embarking on this though we'll just have to look a bit deeper into how much work it would be.
How much interest do we have for creating such a thing and will it be useful to everyone?
It sounds like a good idea, I think my main concern might be that some images might get put in the wrong places and that has the potential to create a lot of work for someone to go in and tidy it up every so often.
Keeping it simple will be the key. I'd certainly be prepared to contribute towards it.
I think this is a good idea. Centralising our collective knowledge would be useful.
I think it would work better if it was just a table for each denomination rather a page per coin though. I don't know if there's any wiki software that caters to something like that though.
From an error coin collectors perspective I would love to see individual pages dedicated to one type of error only. Some of the error coin threads are already going that way and in my opinion some are too broad. It would be great to be able to see many images of your favourite error type all together, one after another.
:drooling: :drooling: :drooling: :drooling: :drooling: :drooling: :drooling:
Sounds good to me.
Maybe I will learn something from other collectors.
(and that would be a lot since I do not know much)
:blush:
One of the biggest things that holds back numismatic research is the lack of leverage - we're all doing our own little bit, often replicating the work being done elsewhere at the same time. A central wiki will allow a lot of like-minded people to collaborate on joint projects, that's a far more efficient way of doing things.
What about creating a companion group up on websites such as Facebook & Pinterest?
Has anyone thought about creating an independent world numismatic photo gallery using the programs from http://www.numissoft.com ?
Krause Publications is slow to update their listings - & there's still far too many errors that remain uncorrected.
Aidan.
Interest - in fact much interest. Wild be a great way to contain our combined knowledge of coins and notes.
Please - proceed.
Wavy20
I know nothing about Pinterest, but I did have a Facebook A/C and it drove me NUTS! After about a month, I disabled all the options in it bar 1, as I got sick and tired of 40 plus emails per day from people who wanted to be my friend or relative or were sending me e-cards, e-flowers, stupid games, sick stuff, you name it, talk about a heap of BS. :ireful:
I now get about 4 messages per year. :grin:
Peace and quiet. :whistle2:
Ar last! Someone with a similar opinion about Facebook. I was conned by family members to join with promises of how good it would be.
What a load of rubbish.
Facebook sucks. Totally.
And wikis are massive work for limited benefit. Been there, done that. Never again. Wikipedia is a better option, but there may be objections to massive graphic content. Still, a good place to start would be with a stub off the existing numismatic articles.
A better way though would be a Google+ community. I'm in several, including Melbourne Photowalkers and a couple of railroad and computing communities, and they are chockablock full of large photos. This is what G+ excels at, and it works extremely well.
Whatever is done, it must be public. That's the only way to reach the broader community and promote the hobby.
Publicly viewable maybe but updatable by members only. Although I haven't had any problems with Facebook, I consider it for recreational use only, and I don't see Facebook or Google+ as permanent repositories of anything. They are currently in vogue as AOL and Myspace once were, and eventually they will be replaced by something different. I believe some kind of domain where it is possible for a user to add/update/delete pictures and/or documents with commentary only by the updating user is what we are looking for. Discussion of entries would be conducted elsewhere. It would also be necessary to be able to transfer the information to new concepts as technology improves. I unfortunately have no experience in internet technologies other than making some use of what is available.-John
I think adding a gallery would be a better idea.
Aidan.
I think facebook sucks. I know my friends and my friends know me and we have many methods of keeping in touch. I am not interested in the ephemera of their daily life (and vice versa) and what good reason is there for revealing all to total strangers?
I did dip my toe once and regretted it very quickly. A total time waster.
I suspect the one where you have a limited number of characters to post a message is in the same league. "Tweet" isn't it and users are twits.
Jeff
Hi Jeff, you certainly are the "Devils Advocate". I am in my mid fifties and have a facebook account.! Each day I keep up to speed with friends in the U.S., Canada, London and throughout Australia. Not only can I quickly see if any one is in trouble with their everyday life, I can also celebrate good news (with photos) in just a few seconds.!
I can also see the many beautiful coins displayed on Purple Pennys related Facebook site. I can also choose to ignore some or all of the aforementioned stuff.
Freedom of choice is a wonderful thing and I certainly respect your choice to opt out.!!
But, you can't opt out.
I would be happy to contribute to this idea. I would like to see it as part of this forum though. Maybe as some sort of gallery, like the one at CCF. It would be nice to have it viewable from the outside, as this would attract extra people to our forum and hopefully new members.
Sorry, I started following an off topic comment. I do think the Wiki idea may have promise.
Jeff
I think the wiki has promise too. There's a few problems with it though. First, I just don't have time to set it up. Second, the hosting account I use for this forum doesn't have the disk space or bandwidth available for it. It'd need to be setup on another hosting account and run off of a sub-domain. Something like http://wiki.australian-coins.net
To those who suggested taking the content onto some other platform that won't be happening. If this wiki does happen the content will be controlled by us and not subject to the whim of some other company.
A suggestion of Facebook or Google+ as a repository is not off topic, but so many people are turned off by social networks that participation would be limited. Any good would, as in this topic, be overshadowed by the invective against it. The mechanics of setting something up on Facebook or Google+ and showing people who might not be computer literate how to use it would be daunting. Some people could not handle the limitations such as the maximum 200 pictures in an album for Facebook or might not like the comments of strangers on their entries. The idea is to place the repository where it will get the most participation. Most people can understand 'go here and upload to this place, this is how you do it' given proper explanation. Let's leave Facebook, Google+, etc., to those of us who like them and move on to something else.-John
If you put valuable information on a hosting account that is not under the control of the participants or at least where the administration is transferable, you might lose it as has happened twice before in my experience with these forums.-John
If you really want a gallery, Gallery2 is hard to beat (or perhaps Gallery3, but I haven't played with that): http://galleryproject.org/
I have it running on my Joomla test site, along with the SMF forum:
http://fulvio.jovianprojects.com.au/test/
I would definitely recommend a Joomla front end if any services are added here, such as a gallery, wiki or whatever. If only to provide a public face which is friendlier than the bare MyBB page.
There seems to be some misconception about G+. It is NOT a social media site, no matter how confused many people may be on this score. Yes, you can communicate with people. 500 Million of them at last count. You can chat online, you can make voice calls or multi-person video hangouts, but it is nothing like Facebook (or twitter for that matter).
The advantages of using a G+ community are many, not least of which is the way images are handled. Every user gets 5Gb of storage, shared between what used to be Google Docs and Picasa. Photos can be uploaded at full resolution, and can be zoomed and panned if they are over 2,048 pixels on the longest edge. However if they are less than this, they don't count, and storage is unlimited. And because they're stored in the owner's albums, they don't count towards a community either. So if you have a thousand members, that's 5 Terabytes of high-res photos, or an infinite number of lower-res, for free. Add in the ability to comment and reshare, plus the analytics and all manner of third-party addons, and its a tough combo to beat.
I really do believe that a community there would be ideal to reach the unwashed multitudes who haven't tripped over this place (and who could be directed here), or even those who hate forums and would never join, or like me, seldom participate. I'm NOT saying replace this, not at all. But like Newspapers and TV, they are different beasts with different strengths, and we should utilise them to maximum effect.
Finally, there's the whole control issue. We've lost forums before, and an irreplaceable amount of great information. There is NO guarantee that won't happen again, despite all the best intentions in the world. People change. Technology fails. Heck, some people even get run over by Armaguard trucks or fall into coining presses! And because of this, a public repository is ideal. Not for the banter, and not for personal stuff, but for documenting our coinage for posterity. Google is not about to disappear anytime soon, is it? And even if it did, all the content would still be accessible if it was posted publicly.
Now, for some eye candy, here's an example photo lifted from the Coin Collecting Community (which sadly seems to be almost exclusively US):
https://plus.google.com/u/0/114216782273335791829/posts/5ZZ12uer85v
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-kCRxxFk-4Bw/UVW6yESZu_I/AAAAAAAAAck/05T1qonJ22w/s600/8692_002-_02.jpg)