Almost at 7,000 CU Forum Members. Is it getting too big?

braddick

It wasn't too long ago a Thread was brought up regarding the 1,000th CoinUniverse member. Then 5,000. Now we are just a few new members short of 7,000.

Are you happy with the popularity of these Forums?
Is there still room for much more growth or are they getting too large right now?

michael

lots more room for growth i would like 70000 coin people on here but of course if that happens no more personal service and like others said not more posts by rick montgomery when this was smaller and then if you post something it will probably be 8 pages back on one hour! you will never have time to read all the stuff but i guess that is progress!

for me then waht should happen is have many different coin forums like a coin forum for coins 1950 and after and 1950 and before or just for toned coins or just for seated coins but still have this regular forum like we have on here

well it was great when it wa ssmaller but i guess no matter waht the growing pains i would like to see 100000 collectors coin collectors on here!! just on the us couins forums! then i would not be such a big noise on here.........lol

oh and i would love a separate us coin forums on just deep cameo and cameo proof coinage pre 1915!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

oh and thanks for all the excellemnt posts/threads on here braddick (pat)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you are a good egg

sincerely michael

darktone

I thinks it's just fine as there seems to be only about a hundred or so people usually logged in at one time but it might not be a bad idea to have a seperate forums for moderns and classics. mike

Blackhawk

I don't see it as a problem. The great majority of the forum members don't post on a regular basis. I know that when I started, I was content to learn from those more knwledgable than me...I still do a lot more reading than posting!

gmarguli

Most members never come back.

The bad of all these members is the newbie questions OVER AND OVER AND OVER again.

gemseeker

tell me about the repeating questions. That happened a lot on a chatroom that I spent hours in a day back in 1997. I kept providing the same answer to new chatters who came in. The room finally became a ghost town and I stopped chatting since that time. It sure is nice to stop chatting for over 12 hours in day. But like that chatroom, this forum sort of fluctuates as well. Who knows, maybe one day no one will post on it anymore?

oldcameoproofsguy

<< <i>I know that when I started, I was content to learn from those more knwledgable than me...I still do a lot more reading than posting! >>



I have been reading the posts for about the last 2 years before joining. There are a lot of people on the forum that have insights into numismatics that I have never really considered. Though I am not new to numismatics there is always so much to learn.

I realize it is taboo to mention the love of coin collecting and the investment potential of coin collecting in the same sentence on these forums. BUT, the more these forums grow, probably the more your coin collection is worth. Generated interest increases demand which drives up prices.

There is a fever that grows with numbers.



My Barbers

construct

Oldcameoproofsguy--I think your speculation about the popularity of the forum being a function of the popularity of the hobby, and that affecting the value of people's coins, is probably on target. I think that is true wherever the hobby is something of a zero-sum game (classics). It may be true with some moderns as well.

dorkkarl

there may be 7000 members, but probably many, many more "browsers". i was reading this forum for years before making it "official". also, i doubt that the 7000 represents unique accounts. probably many dupes from forgetting logins/passwords, etc. are there maybe shill-forum accounts??? like on ebay, it seems like there are really only a couple of sellers with hundreds of shill accounts . . .


K S

abmluce

For years people have complained about the decline in popularity of coin collecting for the love of collecting. I say the more here, the better. Most people here are like me, do lots of reading and learning, and very few posts.

goyankeez

Of the 7000 members, there are a lot who may post for a while, and never return. I signed up for a few other forums, and I lost interest and never returned to them. I see the same names over and over again. I don't know how many frequent the U.S. coin forum, but maybe a hundred or so post regularly.

I really think they should break up the "U.S. coin forum" into smaller areas of interest. It would make it easier to search for information.

Gilbert

Doesn't that "7000" include the folks in the card, currency and all the other related forums, not just US Coins?

mrpaseo

Gilbert, Yes, you have made a good point, the total number includes all the members of these boards.

Another point to keep in mind (And I am speculating here). If someone joins to start posting, and they are on for say a week or two and lose interest (I know they could never do that on the coin side, but you never know wbout them card guys) there numbers stay on the list. Even if they are a non member.

Personally, I would be interested in how many of that number are no longer playing the game (Posting on the forum). I bet the number would be alot lower.

Another point to add, every newbee that joins, says they have been watching the forum for some time before joining. I bet the number is well over 10,000 if you copunt the hits this site gets from them folks.

Just my opinion,
Ray

pontiacinf

its not getting too big...3 k of em are cobb

supercoin

braddick, yes 7000 is too many, we need to reduce it to 6999. And, well, er... you're it*. Sorry!







* for the benefit of the 6000+ newbies.

cladking

Active users are around 50:50, coin collectors: others. I'd guess around 3,000
accounts are inactive or duplicates. If there really are about 2,000 active users
on this forum then around 25% are lurkers and 40% are very inactive posters.
One of these days I gotta go through all the old threads.








added space to get rid of smiley.

oreville

<< <i>The bad of all these members is the newbie questions OVER AND OVER AND OVER again. >>



Hopefully, our hobby stays dynamic enough to have this problem. It is a GOOD problem. We just have to be patient and nuture these newer collectors along.

Furthermore...perhaps we should have a thread that has all the answers for newbies in one large posting which is always kept at the top of the Forum page. This way everyone is happy. Perhaps we could get together and start this project with PCGS's blessing?

KAJ1

Alot of names are aliases.
Some are also trolls.
As Greg said, alot are 1 question wonders.( what is it worth )

Kevin

jom

<< <i>The bad of all these members is the newbie questions OVER AND OVER AND OVER again. >>



Hey Greg:

1) What does DCAM mean?
2) Can you grade my BU coin for me?
3) Does PCGS have good service? Will they steal my coin?
4) Is my coin AT?

Thanks!

jom

psxchelly

about 25% of that number only logs on to advertise their Ebay stuff......

coinfinder

I like the popularity of these forums as it means more opinions and more thoughts. And as others have said it isn't like all 7,000 members are logged on at once. After all their are never more than 150 members logged on at any time.

nwcs

Yeah, and I don't mind the newbie questions all that often so long as they look like they are honestly wanting more info. When someone comes on with misspellings, all caps, or other, I think something is up. Besides, it's not like there is all that much ground breaking analysis going on here! Now, if people started posting position papers, theses, and defences of papers using facts and analysis, that'd be something new altogether!

prooflike

You mustn't neglect the fact that among those 7000 CU members, the hordes of stamp collectors included in those numbers.

I didn;t even know there were that many members, what I do notice is that when I log on the number of users logged on, from 100+ during peak, to a couple of handfuls during the darkest hours.

I think users logged on is a better depiction of what is actually going on, people actually using the system. Many users are members just for the registry(both coins and sports cards) and don;t involve themselves too much with the message boards.

I still think there is room to grow and would be more apt to watch the users logged in numbers rather than total count.

Jeff

gmarguli

Furthermore...perhaps we should have a thread that has all the answers for newbies in one large posting which is always kept at the top of the Forum page. This way everyone is happy. Perhaps we could get together and start this project with PCGS's blessing?

It won't work. NGC has something like this, yet people don't read those before posting.

The PCGS site has coin lingo, but people still ask what a word means.

I've never encountered a site where the FAQ did any good to 99% of the new users. Why read it when you can just ask the question and come back and get an answer?

oreville

gmarguli: We could refer them to that newbie thread each time they ask a newbie question?

Bear

The more the merrier. As of this moment, we are not overwhelmed and a lot of looky loos are learning a lot of information with out bothering anyone. All in all , everything seems okey dokey. Bear

abmluce

How bout splitting the coin section into 3 catagories, beginners, intermediate, and advanced. That way one can post and read questions pertaining to whatever level they are at. Once in a while someone can drop down a level or two and help out the "newbies". whom we should be encourging in order to advance the hobby.

Petescorner

Personally, I don't mind the repetative questions, as long as I can tell what the subject is by reading the title. For example, anything with "AT" in the title automatically gets skipped by me as I wouldn't know an AT coin from a non-AT one if they had the BBQ grill in the background!

dpoole

I've noticed it's gotten bigger. But that's also meant lots of new knowledge has come aboard. You can get almost anything answered here now, and from several different viewpoints (don't have to rely on the same old-timers all the time).

I also like keeping the Board together. It is good to come to one place and scan for topics of interest. Obviously some insightful comment on the 1883 Morgan Dollar Board may be applicable and of interest beyond the Board's specialization, but most of us would miss it...

I like oreville's idea of a cumulative and expanding FAQ for topics frequently covered, and our referring askers to that site if they don't think or want to go there (as Greg fears will happen). People do that now, when they put in a link for a particularly revealing older post in response to a question.

shylock

I don't think we need a bouncer yet, but I can see the day when new members will have to line up behind a velvet rope and look like they're going to post cool topics.