More stamp chat?

Hello all,

I love it here. I love most of the people I've met here. But I could
easily handle 20 - 30 times as much traffic in one day.

I used to be a member of stampboards.com, but had a rather nasty run-in
with the enormous Aussie ego who runs the place, resulting in my calling
him a crook and his subsequently deleting incriminating posts *and* my
account. So that's closed to me (and I wouldn't go back if a red carpet
were offered.)

StampWants' boards have knowledgeable people on them, but they are not
mature yet either, and are even lower-bandwidth than here.

I don't miss Glen, but I miss the community of people on stampboards.com
-- and the VOLUME! I want to talk stamps more and more and more.

So does anyone here haunt other venues? I think I can help others on
some subjects, and I know I *need* help on others.

Another option would be to get all the lurkers to be active posters, and
get this to be a high-traffic board -- not the twenty or so messages I
see per day.

I hate to step in and be cheerleader. It's not in my nature, and I look
terrible holding pom-poms. But I'm dying out here, not having enough
stamp chat.

I guess that's all. Over to you.

--
Joshua H. McGee, Los Angeles, California, USA
Member: APS, ATA, ISWSC, AFDCS, MBPC, MCC, BPS
President: http://www.penguinstamps.org
Trade?: http://www.mcgees.org/stamp-offers/

On Fri, 30 May 2008 05:41:55 GMT, Joshua McGee
wrote:

Hello all,

I love it here. I love most of the people I've met here. But I could
easily handle 20 - 30 times as much traffic in one day.

I used to be a member of stampboards.com, but had a rather nasty run-in
with the enormous Aussie ego who runs the place, resulting in my calling
him a crook and his subsequently deleting incriminating posts *and* my
account. So that's closed to me (and I wouldn't go back if a red carpet
were offered.)

StampWants' boards have knowledgeable people on them, but they are not
mature yet either, and are even lower-bandwidth than here.

I don't miss Glen, but I miss the community of people on stampboards.com
-- and the VOLUME! I want to talk stamps more and more and more.

So does anyone here haunt other venues? I think I can help others on
some subjects, and I know I *need* help on others.

Another option would be to get all the lurkers to be active posters, and
get this to be a high-traffic board -- not the twenty or so messages I
see per day.

I hate to step in and be cheerleader. It's not in my nature, and I look
terrible holding pom-poms. But I'm dying out here, not having enough
stamp chat.

I guess that's all. Over to you.

Good grief, man! Google the history here. Used to be polluted, then
the pollution really stank, then messages trickled and now we're back
to up 20 - 30 per day.

I have about 10 messages to post tomorrow. Plenty of scans, a few
questions to ask, etc. I just spent too much time on delcampe and
need some ZZZZZZZ's.

On Fri, 30 May 2008 03:03:47 -0400, Tracy_Barber wrote:

Good grief, man! Google the history here.

Yes. Blah blah politics blah blah flame wars blah blah trolls blah blah
jello-and-spam blah blah advertisements blah blah. :-) I've been on
USENET since 1995. Why do you think I just became a regular now?

My point is that we now have the *kernel* of an enjoyable philatelic
meeting place, and I would like to see *more* of this *useful* stuff.

--
Joshua H. McGee, Los Angeles, California, USA
Member: APS, ATA, ISWSC, AFDCS, MBPC, MCC, BPS
President: http://www.penguinstamps.org
Trade?: http://www.mcgees.org/stamp-offers/

"Joshua McGee" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 30 May 2008 03:03:47 -0400, Tracy_Barber wrote:

Good grief, man! Google the history here.

Yes. Blah blah politics blah blah flame wars blah blah trolls blah blah
jello-and-spam blah blah advertisements blah blah. :-) I've been on
USENET since 1995. Why do you think I just became a regular now?

My point is that we now have the *kernel* of an enjoyable philatelic
meeting place, and I would like to see *more* of this *useful* stuff.

IMHO, we have had all the time the mentioned kernel, thanks to some
passionate and knowledgeable folks, and this is the reason why we have
survived.

As for "blah blah", this was and is the real king of hobbies (and not the
philately, as some may be tempted to believe ;-)

--
Victor Manta

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Spanish North Africa: http://www.sna-on.postalstamps.biz/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Fri, 30 May 2008 09:52:14 +0200, Victor Manta wrote:

As for "blah blah", this was and is the real king of hobbies (and not
the philately, as some may be tempted to believe ;-)

I cannot tell if you are agreeing or disagreeing with me -- or neither --
as I don't understand your sentence! :-)

My point with "blah blah" was that every ng has its share of troubles,
but this group has now found very serious footing (IMO) with a very high
signal-to-noise ratio, that there is nowhere I prefer to discuss stamps,
and that I will do anything and everything in my power to keep this a
useful and fun place.

The trolls have mostly starved, we are seeing a lull of adverts, I will
continue to try to add *content*, and I urge lurkers to as well. In my
experience, among philatelists, it is much more common for a man to think
he has nothing interesting to add and be wrong, than to think he has only
interesting things to say and be wrong! :-) I know I've stuck my foot
in my mouth a couple of times on this ng so far (Italy parcel stamps,
anyone?) but the more voices, the more points of view!

Most of us make errors. We should talk anyway, or else we should all be
silent and only allow Blair to post. :-)

--
Joshua H. McGee, Los Angeles, California, USA
Member: APS, ATA, ISWSC, AFDCS, MBPC, MCC, BPS
President: http://www.penguinstamps.org
Trade?: http://www.mcgees.org/stamp-offers/

"Joshua McGee"
I used to be a member of stampboards.com, but had a rather nasty run-in
with the enormous Aussie ego who runs the place, resulting in my calling
him a crook and his subsequently deleting incriminating posts *and* my
account. So that's closed to me

I think that's an ideal situation for people on this NG to reflect on,
who sometimes consider "moderation" (myself included).
There are evils in both routes.

On May 30, 4:11*am, "rodney" wrote:
"Joshua McGee"

I used to be a member of stampboards.com, but had a rather nasty run-in
with the enormous Aussie ego who runs the place, resulting in my calling
him a crook and his subsequently deleting incriminating posts *and* my
account. *So that's closed to me

I think that's an ideal situation for people on this NG to reflect on,
who sometimes consider "moderation" (myself included).
There are evils in both routes.

Three cheers Sir Rodney...moderation I like.
I appreciate the fact that there are lurkers, they read the posts and
do jump in when it is appropiate.
I don't like inane posts
I get the feeling that the original poster is stirring up
controversary and maybe not to the advantage to this newsgroup.

Ralphael, the OLD one

Gday, Joshua

You're not the only one to cross swords with Mr Stephens and I won't waste bandwidth digging up my conversation with him. We could certainly make
this board more high traffic if we could loosen up / tighten the rules a bit. There seem to be a lot of weird "all or nothing" rules about
moderating - either every message has to be moderated before it gets posted which really slows things down, especially for folks who aren't in the
same country as the moderator, or they are all allowed through with no option of getting them deleted. Same goes for pictures - we had to clamp
down on the posting of pictures after some very inappropriate ones got posted as well as a number from folks with 10Mb cameras who posted pictures 2
foot square. It would be great if it was possible to post pictures of, say, up to 3" x 2" which would cover most of our needs and allow links to
larger versions for covers etc.
The downside of moderation is that someone has to draw the line somewhere between a heated discussion ("All Machin collectors are idiots"), drivel
("The MI5 / CIA is out to get you") and outright pointless abuse / insults / lies ("Victor Manta eats babies"). What about the constant barrage
about the Edmonton stamp show or the occasional post the should go on marketplace? If we could get a moderator capable of removing inappropriate
stuff after it has been, many of us would be delighted and be prepared to put up with the V+1+@+G+R+A ads and dirty pictures that snuck through from
time to time if we knew they weren't going to be there forever.
There are a number of other group providers such as Google and Yahoo - I don't know if they provide better control than we get at the mo. You'd
also have to wonder if they would get better coverage and hits in the search engines.

Cheers - John Mycroft


Joshua McGee wrote:
Hello all,

I love it here. I love most of the people I've met here. But I could
easily handle 20 - 30 times as much traffic in one day.

I used to be a member of stampboards.com, but had a rather nasty run-in
with the enormous Aussie ego who runs the place, resulting in my calling
him a crook and his subsequently deleting incriminating posts *and* my
account. So that's closed to me (and I wouldn't go back if a red carpet
were offered.)

StampWants' boards have knowledgeable people on them, but they are not
mature yet either, and are even lower-bandwidth than here.

I don't miss Glen, but I miss the community of people on stampboards.com
-- and the VOLUME! I want to talk stamps more and more and more.

So does anyone here haunt other venues? I think I can help others on
some subjects, and I know I *need* help on others.

Another option would be to get all the lurkers to be active posters, and
get this to be a high-traffic board -- not the twenty or so messages I
see per day.

I hate to step in and be cheerleader. It's not in my nature, and I look
terrible holding pom-poms. But I'm dying out here, not having enough
stamp chat.

I guess that's all. Over to you.

On Fri, 30 May 2008 07:21:05 GMT, Joshua McGee
wrote:

On Fri, 30 May 2008 03:03:47 -0400, Tracy_Barber wrote:

Good grief, man! Google the history here.

Yes. Blah blah politics blah blah flame wars blah blah trolls blah blah
jello-and-spam blah blah advertisements blah blah. :-) I've been on
USENET since 1995. Why do you think I just became a regular now?

My point is that we now have the *kernel* of an enjoyable philatelic
meeting place, and I would like to see *more* of this *useful* stuff.

Ahhh, you took that one the wrong way. I was actually telling you
about the positive clan that were here back then. I think I should
have mentioned that, yes?

On Fri, 30 May 2008 04:42:48 -0700, Ralphael1 wrote:

On May 30, 4:11Â*am, "rodney" wrote:
"Joshua McGee"

I used to be a member of stampboards.com, but had a rather nasty
run-in with the enormous Aussie ego who runs the place, resulting in
my calling him a crook and his subsequently deleting incriminating
posts *and* my account. Â*So that's closed to me

I think that's an ideal situation for people on this NG to reflect on,
who sometimes consider "moderation" (myself included). There are evils
in both routes.

Three cheers Sir Rodney...moderation I like. I appreciate the fact that
there are lurkers, they read the posts and do jump in when it is
appropiate.
I don't like inane posts
I get the feeling that the original poster is stirring up controversary
and maybe not to the advantage to this newsgroup.

The original poster -- that would be me??? Hi, I'm Joshua McGee. Nice
to meet you. I stopped by a couple of months ago, settled in, and have
posted many, many times in what I believe was always a helpful fashion.
You are welcome to direct your posts to me in the future.

I'm not a troll, I'm not in any clan, and I'm not trying to stir up
controversy nor denigrate the newsgroup. Please check my posting
history, and whether your sensor is set too delicately. I am saying I
*like* the ng, and would like *more* of it.

BTW -- I am certain you missed Rodney's point, which is that moderators
can sidestep into being demagogues very quickly.

--
Joshua H. McGee, Los Angeles, California, USA
Member: APS, ATA, ISWSC, AFDCS, MBPC, MCC, BPS
President: http://www.penguinstamps.org
Trade?: http://www.mcgees.org/stamp-offers/