NGC journals - Numismatic tangents sub forum?

[Architecht]

Hey guys,

 

Do you think the NGC Journals posts / boards would be easier to access and more likely to get traffic and replies if we made it a sub board of Numismatic Tangents?

 

 

[Architecht]

 

These are the journals, by the way:

 

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=82&page=1

[physics-fan3.14]

I think including them as a subforum of Tangents would increase their traffic slightly - but I don't think there will ever be much traffic on them. I know exactly where they are, but I almost never look at them.

 

While we are on the subject, the PMG Journals should be merged into the seldom-frequented Paper Money forum, and all of the "Ask NGC" "Ask PMG" "Ask Numismedia" type forums should be merged into a single forum. I, and others, have been pushing for this for a while.

 

The main page is very busy, and its good that you are working on cleaning it up. Thanks as always, Arch!

[TomB]

I know these exist, but can't imagine why they are their own entity instead of simply writing a new thread. I have also never read one and don't intend to under the current setup.

[Architecht]

That's too bad, Tom. There are some great articles in there, particularly from those who win the journal awards.

[TomB]

It may be too bad for me, but I think my reaction to them may also be an indicator of how others react, too, which might make it very bad for NGC if they are trying to promote the journals.

[Architecht]

Could be, although my general impression (without any expressed or implied criticism - just observation) is that you are a more of a stickler on issues of format preference than the middle of the bell curve. Most people don't seem quite as binary in their decision making about using / appreciating site features.

 

We do have thousands of journal articles entered, and a few hundred reads accumulate on each of them (some more, more less depending on article and author). So I consider it a site feature with some success behind it.

 

Of course, we can always do better, and certainly the comments in this thread may represent improvements that everyone would appreciate. That is why I solicit opinions. No single designer's sense of the right design decisions will ever be perfect, so I would be foolish not to seek feedback.

 

We have a fairly active journal community that doesn't always seem to cross the border into the chat boards, and vice versa. I think the biggest obstacle to that is probably around the fact that the login process and the account creation process is separate for each resource. That's something I've had my eye on for a while.

 

My own pet theories on improving journal discussion participation are based on:

 

1. The journal board itself is a bit off of the beaten path.

 

2. The login / account creation issues as noted above.

 

3. Some uncertainty blog format of the journals - the journal users seem quite comfortable with the idea, but the board users seem less so.

 

4. Perhaps some lack of faith that the original author will really read and participate in the replies.

 

Of course, nothing says I'm right - just sharing my thoughts.

[TomB]

I think I may very well be more demanding in my preferences of board usage, but I also have to agree with your other points in that I don't think the two platforms are married to each other all that well. It appears that they were put into place as two independent systems without much prior thought to how the populations of users might be brought together.