Consolidate The Forums?

I'm going to go ahead and agree with you on this one. I feel like I have to jump around quite a bit trying to find topics that interest me.

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I could see if traffic was so high that threads were being bumped too quickly.

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Two weeks ago I watched a topic go off page 1 in one hour.

There was no forum for general numismatics like cleaning, storing, insuring, displaying, "How'd ya like the coin show", "What coin should I buy with my tax return?".......They were all getting dumped in the US Coin Forum.

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One example; a separate section for old US coins vs. new? What's wrong with just having a US Coin forum?

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Classic and Modern absolutely needed to be split, no doubt. Countless times I looked at the US Coin Forum and there was 6 to 8 generic Kennedy half topics on page 1. ("What dump bank do you use?", "they're charging me for rolls", "I found 20 40% halves", "What will a smelter give me for my 40% halves?") and there were some great Classic Coinage topics on page 2.

I'm looking at the Error / Variety section now and wondering if VAM's and Lincoln Cents deserve their own E/V section. I'm pretty sure Lincoln Cents do.

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I'm interested in a range of topics and I find myself having to bounce around from room to room, and I think a lot of topics get missed.

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The active topics page and subscriptions take care of that quickly.

We need to evolve as the forum grows.

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I would think it would be easier to find topics you are interested in when broken down into their separate forums. Cram them into fewer forums and you might have to sift through alot of posts to find one you want to read.

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A couple things on that. As long as the forums are (reasonably) broken down, it's very quick and scan an entire page for a title of interest.

I'll explain what I meant about threads getting lost. MOST of us have a coin interest in multiple areas. It used to be there were 3 main forums I could browse, and, on occasion delve into ebay or other topics if there was a specific reason. I'd like to be able to scan a few forums without making a deliberate effort to make sure there's not a specific forum I missed.

We obviously need to have to the topics broken up to a point. But more is not necessarily better. Taking it to an extreme imagine if we had a separate forum for every denomination, a seperate forum for ebay depending on whether you're selling or buying, or even further selling raw, selling certified, buying raw, etc.

On both sides of the spectrum you can have either not enough separation of topics or you can have too many. To me right now we have too many. It's less user friendly.

I'm not sure how many agree or disagree with me. Perhaps we can do a poll.

active since last time you personally have logged in.

I am always logged in so when I come to CCF's Active Topics page I quickly scan all the topics that have been posted or replied to in my absence and Ctrl-T them to open multiple tabs. I then click the AR button to clear them all out and I set the "Reload every 2 minutes" thingy

rinse and repeat....turns into a fast addiction like the first time you got e-mail and you just HAD to check it again to see if someone sent ya a message

I too think there are a little to many separate topics. Maybe because I'm old and have a bad memory, but if I want to reread something I saw yesterday it takes me forever to find it now. Some separation was OK but now we are a little overboard. I feel for instance that all US coins should be one topic as an example. However, as I mentioned in the past I think all standard topics should be under a standard stickey with topics such as coin cleaning as an example.

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As I mentioned earlier this is not as easy as it sounds. What exactly do you put in a sticky topic about cleaning? What I think? What you think? What NGC thinks? What PCGS thinks?

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I copied this since I do not know how to use a quote thing wherever that is. As to exactly what should be in a sticky topic thing about cleaning is exactly what you said. A little of everything. Members could contribute what they think and others could agree or explain why they disagree. If anyone could find out what PCGS or NCG thinks, they could post that there also. Naturally if that area became overloaded with just stuff, it would have to be stopped I would think.
Coin cleaning itself is probably the most common subject I've seen anywhere for a long, long time.

Not meaning to drag out this subject but one method to decrease the amount of forums would be to just monitor the amount of posts. If after say one year there are less than 100 posts, it should be apparent that that subject is of lettle interest. Although the views may be rather on the high side, that could be just curious people, not interested.
Now every time I go looking for something I read a few days ago I can not find it. Usually, probably due to old age, I forget what I'm looking for due to so much different forums. I know there is supposed to be that thing as mentioned about tagging a post but afraid to try that since I would probably end up with flags on everything. Again, just an old age thing.