A better clean forum.

I would recommend 3 things:

1 - Removing the word “valuations” in the coins section, leaving just “Coin Identifications”.

Looks like a lot of non-collectors just create an account to know how much the coin they found in a drawer worth, discouraging them from initial researches. 

(Example: https://en.numista.com/forum/topic152702.html )

2 - Blending Exonumia with Coins, since now everything is the same.

3 - Moving the  “Most Popular Coin Contest” inside the  “Free Discussion” section.

I guess this small changes would make the forum more concise.

1 - Doable but by just calling something something different won't make the thing go away, like some differently abled persons will always be crippled. People will still use the first two forae for their one off question, get their answer in most question f-off forever until they make their next throw away account.

2 - Merging them won't make anything cleaner IMO, they are still very distinct collection fields with some overlaps (these fuzzy lines were one of the reasons for the catalog merge but the ability to keep them mostly separate was kept).

3 - Seeing the lost interest in the last years I would also think a pinned main thread could be enough in Free discussion with the rounds as normal threads with a checkbox initiating the voting feature.

I believe that Numista should never have included exonumia, fantasy and token items on its site. There should have been a separate site created for such items. 

They were added long before you or even I joined (Wayback machine) and even Tokengate did not get rid of them but many higher quality members left.

They could name the separate site Exofantokia.

Extending on your suggestion 2:

It's difficult for members to know whether they should post in coin identification request or exonumia identification when they have no idea yet what their piece of metal actually is.
I would recommend keeping only 2 identification sections: “Coins, tokens, and medals identifications and valuations” and “Banknotes and paper exonumia identifications and valuations”.

Also, many requests for the catalogue actually impact all categories: requests related to issuers, currencies, rulers, etc.
I would recommend keeping only 1 section “Numista catalogue”.

I'm not sure whether we should keep the split between coins, banknotes and exonumia either for the sections “information and questions” and “swaps”.  Especially for exonumia: there is little in common between a transportation token and a postal order.

Perhaps we could review the overall structure Coins/Banknotes/Exonumia/General into: “Coins, tokens and medals”, “Banknotes and paper exonumia” and “General”. Then we can decide whether we want a joined section for swaps of coins, tokens and medals or have separate sections within the group.

Thank you for the comments friends.

About “Valuations”

 - After the site have the overall average price of the coins, there is no need to open a thread to ask how much common coins worth. I see always when happens is someone that just created an account for that, of course, they read “valuation of coins” and naturally, they expect  an answer about the value. However, in most cases, the answer will simply be "look at what is stated on the coin's page" or "it's worth face value." Advanced users, who know when they have a coin that requires more detailed information about values, will continue to use the forum for such discussions.

About “Exonumia + Coins”
- Not wanting to enter the discussion about the changes here, but as Xavier said,  “they have no idea yet what their piece of metal actually is”.  It would be fine if everything were grouped together. I notice that the Exonumia section has many unanswered questions, likely because most users do not even look there.

Xavier

Perhaps we could review the overall structure Coins/Banknotes/Exonumia/General into: “Coins, tokens and medals”, “Banknotes and paper exonumia” and “General”.

+1

Xavier

Extending on your suggestion 2:

 

It's difficult for members to know whether they should post in coin identification request or exonumia identification when they have no idea yet what their piece of metal actually is.
I would recommend keeping only 2 identification sections: “Coins, tokens, and medals identifications and valuations” and “Banknotes and paper exonumia identifications and valuations”.

 

Also, many requests for the catalogue actually impact all categories: requests related to issuers, currencies, rulers, etc.
I would recommend keeping only 1 section “Numista catalogue”.

 

I'm not sure whether we should keep the split between coins, banknotes and exonumia either for the sections “information and questions” and “swaps”.  Especially for exonumia: there is little in common between a transportation token and a postal order.

Perhaps we could review the overall structure Coins/Banknotes/Exonumia/General into: “Coins, tokens and medals”, “Banknotes and paper exonumia” and “General”. Then we can decide whether we want a joined section for swaps of coins, tokens and medals or have separate sections within the group.

I agree to having only 1 section for Numista Catalogue as already there is discrepancies between the checkboxes, this will simply the process.

Xavier

Extending on your suggestion 2:

 

It's difficult for members to know whether they should post in coin identification request or exonumia identification when they have no idea yet what their piece of metal actually is.
I would recommend keeping only 2 identification sections: “Coins, tokens, and medals identifications and valuations” and “Banknotes and paper exonumia identifications and valuations”.

 

Also, many requests for the catalogue actually impact all categories: requests related to issuers, currencies, rulers, etc.
I would recommend keeping only 1 section “Numista catalogue”.

 

I'm not sure whether we should keep the split between coins, banknotes and exonumia either for the sections “information and questions” and “swaps”.  Especially for exonumia: there is little in common between a transportation token and a postal order.

Perhaps we could review the overall structure Coins/Banknotes/Exonumia/General into: “Coins, tokens and medals”, “Banknotes and paper exonumia” and “General”. Then we can decide whether we want a joined section for swaps of coins, tokens and medals or have separate sections within the group.

Let's keep coins for ONLY coins and not exonumia, neither bank notes.

Sjoelund

Let's keep coins for ONLY coins and not exonumia, neither bank notes.

+1