Because the arguments for and against this have become so cluttered up with irrelevant accusations and defences, I have edited the whole thing so as to leave in what is most to the point.

From Cajun:
Hi y'all, seb and pascal,
while reading the french forum and PN's idea for the international forum which I still support I suddenly saw an idea pop into my head. Why not have a special part of the forum where an image is submitted for identification such as a stamp, coin, or whatever. Then an answer could be given in a language of choice with a corresponding icon. The person submitting the item could request the answer be in that language or perhaps have the language interpreted for them. Let me know what y'all think about this.
a bientot,
cajunsr.

From Pascal :
Hello Cajun,
This can already be done via the Forum.
What could be done with this feature that cannot be done with the Forum ?

Pascal.


From Frank :
" an answer could be given in a language of choice "

This cannot be done with the forum . It has been specifically forbidden, as you may remember.

Similarly, anyone could easily see the question regardless of his own language.

Above all, it would be much quicker to look at all recent questions, even if one ignored all of them in Dutch, say, or all of them in English. But people would be tempted to identify things they knew about, even if the language of the question was unfamiliar.

An answer like "Uruguay 1873, 5 euros" is international.

I have seen Plantagetnoble's ideas, and I thought they were good.
It is a pity that ony Cajun and a few others took him seriously.

Frank

From Pascal :
How would like the Forum structure to be ? Because what you are asking me is already possible with the Forum we have now.

Pascal.

From Frank :
There are in fact distinct differences and possibilities compared with what we have on the forum now.
Have a good look at what Cajun and I have already written, especially :

" ' an answer could be given in a language of choice'

This cannot be done with the forum . It has been specifically forbidden, as you may remember.

Similarly, anyone could easily see the question regardless of his own language.

Above all, it would be much quicker to look at all recent questions, even if one ignored all of them in Dutch, say, or all of them in English. But people would be tempted to identify things they knew about, even if the language of the question was unfamiliar.

An answer like 'Uruguay 1873, 5 euros' is international. "

I am not going to keep on and on trying to explain this patiently in different words like Plantagetnoble used to with the French and Belgian philatelists, in fact I am going to avoid the French and Belgian philatlelists. But would you like me to translate it carefully into French for you ?

Anyway, think about it.

Frank

From Pascal :
If I needed help, I would ask the question on all the forums and have my question translated with the automatic translator.

This is what members are already doing.
Pascal.

From Frank :
The problem is that it takes a long time to ask the question on all the forums separately. Surely you must see that it would be easier to enter it just once ? ( It would save you electronic space, too ).

The automatic translator is not very good, and again, to translate it into French, American English, Dutch , British English, German, Italian and Spanish would take a very long time. I don't believe that anyone has ever done this. PLEASE GIVE EXAMPLES ! The number of times that anyone has even approached putting his question on all the different forums in each appropriate language must be well under 10 !

Would it not be much simpler to enter a simple identification question based on a picture onto one international forum, with the question couched in simple terms in any languge , so that any reader might very well understand it and reply ? Incidentally, it would be useful to enable the incorporation of at least 2 pictures into one message, because coins and banknotes have 2 sides.

That, as I see it, is the essence of what Cajun is suggesting. But he is now actually in Cajun country fishing and avoiding the alligators. I don't know if we can hope for him to return.

Frank

From Frank :
Here is a splendid example:

This is on the Italian forum only, although it is in Spanish not Italian :

" !HOLA MI NOMBRE ES BETTY, Y SOY DE NICARAGUA, QUISIERA SABER, EL VALOR APROXIMADO QUE TIENE UNA MONEDA DE 10 C. DOLLAR DE 1827 DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ME PUEDEN ESCRIBIR A :nicab1414@hotmail.com ”

I don’t know any Spanish, but I can understand this, and when I can get to an up-to-date catalogue I will answer it easily. My answer will be simply “$x a $y secondo la condizione” (It has to be in Italian now).

No-one has answered this until now (at least, not on the forum), because very few people look at the Italian coin forum. If there was one international (coin) forum as suggested by Cajun, Plantagetnoble, Postlynx, and others, lots of people would have seen this, been able to understand it, and answered it. Many of the French members actually speak Spanish, especially those who live near the Pyrenees, and probably some Americans do too.

Perhaps the big French-speaking philatelic forum could stay isolated, but other languages be put together for philately; and for other topics all languages including French be put together ? Coin and banknote collectors do seem more reasonable, you must admit. Why should everyone be ruled by the more extreme French-speaking philatelists ?

One important thing they do not take into account is that there are not , for example, enough Italian-speaking knowledgable and co-operative coin-collectors on delcampe for that forum to be viable on its own.

Frank

From Frank :
See
Link (http)

Here too, a question has gone unanswered because it has been placed on a little frequented forum, in this case the German banknote forum.

Again, if it had been on the proposed international forum, somebody would have seen it and answered it. For a beginner to have placed it on every forum in every language in the first place, as suggested by Pascal, is an impractical suggestion, especially considering that many such questioners are newcomers. Also, even the most well-meaning member is not going to scour every language forum every day. If they did , this question would have been answered long ago, because it is basically very straightforward. But it takes a long time to do this, especially for several categories (e.g. for coins and banknotes there are 14 forums !). Much easier to have all banknote queries in one place, all stamp queries except in French in one place, all coin queries in one place, etc.

Frank

From Moondude :
This item has been suggested for some time now, to Pascal and to Sébastien and they have both expressed their opinion that this forum would not be necessary.

In the old version there was a category "To Be Identified" where everyone could place their stamps for sale for which they did not know the origin. But these were auctions, and people not wanting to sell their stamps are also looking for answers.

It might be interesting maybe just to allow people to make an auction page (without a real auction) for this, where they could indicate in checkboxes what information they are looking for and integrate a category for this on the homepage. It could also be done on the forum, but by including a special category it could attract more collectors for answers...

Moondude

From Frank :
You seem to be thinking uniquely of stamps in the old days, too. This international help forum would clearly be of more appeal to collectors other than the exuberant self-contained French-speaking stamp collectors . This is now Delcampe International, and it is expanding its interests.

You may have noticed, too, that Pascal and Sébastien don't actually care about whether something is "necessary". The separate United Kingdom forum is obviously not "necessary" at all. There isn't a separate Belgian forum. Perhaps there should be ?

Frank