Dear members,


As you already know this, it is often hard for us to keep up with the pace and give shape to each member's suggestions.

It might be frustrating for some of you but please, try to visualize how things are from the inside and understand that we are coping with many difficulties.

Here is a brief summary of the most frequent difficulties we are coping with:

- Members' suggestions are sometimes contradictory. One man's food is another man's poison...
- New features always slow down our servers.
- Priorities and vital suggestions come first.
- Mathieu is the only devoloper we have and Mr Delcampe is giving him a hand once in a while, when time allows him to.
- Mr Delcampe is already working about 60 hours a week.
- The assistance provided to members takes more than 50% of our time.
- Sometimes, there already is an alternative to what members are asking. Members just do not know the website enough.
- ...


To all these difficulties, there is one solution that could really help us all: writing new guides.

We have already written a few guides (available on demand) such as the 'seller's guide', the 'buyer's guide', the 'way to the ideal transaction', 'beware of phishing', 'what are local websites', etc...

All these guides are meant to provide valuable information and tips to members (in addition to our online help). Thanks to them, members avoid having problems, they learn right away how to optimize their use of the website, we spend less time explaining how to buy or sell on Delcampe, there are less disputes between members, they send us more relevant suggestions, ...

Now, let's pretend we do not answer emails or give any follow-up to your suggestions anymore (don't worry, this won't happen), what would you write in these guides? What tips and help directly drawn from your own experience would you share with new members and the rest of the community?

A solution is not always needed when there is a way to avoid the problem.


I am all ears ;)

Wow, the other topic is a lot more successful.


Mhhhh, how many rounds before I delete the whole topic?

Come' on guys, let's give each other a hug and let's forget about this.

Wouldn't you love telling Palestinians and Israëlis to forget about what they have done in the past? Well, of course this is more complicated but this conflict also 'started from scratch'.

Please stop this before the snowball effect becomes unstoppable.

Well Pascal,

Maybe the snowball is stopped when Delcampe takes its responsibility.

Maybe when the answers to emails start rolling in...

Maybe, just maybe when Delcampe gets to the bottom of things...

Wow, the other topic is a lot more successful.


Mhhhh, how many rounds before I delete the whole topic?

Come' on guys, let's give each other a hug and let's forget about this.

Wouldn't you love telling Palestinians and Israëlis to forget about what they have done in the past? Well, of course this is more complicated but this conflict also 'started from scratch'.

Please stop this before the snowball effect becomes unstoppable.

Dear Pascal,

I am not sure that your threat of īdeleting the whole topicī is the way to promote a particular type of behaviour on the forum. It sounds too... totalitarian. We know that the site is yours (that is, it belongs to Seb and his associates) and that you can do anything you like with it, but the Forum is, in a sense, ours, and we should be left to do what we like with it, unless specific laws are broken (I do no mean Delcampe charters and forum regulations, which in my opinion are useless and a complete waste of your time). I really donīt understand why you even bother about 2 members who quite evidently enjoy what they are doing on the forum. Delcampe should be about enjoyment. There is no use in patronising members, there is absolutely no basis for censoring anything and there is no fear that this will ever escalate into something you should be worried about. Just relax and enjoy

By the way, how exactly do you intend your comment regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be understood? In what sense did it īstart from scratchī? Did the Second World War ' start from scratchī?

Dear Pascal,

I am not sure that your threat of īdeleting the whole topicī is the way to promote a particular type of behaviour on the forum. It sounds too... totalitarian. We know that the site is yours (that is, it belongs to Seb and his associates) and that you can do anything you like with it, but the Forum is, in a sense, ours, and we should be left to do what we like with it, unless specific laws are broken (I do no mean Delcampe charters and forum regulations, which in my opinion are useless and a complete waste of your time). I really donīt understand why you even bother about 2 members who quite evidently enjoy what they are doing on the forum. Delcampe should be about enjoyment. There is no use in patronising members, there is absolutely no basis for censoring anything and there is no fear that this will ever escalate into something you should be worried about. Just relax and enjoy

By the way, how exactly do you intend your comment regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be understood? In what sense did it īstart from scratchī? Did the Second World War ' start from scratchī?

You may be a greasy dago, soaked in ouzo and worse, but that was very well said !

Similar things have been said before, and indeed even left when French-speaking eyes are not too close:

Link (http)

In one of its programmes where listeners telphone about current events, the BBC found itself almost solid for 20 minutes with a variety of listeners who thought that Tony Blair should be tried for war crimes at the International Court of Justice in the Hague. This was treated as normal fair comment. No attempt whatever was made to censor it, and the programme was available to the world on the internet for a week as usual.

Equallly, the freedom to criticise George III and George V never resulted in big rather disastrous revolutions.

There has recently been an understandable ban on demonstrating in Parliament Square (understandable because the place has looked so ugly for years), so every Sunday afternoon young people have polite tea-parties on the grass there with a few blank posters, and the police cannot decide if it is a demonstration or not .....

Lady Chatterly's Lover only became a bestseller because there was an (unsuccessful and very famous) attempt to censor it .

Frank Apied

Hi everyone

I am sure Pascal has the best of intentions. It seems to me that he worries too much about insignificant things, though. It is NOT important if 2 members have a lively debate about a number of irrelevant subjects. It is not even important if they do not like each other (which is something I am beginning to doubt). I really do believe that the forum should not be regulated too much (although, one has to admit, all this conversation has been taking place in the ' Positive Suggestions' page, and one would expect Delcampe employees to monitor this for ... er ... positive suggestions).

It would be perhaps more constructive if Pascal were to explain a little more clearly what he is asking for in the first 2 messages of this topic. Have the Delcampe crew been asked to draft some new type of guide for the users? Before anybody begins to send in helpful hints, one should wonder whether all these documents that Pascal refers to are actually ever read by anyone. I have to admit that I have been using the site for more than 3 years, I have had successfull transactions with hundreds of members and I have not even heard of the existence of these 'guides'. Even if I came accross them, I would certainly skip reading them, as they sound dreadfully boring. The site (even after the ill-advised split into the various local sites etc) is still very simple to use, almost self-explanatory in most cases. So I don't think more user charters are going to benefit anybody. If Delcampe feels they will be of any use, he should start thinking how to persuade members to read all this literature in the first place.

Regards from ouzo-drenched and grease-covered Athens

The true international forum, or identifier page forum, is indeed very much a positive suggestion, to which Moondude has even contributed, but unfortunately not always very clearly.

However, Moondude, like somebody paid to ruin the performances of Handel's operas, is trying to ruin it with irrelevant heckling. This sabotage has to be dealt with, and then "back to the original suggetion" with more and more helpful examples.

Having read about the difficlties in the delcampe office, I cannot refrain from suggesting that they get ---- more staff !

Link (http)
(have a look at this)
used to be run from someone's bedroom, but you really can't go on like that when things expand.

Frank Apied.

Blame it all on Moondude haha.

If you would have included yourself in your statement you would at least have given some evidence of honesty...

Now your message only shows to all Delcampe the real nature of Francophile.

Not at all.

I have consistently backed up Cajun's positive suggestion here; and elsewhere I have helped a lot of people routinely, especially on the French coin and banknote forums, but not forgetting those who were being completely ignored on the Italian forums. I can't see Moondude's name in these places at all.

I think this is the real nature of Francophile, and surely it is what delcampe would hope for their members to do on the forums ?

I very much doubt if Pascal wants this too to be blocked up with Moondude's heckling and people defending themselves. Please stop it now, at least here.

Frank Apied

Haha,

I don't go on the coin nor on the Italian forum indeed.

Maybe you should go on the French or Dutch stamp forum...

Crazy bird

But Moondude, you wrote:

"Now your message only shows to all Delcampe the real nature of Francophile."

Now you say:

"Haha,
I don't go on the coin nor on the Italian forum indeed."

There is something of the essential nature of Moondude here, is there not ?

And
"Maybe you should go on the French or Dutch stamp forum".

I think my true nature should be judged by what I do contribute to the coin and banknote forums, and including some Italian forums, not by my sad failure to contribute to the French or Dutch stamp forum. Cajun has put a lot of work in too, even most helpfully on coins where he is not really an expert.

This is all basically irrelevant here, including the picture, though it might be nice if Moondude had a picture to identify himself. He can be bland.

I appeal to him not to clutter up this place too with his irrelevant attacks, thus sabotaging what Pascal is trying to achieve for delcampe.

Frank Apied.