Future of Numista?

WARNING! This a long reading, I would be honoured if you share your thoughts on this.

I need to give some thoughts on my background: I have a training & consulting company, which operates in 16 countries from Finland to Turkey, from Czech Republic to Russia. My job for the last 5 years is a director of knowledge management, which - in a twitter version - is to ensure that the individual knowledge of consultants is immediately available to the 150+ consultants in the 16 countries. E.g. if we have a project on – say – employee retention in a Turkish copper mine, then the industry experience and the best practices of the solution are documented and shared in a way that it can be applied next time in Finland.
What I practically do is
1) I manage an internal wikipedia-like „knowledge base”, where all know-how and best practices are documented (in functionality it is similar to Numista)
2) and motivate people to selfishly share their knowledge.

We promote a concept, which we call „Selfish Sharing” (that is a Knowledge Management principle), which is based on the notion that knowledge is the ONLY commodity, which if you share, you will have more at the end of the process:
 - If I have 10 euro and I give you 5 euro, at the end you will have 5 euro and I will have 5 euro;
- However, if I have “10 knowledge” and give you 5, then you’ll have 5 and I still will have 10 or even more, because, for example, by the time I finish this article, I will be more aware and conscious about the possibilities of NUMISTA, and next time I use it, it will be easier to apply that. That is why we call it selfish sharing!

Likewise, Numista is based on this principle: I am sharing my knowledge on a Hungarian St Stephen coin, not because (or more precisely not ONLY because) I want to educate other members, but because by the time I enter the new coin, carefully decode the lettering, for example, my own knowledge will be better, and I am intrinsicly motivated to be more knowledgeable.

If people recognize this principle, they will become very active in sharing, and they create a great knowledge-based company, or a community, like Numista.
This is the reason, why I have chosen Numista after testing some coin softwares and similar online catalogues. My test method is simple: I am posting on forums, writing mails and watch the level of activity of people. I am on Numista for about a month only, and I have received much more reactions than for months on other sites. So I am staying, because the selfish sharing principle seems to work here.

… and this leads way further. If a community decides to apply the selfish sharing principle, the strategic forecast for the success of the exercise is way more positive!
Here is an example:

About at the same time when Wikipedia has been launched, Bill Gates started to recruit circa 200 academics to launch “the world’s biggest online encyclopedia”… a huge financial failure! Everyone at that time was laughing at the Wikipedia guys, who built on this “selfish sharing”, intrinsicly motivated principle, and they won, simply because people are genetically motivated to share their knowledge, even though sometimes they need a bit of push to do so.

Consequence?
My strategic statement is that Numista has a brighter future than closed-circuit, expert-based traditional catalogues, regardless whether they are paperbased (books) or online (like nummismaster)

In order to achieve that, there are a couple of prerequisites, though: We shall work on increasing the level of contribution to the knowledge base (e.g. Numista) … and how?
People get intrinsicly motivated to perform a task, if 4 elements are present:
1. There is a purpose, there is a direction. Set by themselves or set by the community, or by the leaders of the community. Example: Can we have 60000 coins on Numista by the end of July? My answer: yes, we can. As stated in another post, if every member adds just 2 coins now, we will have 65300! This is an individual investment of less than 10 minutes from each member.
2. If there is a sense of Mastery, e.g. I feel that I am getting better in something and get recognized by that. Translating that to Numista, it means that there shall be a system of recognition for people, who adds the coins, uploads the pictures, gives the best answers to questions etc. In short, people will be more contributing if their names or their performance are visible.
3. If they feel a sense of progress. Yes, we have the dashboards, we measure the number of posts etc, but we do not measure the new coins added or the improvement of a coinpage etc.  Just by measuring the performance, improves the performance!
4. Last but not last there shall be a coordinated Autonomy. Autonomy, meaning I decide on what I work on, this of course is given 100% on Numista, however these works shall be coordinated. Example: I like to add coins, improve descriptions, but hate making coin photos, while I trust there are people who love to do that.

In summary, if we can provide these 4 prerequisites to people and motivate them to contribute to the community in a selfish sharing mode, then Numista can easily be THE coinsite, where people refer to, leaving all other sites behind.

Thanks Imreh, a very well written piece and definitely food for thought.I've learnt a lot by entering my collection on Numista and making modifications and adding pictures as I went along. I knew little or nothing about Numismatics or coins in general when I first started a year ago and the interaction on this forum brought me along.
This forum and the the catalogue helped me quite a bit and exposed me to a lot of history and general knowledge not to speak of photo editing. Also human behavior, online, both mine and others   !

I think it would make more sense to call your concept "selfless sharing" as "selfish" kinda implies the opposite of "sharing"... just a thought =]

Verweis : charliebestI think it would make more sense to call your concept "selfless sharing" as "selfish" kinda implies the opposite of "sharing"... just a thought =]

Well, the essence is the recognition of the principle, that when I share, I teach or provide knowledge-related help to others, I am helping and developing myself even more. So it is "selfish" in the sense of the primary objective is my own development.
If people recognize and identify with that, then they will not want anything in return, because the act of sharing did the job and in itself have "returned the investment".

So, if more people on Numista, recognize this, the more organically and quicker we grow. - That is the essence of the thought.

We don't need to force Numista to grow.
Numista is what it is because of the normal, unforced growing.

Verweis : kommodoreWe don't need to force Numista to grow.
Numista is what it is because of the normal, unforced growing.

I would appreciate if you would first read, then understand what I wrote... and then comment. That is really the normal sequence in reacting to a post.

I've read and understood what you wrote.
Numista worked perfectly without what you said you wish to be implemented.

Verweis : imreh

Verweis : kommodoreWe don't need to force Numista to grow.
Numista is what it is because of the normal, unforced growing.

I would appreciate if you would first read, then understand what I wrote... and then comment. That is really the normal sequence in reacting to a post.

 How offensive are you imreh  

Verweis : ZacUKHow offensive are you imreh  

Yes, Sir!

I am very offensive and very factual.
at the same time

Can we get back to the original thoughts?

imreh doesn't know yet Numista is for the joy of collecting, not for competition and ironies.
I'm out from this discussion.

Verweis : @josephjkI've learnt a lot by entering my collection on Numista and making modifications and adding pictures as I went along.
This forum and the the catalogue helped me quite a bit and exposed me to a lot of history and general knowledge not to speak of photo editing. Also human behavior, online, both mine and others   !

Maybe with this quote, we can be back to normal discussion.
Thank you, Josephjk, all I am trying to do is to help people discover this, as this is a lot of times not obvious to us.

I find myself thinking about the future of Numista very often. I think what you have raised here is important. And as you know, I have valued your personal contributions to the catalogue and the forum.
I think you have a very business approach to Numista and I am not sure that it is the intention or view of the site creator, Xavier.

I think you have expressed your view clearly and people are entitled to agree and disagree as they see fit.

 I think that for now Numista is growing and has a bright future and a lot of us are trying to improve the catalogue as each day comes. I hope it can remain a free website, as Wikipedia has been struggling to remain.

Whatever the future holds for the future, I hope you are part of it and all the community now.

Verweis : bam777I think you have a very business approach to Numista

Thanks for your comment. Well, I do; although not in a sense, that I want to make money on it. I am very consciously separating my business life from my hobby. I do a lot of charity work in promoting the enthusiasm of coins, by presenting in schools in history classes and universities, blogging here and there, occasionally appearing on TV. I never ask money for it.

The business approach I am providing is more related to transferring best practices of the business world into a non-profit, participative community, like Numista. I think there is nothing wrong with it. …and of course everyone has the right to disagree, provided they know, what they disagree with.

Verweis : imreh

Verweis : bam777I think you have a very business approach to Numista

Thanks for your comment. Well, I do; although not in a sense, that I want to make money on it. I am very consciously separating my business life from my hobby. I do a lot of charity work in promoting the enthusiasm of coins, by presenting in schools in history classes and universities, blogging here and there, occasionally appearing on TV. I never ask money of it.

The business approach I am providing is more related to transferring best practices of the business world into a non-profit, participative community, like Numista. I think there is nothing wrong with it. …and of course everyone has the right to disagree, provided they know, what they disagree with.

In defense, I believe the member that made a comment had read your post and fully comprehended it.
                       
Still, thanks for your time on this site and I am sure your intentions are good.

Hello Imreh,

I'm very happy you shared your idea about selfish sharing with everyone. You already told me about this and I find this concept very interesting. I think it explains the success of Numista in some way.

I appreciate your suggestions. I think most important is to focus on quality and not only quantity. I'm not sure about how to value members who add useful content to the catalog.
Some members really are assets for the community and they deserve to receive some recognition.

Verweis : XavierI think most important is to focus on quality and not only quantity. I'm not sure about how to value members who add useful content to the catalog.
Some members really are assets for the community and they deserve to receive some recognition.

Thank you, Xavier,

I'll send a bunch of practices about how it is done elsewhere, and a couple Numista specific examples in a PM, to test which of them is possible [technically] and which of them you might like to implement.

I love this Idea, "knowledge is the ONLY commodity, which if you share, you will have more at the end of the process:"

  I think that is what happens on Numista, but I do think that you are correct to say that we should work hard to outpace all other coin sites so that coin people think of Numista like other people say, "just google it"

  One thing I think would help is if coin pages had a note section, for things like the meaning of the symbols in a coin or special history.

Verweis : redsmithstudiosOne thing I think would help is if coin pages had a note section, for things like the meaning of the symbols in a coin or special history.

Some coin already have notes about them in the obverse or reverse description such as:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces5188.html
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces7774.html
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces22611.html