Join Us in Our New Discord Community!

Mark Rosenberg

We are thrilled to announce that this upcoming week, we will be launching a new communication platform alongside our traditional forum software. As part of our plans to expand and revitalize our focus on community and engagement with other collectors, we have created a Discord server that will provide a range of exciting new features to enhance your experience on our marketplace and help you connect with other collectors.

Our Discord server will be the hub of our revitalized community program, with engaging content and activities for our members. We'll be hosting weekly giveaways, trivia and discussions, exclusive promotions, product updates, video Q&A sessions, and interviews with prominent collectors, all designed to bring collectors from around the world together and help you connect with new collectors.

If you're unfamiliar with Discord, it is a modern messaging and voice chat app, which you can access via desktop app, mobile app, or directly from your Internet Browser. It's designed to be user-friendly and easy to use, offering many advantages over traditional forums, such as:
1) It's much more interactive and engaging. Instead of posting messages and waiting for responses, you can have real-time conversations with other collectors.
2) It offers a range of features that make it more fun and social, such as voice chat, video chat, and emojis.
3) The mobile app allows our collectors to stay connected with the community and participate in activities on-the-go.

For the time being, we plan to continue to run our traditional forums alongside our new Discord community; but new community efforts and updates will focus exclusively on our Discord community. Eventually, we may retire our traditional forums as our Discord community grows.

With the above in mind, we'd like to give everyone here a chance to get an early start on joining the new HipStamp Discord, which you can do by clicking on the following link and following the instructions:
https://discord.gg/BTncV3haXq

We encourage you to give Discord a try and see for yourself how easy and fun it can be. We have big plans for our Discord community, and we are excited to see it become the hub for stamp collectors worldwide.

Thank you for being part of our community, and we look forward to connecting with you further!

Best Regards,
Mark Rosenberg

Scott Payton

I'll reserve my judgement as to the uptake and success of this.
However, I think this dilutes the forum and the site overall. Do you really want people to leave the Hipstamp domain while they're already on the site?
I am already a Discord user for other discussions. Discord in my view, is more geared to mobile device use. I literally don't use my mobile devices for posting to the forums, browsing stores or listing items. I get that Discord is Hip among the younger internet users. But beware leaving your user base alienated, they are the core to the sites revenue generation.
Is this really the best usage of time and energy for the site and for the future of philately to push Discord?

Ted Tyszka

I joined another philatelic Discord group some time back, and I just quit going there. I just don’t like the Discord interface. You can’t easily follow one particular discussion thread the way you can on a forum like this one. To me it’s more trouble than it’s worth, to try to follow multiple discussions.

Bill O'Malley

Well I still think the whole thing is stupid.
Now at the top again.

Michael Generali

I'm busy enough here. I don't need to get spread out even more with time wasting on additional social media.

Robert Welander

I will politely and respectfully disagree with the belief that our entire buying demographic is at an age where "change is bad". We have all read the articles that scream about the imminent death of our hobby because all the collectors are dying. I would strongly agree that the old model we all have seen for how stamp collectors congregate is dying, but I also think that the fact that we are having this conversation digitally is a sign that there is a new model for how we congregate. We can have the same conversation around buying and selling stamps ... we don't go to the corner stamp store any more. We buy and sell more and more through digital means (HipStamp, eBay, etc.).

If your goal is to be cranky and complain about change, then feel free. I took the bait. There certainly have been changes that I haven't been the biggest fan of, but if we picked one thing and stuck with it forever, then the hobby would definitely die. Personally, I appreciate the fact that Mark and his team have created a platform that doesn't try to mimic what eBay does, and they keep working to enhance it. I've been more successful as a collector-turned seller than I ever imagined I would be. If that means that I have to deal with a short-lived bug now and then and a bit of ADHD when I go to Discord to keep up with what is happening in the HS community, then to me, that is the price of admission (and I pay it gladly).

You of course are free to feel differently, and to express those feelings as you see fit. I will do the same.

Rob

Bill O'Malley

This is very very stupid. Nobody will like it.
If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Remember KISS

Bob Woodbury

Why do we need yet another way to communicate?

Henry Brooks

I get the feeling it's for people who want to be online chatting a lot - sort of like the old party lines - showing my age here. Seems most of us utilize our time buying or listing rather than chatting. I belong to an antique car forum that gets a lot of traffic - ask a question and you may receive 20 answers in the first 30 minutes but it is organized by thread like this forum.

Ted Tyszka

I think that’s it, Henry - why I don’t care for it. It’s meant for live chat. That requires diverting time and attention away from all one’s other multitasking

Bob Hatch

I have an issue with the HipStamp "Get a $5 Credit" Discord promotion: $5.00 IS NOT FREE when you have to make a $15.00 purchase to get it. IMHO it represents the worst kind of deceptive advertising. Honest Abe is rolling over in his grave!

john o'neil

Anyone read today's Wall Street? Biggest security leak in awhile surfaced on Discord.

Luree Hughes

Mark, just out of curiosity, what will happen to the threads that we've bookmarked?

Do we need to start printing that information? Or will it be lost in cyberspace?

Dave Bennett

It looks pretty neat . . but I don't have a cell phone (needed for verification) so I guess I'm OUT for now.

Henry Brooks

Reading through the site and comments it seems like it's a Facebook with lights, bells and whistles. I haven't figured out to post to Facebook yet - hope they keep the forum where you can jump in, ask a question and come back later when time permits.

john o'neil

I too will pass

john o'neil

Mark. Are you seriously suggesting you may close this forum?

Greg Doll

I dived in a bit ago and signed up. First blush, it appears there will a "learning curve" but I expect to get there. Then I started thinking about the word "discord". I thought I remembered that word from years ago during my first and only divorce. I looked up the definition of the word and found this...

dis·​cord ˈdi-ˌskȯrd
Synonyms of discord
1
a
: lack of agreement or harmony (as between persons, things, or ideas)
… must we fall into the jabber and babel of discord while victory is still unattained?
—Sir Winston Churchill
b
: active quarreling or conflict resulting from discord among persons or factions : STRIFE
marital discord
discord between the two parties

Maybe "Discourse" could have been a better name for the platform.....just saying...LOL!!!!!!

Steven Wilner

Well I signed up fpr Discord and the app was added to my desktop on my laptop. I signed off and I am trying to get back in but I seem to be in an endless loop now I put my userid and password in and it keeps going back to the sign in screen. I have no idea what is going on with this - it does not seem easy to use for the average user at first glance. Any ideas of how I can get back in now ? Steve

Jacques Famery

I"m not going to waste my time on a new setup, when Hipstamp can't even improve the everyday use of it. I remember in the first weeks of Hips we were asked suggestions and nothing happened.

Scott Payton

Dave, it's most likely because the thread wasn't yet long enough to fill the whole screen. So it "looks" like it was starting at the top, because your eye goes there and then follows down. But once it passes the height of the screen, it "starts" at the bottom, and pushes the rest of the text up.
I noticed that same "perceived result".

Dave Bennett

Once again, Mr. Payton has provided more of the wonderful guidance we so appreciate -- follow his directions above to get rid of the black background in DISCORD and change it to something white, like we have here -- it will make a huge change in your comfort level, and the ability to easily read the new site!!

Phil Merrill_

I have only accessed Discord through my phone. I had no trouble signing in, I am still bumbling around trying to figure this thing out, and I have a white screen with black letters. I have put photos in, I have used private emails to communicate with others, I have commented on the work of other members. Soon I will explore creating my own thread on Discord. Is anything better or worse? Humph, it's a thing. Is the sky falling or the world ending? No.

Oh, just by the by. 80% of the stuff offered by Discord is crap we philatelists would have little interest in, anyway. Especially the dancing thingees. Please keep trying. Your patience will reward you much more than your vindictiveness. And in last resort, ask a young person.....

Ted Tyszka

I’m in.

Luree Hughes

I'm there

George DeKornfeld

Ditto.

Henry Brooks

Ditto. Business computer custom ordered without camera or mic on monitor. Use for ordering, listing, and forums only due to time constraints.

Bill O'Malley

I agree with Henry and Ted

Steve Maurer

Think I will prefer it the way it is now

Pete James

Bad idea. Mark, reminds me of the old saying: if it ain't broke, don't Discord it.

Mark Rosenberg

To address a few misconceptions here: on Discord, we do have the ability to create forum channels/categories organized by topic/thread - exactly as we have the 5 categories organized here - and we're doing that. We've set this up on select channels, such as support, feature-requests, bug-reports, help-identifying, help-valuations, and more.

You'll see they're organized into topics with their own threads, exactly the same as in these forums, ie:


That being said, we're also using non-forum channels/categories, which are organized around a single ongoing conversation. We've used these for such channels as show-and-tell and new-collectors, where we believe one ongoing conversation that everyone can participate in and jump in and out of at any time makes the most sense. However, even here, you can easily create a single thread based on any message, which will split it off into its own topic to follow, etc.

If you haven't already checked out our Discord, I'd encourage you to give it a chance!