FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Bergur_E_Sigurdarson]

Earlier I created a poll on the FB group for Mindat.
(Seemed the best place to put it)

While its intention isn't very serious, anymore than any other FB-poll....
I thought it would be ok to share it with the FMF forum (hopefully someone here can share it to the Spanish part too)
...as long as it will not be taken too seriously... the purpose of the poll is to check, and indirectly give advice to vendors from all over... what terms are being over-used... and what are not really "acceptable" to us as collectors...

...the English language has such a plethora of possibilities to describe specimens... so the poll isn't intended to prevent or promote any sales... just hopefully get our great providers to step up their game, help them realize that we collectors don't want certain terms, but to respect our intelligence and show us that they care and can provide good and accurate ways of describing their wares to us potential customers :-)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/mindat/posts/10158124524922465/
(link normalized by FMF)

[James Catmur]

Sadly this is a private FB group, so we cannot check out and normalize the link. An Admin who is member of the group might be able to.

[Riccardo Modanesi]

Hi to everybody!
I think the best channel of creating a poll or a group is Linkedin. what about you?
Greetings from Italy by Riccardo.

[Bergur_E_Sigurdarson]

My poll on Mindat FB page got a decent amount of participation.

I must admit I'm a little bit surprised that not more people are members of that group from here and amongst collectors in general.
(I didn't realize it was a "private group" when I created it, but understand why it was made into one, to avoid spam)

As it's a "community" page .... I thought it was a page for the mineral collector community, even more so than just the community adding to the Mindat.org page

I hope that all those that are on FB will join the page, as I think it's important, and the FB community is one of all collectors (and vendors and all interested)

This addition to my original post isn't as much to get more participation in the poll... tho appreciated.
I just can't really imagine being the collector I am, without having Mindat as a resource... it is about as important as this forum to me.
....I hope that Mindat prospers, both as a page on it's own... as much as a community of collectors, contributors and vendors... everyone involved in this amazing hobby.

This also means for me, that if one indeed is on FB, why not be a member of the comminity page there!

I sure hope the link of my original post can be normalized, not jsut so people can express themselves in the poll... but more so... that the community can be even greater... helping people, making it easier to ask about how to add to Mindat and expanding it, just like we add and expand to FMF
....a joy and a treasure we have here from Jordi, Mindat is at least as important, and as far as I can tell, we have Jolyon to thank for it... as well as many others!

No matter anyones mineral collecting focus... let us unite ... here and on Mindat :-)

[silvia]

Terms I find amusing to say the least are those some people ascribe to minerals from the Milpillas mine. You know the ones ‘this pocket’ or ‘that pocket’ when according to Penoles (private communications with my partner) no such pockets ever existed because collecting was not allowed and offenders when caught were dealt with severely.

I enjoy collecting Milpillas minerals whatever the source of the specimen – I do not moralize - but I find the terms some vendors use to describe the origin of the specimens to be ridiculous. They are marketing labels akin to those the Tobacco industry applied to their products when they could advertise their garbage on TV or in the print media.

I enjoy the odd joke or two, and I do enjoy the art of conversation, but we are scientists and should behave as such when describing minerals and their sources.

[James Catmur]

I am a member of Mindat and an FMF admin, it is the FB I do not really use much. I have an FB account and I do go on a few times a year to manage a group or every few years to run paid adverts for them as I set that capability up for the group about 5 years ago and no one else wants to take it over.

I have recently been exiting lots of FB groups I joined, so as to cut down all the junk I get the few times a year that I do log in. If you want me to normalize the link I would have to join the Mindat group, check the link, normalize it then leave the Mindat group. Any non-FB-Mindat group FMFers, like me, would not be able to vote.

Maybe the best thing is to explain to FB Mindat Group members how to vote in your poll?

[James Catmur]

I have finally been admitted so here it is.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/mindat/posts/10158124524922465/
(link normalized by FMF)