Philatelic Foundation Database And Submission Research

I have never understood the problem with the wording. The cert says that the item was submitted as X, and it is either genuine, or it is not X but Y. Where is the problem, it is plain English.

Garbage in = garbage out
The submitter's guess at an ID is irrelevant to the final determination and should not be part of the title line on the certificate nor the basic search results.
The failure of the search to return a clean list of genuine 613's should be easy proof of the need for improvement.



and I never use emojis

I don't agree. Knowing what the item was submitted as can be very relevant to some users. Just because you only want to find genuine 613's does not mean everyone does. I agree that it would be much better if one could search that way when they want to, but that should not be the only way to search. For the interested student, much can be learned by observing the mistakes by others.

You seem determined to support the PF certificates and database regardless of the flaws pointed out by several responders. The most important data field for the vast majority of collectors/researchers is a clean field of "Actual ID", then yes, it would be useful to have an additional field for "submitted as" in order to quickly determine the most common ID errors/guesses made by submitters. Yes, looking at the data backwards and forwards can yield interesting views.

The database lacks this capability short of a lot of detailed reading item by item, which is not a very efficient way to answer the most basic questions efficiently. How many 613's have been certified as genuine? What is the most common stamp mis-submitted as a 613?

At some point we may have to agree to disagree and let the certificate wording and database results speak for themselves.

I agree there are flaws. What bothers me is that all I ever see here are complaints. It's old, everyone knows that. If you want to help change it, then write a new program or make a donation to help do so. I don't know who wrote this program, or when, or who has the rights to it. I suggested the person to get in touch with to find out and see what possible changes can be made.

But. But. But. There's not a lot you can learn from the PF image database for 613s. The image quality is all over the place so even the paper color cast of a rotary print stamp might not show clearly.

There are plenty of examples of 'critics' and 'defenders' or the various philatelic organizations here in SCF, at shows, at club meetings, etc. For example, I assume that we have all seen folks who will either defend or be critical of the APS regardless of the topic or the issue at hand.

While some might be fairly predictable, I have often seen valid points being made from all types (critics, defenders, neutral) of posters.

I also think that seeing criticisms without suggestions of improvement can be frustrating. But do not agree that someone has to either volunteer or donate money to make their post valid or helpful. Feedback, even those without improvement suggestions, can be useful to organizations and the hobby in general.
Don

The image quality depends a great deal on what one is using to view it. Expecting to see paper color cast on scans is iffy at best anyway. I have done many thousands of scans of philatelic items of all kinds, and even a very good scan is never equal to seeing the real item.

Of course it can, but this particular issue always seems to bring out a lot of "look how horrible this is, why can't they do something to make it right" Right being in the eyes of the beholder, of course.

The PF's search page layout reminds me very much of Siegel's Power Search page. In Siegel's case if you enter a catalog number you actually get a page of that catalog number's results.

IF I were the PF, with nonprofit status, I would add a donation option to each submission form with funds going to improve the database functionality. "Check This Box to Donate "X"" type of thing. OR institute a visible or hidden technology surcharge to fund improvements. OR take people up on their offers to help.

the PF data base up to a certain certificate number was done by scanning the photographed duplicate records.
as for the wording on the certs I see no reason to change it. it serves to help protect the PF from possible problems.
if a new program were to be developed changes in the search functions along with any other valid issues could be addressed.
as stated the current Executive Director is Larry Lyons and any offers to help or suggestions should be directed to him.

And how so?

the people at the PF are not allowed to make any changes or corrections to the submittal forms. they get a large number of mis-identified ( usually as rare) common items from people who think they hit the jackpot. the cert and wording makes it clear that the item is not what they thought.

In the interest of full transparency to the discussion, may I request that people share any connections they have to the PF. I'll start. I have no PF connections except for obtaining 1 PF cert many decades ago.

Secondly,


Nor should they make changes, but that is what "for office use" boxes are for, etc. What a submitter "thought" their stamp was should have little connection to the wording on the final certificate. I see absolutely no reason why the ACTUAL ID should not appear in the first line of the certificate to provide clear and direct communication, THEN mention "submitted as #xxx" in the comments. This would also then correspond directly with logical database fields of "Actual ID" and "submitted as".

Would you expect to get an electric bill with a total amount due at the top, then go down to the fine print and see a different amount? Also, I don't see this in the coin, currency, baseball card, or comic book world. Items are always ID'd for what they are.

If one were designing this process from scratch it would never be rolled-out the way it is now. Somehow if the amount of resistance to change were put into change we'd be half way there!

i have said all that I am going to about this......... the current Executive Director is Larry Lyons and any offers to help or suggestions should be directed to him.