Internet at last.

News: Registration is free here at the CPMF!

Thanks goodness the president of CPMS is talking about Internet. (read BWJM's posting in London Show)

good work, Mr. President !
Good Work, Brent !

hi, Brent,
    should we send you list of what we want for christmas ?

lol - As long as what you want for Christmas is in direct relation to what you would like to see as part of the CPMS website, then by all means, I fully welcome all suggestions. You may post them here.

To give you folks a bit of a teaser, here are a couple things being considered:
- Wiki site forming (eventually, and with the help of many members) a giant Canadian Paper Money Encyclopaedia
- All note registries included in the Wiki site (H/L lists remain separate, and not under the CPMS umbrella)
- List of CPMS executive members, and all past presidents
- Old newsletters and/or Journals available in PDF format through the website
- New newsletters and/or Journals available in PDF format by email, to be posted to the website after a time-delay
- Links to other numismatic-related websites including CNA, CTCCC, CPMF, Money Museum, Torex, Trajan, RCM, BoC, BEP, etc.

Please note that all of this is still in the early planning stages. Nothing has received approval by the CPMS executive. It will be presented to the Executive at the CNA convention in July, at which point it will either be killed, modified or approved. Your comments now and suggestions for improvement will help greatly, because it will help prove the will of the CPMS members, or at least some of those who are online already.

The CPMS has a lot of members who would benefit from a website, and a lot who would not. Many members are strictly not on the Internet, and so, would probably not even support a dime of their dues funding a website. Something that the CPMS has to keep in mind is where its new members are going to come from. The answer is the Internet, whether everyone likes it or not. The website will not only be a resource for our existing members, but it will be a valuable recruitment tool for attracting new members.

wonderful stuff.
 i am sure many of us would be too happy to help.

what's new ?   RIP ?

Well, in terms of contributions from other members, it certainly did RIP... However...

I did attend the CPMS executive meeting in July at the CNA, and I did present to them a proposal for a website. The proposal included much of what I mentioned above, however, newsletters were dealt with as a separate issue as well.

The proposal was approved. The CPMS has registered several domain names and I have created a skeleton of a website for them. As it is not yet complete enough to be launched, I must keep it under wraps for the time being. The website as it is contains all the information from the old site, but with a new layout, organization, etc. The next enhancements will be the CPMS Paper Money Encyclopedia, and a protected members-only area for newsletters.

Newsletters, as I said, were also dealt with separately. First of all, creating PDF copies of the newsletter presents a challenge to the distribution of the newsletter, and the integrity of it being a membership benefit, as digital copies can easily be reproduced and sent all over the Internet without having to be a member of the CPMS. I am working on a deterrent for this sort of activity which involves digitally signing each page of each newletter PDF file with identifying details of who downloaded it and when from the CPMS website. Therefore, if a rogue file turns up somewhere, it can be traced back to the member who originally downloaded it, and is thus responsible for the leak. What happens at that point is up to the CPMS executive. So, that's the security of the newsletter files. It was proposed that they be made available to members on the CPMS website, but also by email on an opt-in basis, with the paper version being the default option unless you select email. This proposal was also approved and research will be done into figuring out how to make it work, etc. If all goes well, it should be an option for members at the beginning of 2007.

I NEED YOUR HELP! The CPMS Paper Money Encyclopedia will require a lot of work and a lot of contributions from a lot of people. If you want to help now and contribute articles, let me know. Until the CPMS Wiki site is operational, I will be adding the information to the BWJM Wiki site. Later, the content will be split, with H/L stuff remaining where it is, and the encyclopedia stuff moving over to the CPMS site. If you want to help contribute, let me know and I'll set you up with an editing account.

Thanks!

Hi, Brent
     Thanks for prompt response.
     Now, if you could put up a list of stuff / projects you need contributions, then may be some of us could start working on them, individually or collectively. in short,  what do you need ?

cheers

Brent

Speaking of ONLINE Paper Money INFO:

Just want to congratulate you on a wonderful job with the Paper Money Museum site.  The pics, anecdotes, and categories are  great!  Excellent contributions too.  If you'd like some more let me know...and let me know what kind of help you need for the Wiki and CPMS newsletters....

Thanks
(on behalf of many of us who appreciate your great work!)

James

Well, right now, Paul Wallis is working on migrating much of the content of this site (not the forums, but the main cdnpapermoney.com site) into the existing Wiki site. Once the CPMS wiki site is launched, the encyclopedia information will be migrated over, leaving behind the H/L lists, etc.

Volunteers can help by writing historical articles about various chartered banks, compiling a page about the Bank of Canada itself, articles about various "quirks" in banknote history such as the AUG-AUN changeover, etc, something perhaps about insert notes, replacement notes, single-sheet asterisk notes, you name it. The key thing is that content must be factual, not speculative. Remember that the premise behind this wiki site is to be an encyclopedia, not a discussion board.

Then, go around the rest of the site and inter-link the pages. So, if you're doing an article about replacement notes for example, look through the entire site, and where appropriate, add links to the new page. Look at the Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org) site for more information about how articles get linked together, rough ideas as to how to form an article, etc.

Anyone interested in being a volunteer contributor can contact me to get an account set up.