User talk:Richard Kleer

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Welcome at Marteau

The next step into the Marteau World: the discussion page to be used for all communications with the wiki. I have just adapted the "Main Page" (link to the left, or click the logo) so that one can get faster to the Economic History pages. Hope this will bring the pages closer to the surface... criticism and ideas are most welcome. PS. if you want to sign contributions on discussion pages ~~~~ will automatically generate your name, date and link to your user-page at Marteau. --Olaf Simons 19:42, 16 March 2006 (CET)

Better Structure


Hi Olaf,

In reply to your earlier question, the page I was trying to find, and found it difficult to get to from the main page of pierre-marteau.com, was simply the British monetary history page that I edited earlier today. Looking at that main page, one sees a reference to a "currency converter". Now first off, few people will know what that term means. But even if they do, they wouldn't at all expect to find, under that title, a discussion of eighteenth-century monetary politics (especially since that subject is buried still further under the links "A platform of research in economic history" (a title that won't mean much to many people) and then under that to "Coins and currencies" (which advertises nothing about monetary politics)).

My suggestion, and of course it is nothing more than a suggestion, is that on the main page of pierre-marteau.com you replace the reference to the currency converter with a title something like: "Eighteenth-century monetary systems". Then on the main page for that part of the website (which is currently the currency converter home page), you add to the series of links on the left hand side items like: 1. Monetary politics; 2. Mint/coinage histories; 3. Currency converter; 4. Weights and measures; and so on.

If you followed this plan, you might think at some point about splitting up pages like the one on British monetary history into two parts, one going under monetary politics and dealing with events like the recoinage of 1696, and the rest (which is really just a long list of the weights and values of various English coins) under mint/coinage histories.

This kind of reorganization would make it easier, I think, for many users to understand what your site has to offer them. The currency converter is a valuable tool, but conceptually it is just one aspect of a much larger project you've implicitly undertaken; to make it the front door for that larger project is, in my estimation, a disservice to your website.

Thanks for the instructions on how to add a section. I've gone in and added some biographical details about myself, as you suggested.

The section on Virtual London is a great idea. I will keep its existence in mind and and give some thought to what could be said under the financial services section. You should also add there, by the way, a page for goldsmiths. I know of one scholar who would have a lot to say under that heading. And of course one should also add a section on the Bank of England, to which I could contribute a few things myself. A section on the South Sea Company might also be worthwhile and there again I would have some things to contribute. I know relatively little about the Mint and stock markets, but am beginning to learn a few things in the latter area.

Rick

OK, a couple of hours later as this was good advice...
  • I have re-designed the The Marteau Early 18th-Century Currency Converter page - it does now give links into important sections, and it offers a short editorial for first good links into the site. Whether it is good to offer a website on Economic History under the peculiar page of a currency converter? Probably not, yet this is Google's no.1 on the question [money and 18th century]. People who got here told me that they suddenly understood how sums were created (with monetary units and coins), and how one could culculate in these odd systems. So may be the tools have simply an educational value we were not thinking of when we designed them, they also teach you that money circulated all over the globe. We have Dutch coins in Persia and Japan loosing its silver to the world, and we have Newton thinking about English silver finally ending in China. Ma be the tools serve as an eye opener. I confess they are otherwise a strange cover for an economic history site.
  • The Main Page has now got a direct link into to the economic history section,
  • If you split the article you revised into the two parts you wanted to have, you can open the the new article on British monetary politics by visiting the red link at Monetary Politics. I will think of a design to make a difference betwee these pages lateron.
  • At Virtual London I have now opened a section for the Bank of England and for Goldsmiths (click the red links and the editing will begin). I do not know the specialist who might find it interesting to offer information on goldsmiths, but I'll be quick to give him a password. Tell him to contact me and I will assist him with all first steps.
If this has gone into the direction you were thinking of, tell me where we can still improve it - and do not hesitate to change things and thus to experiment with the whole structure; I would rather be a user of this site than a general editor since this was mostly created to help myself, the poor book historian doing research in the British, Dutch and German bookmarkets, best --Olaf Simons 22:44, 16 March 2006 (CET)