We have duplicate categories for French Antarctic Territories as follows:

Stamps > Europe > France (Colonies and DOM-TOM) > TAAF
Stamps > Topics > Polar Philately > TAAF

I have tried unsuccessfully to argue for Antarctic territories to be placed within the countries concerned (Britain, Australia, New Zealand, France) but you have decided to keep them together under Topics

If this is to remain the case can I ask that the category under France (Colonies) is removed and the items therein moved to Topics, thus providing consistency of categories for Antarctic territories, or better still agree to my original suggestion and close the Polar Philately category and move items to new categories under their respective countries - where many sellers and buyers expect to find such material anyway, according to much of the feedback I have received

I very much agree with this - my buyers predominantly search for material under the country / territory and not under topics, and if they can't find it there, they don't go looking elsewhere e.g. I have listings of Falkland Islands under that territory name and customers have asked me if I don;t have any British Antarctic Territory which I do under a topical listing as there is nothing else. Few buyers see any sense in this so PLEASE note the concerns and amend the category listings!

We have duplicate categories for French Antarctic Territories as follows:

Stamps > Europe > France (Colonies and DOM-TOM) > TAAF
Stamps > Topics > Polar Philately > TAAF

I have tried unsuccessfully to argue for Antarctic territories to be placed within the countries concerned (Britain, Australia, New Zealand, France) but you have decided to keep them together under Topics

If this is to remain the case can I ask that the category under France (Colonies) is removed and the items therein moved to Topics, thus providing consistency of categories for Antarctic territories, or better still agree to my original suggestion and close the Polar Philately category and move items to new categories under their respective countries - where many sellers and buyers expect to find such material anyway, according to much of the feedback I have received

Yes...in full agreement, Very few of my buyers search by topic so my "polar" material just languishes unsold.

Has anyone the remotest idea why the French base is treated differently to the others? Is there any significance in TAAF having 2 categories eg dates etc.....if not, surely the moderator concerned should just close one of them down.......

I suspect the answer to this lies in the fact that the site is based in Belgium with the colonies / DOM/TOM of its close neighbour playing a major part in the initial setting up of the categories, of which TAAF was one, the topical listings probably coming later.

What is needed is a heading under philately alongside the other 'major area' listings - Africa, Asia, America, Europe & Oceania, of Antarctica, which can then be sub-divided into British (BAT, S. Georgia & Sandwich Is. etc), TAAF, Australian Antarctic, New Zealand Ross Dependency, Norway, Argentina and whatever other countries have territorial claims / issue stamps for their Antarctic interests.

As Emmerspace says, other material 'languishes' in topical areas - I'm currently in the process of moving much of my previously/currently topically listed material to the relevant country, unless I have duplicates, as recent reviews of my sales reveal a considerable move in favour of buying from country rather than topical listings.

Other auction websites list by country and as I know many Delcampe buyers are also registered on other sites such as eBay where searching by country is the norm, then this is surely the way to go, for everyone involved - buyers who can easily find what they are looking for, sellers, who, hopefully like me, get more slaes, and Delcampe who get more fees!

Yes, you are probably right re reason for TAAF categories.

When I first started listing polar philately, I listed under the country (Australia). It had not occurred to me that the "correct" place was under Topics....and probably does not occur to anyone else either.

However, an eagle-eyed moderator moved them to "Topics"......and I had thought that the moderators were busy doing sensible things...... I will move them back again this weekend & if the moderator moves them again, I'll just move them back or sell them on EB (who, as you say, have proper categories for these issues)

As I implicitly said before, to list in a category that we know few people look at is ridiculous....my "visit" rate on fixed price "topics" polar listings since last August are about 15% of normal....

We have duplicate categories for French Antarctic Territories as follows:

Stamps > Europe > France (Colonies and DOM-TOM) > TAAF
Stamps > Topics > Polar Philately > TAAF

I have tried unsuccessfully to argue for Antarctic territories to be placed within the countries concerned (Britain, Australia, New Zealand, France) but you have decided to keep them together under Topics

If this is to remain the case can I ask that the category under France (Colonies) is removed and the items therein moved to Topics, thus providing consistency of categories for Antarctic territories, or better still agree to my original suggestion and close the Polar Philately category and move items to new categories under their respective countries - where many sellers and buyers expect to find such material anyway, according to much of the feedback I have received

The problem with putting TAAF in the France( Colonies & DOM-TOM ) category, is that the large amount of material on offer for TAAF ( particularly modern mint ) actually tends to swamp the whole French Colonies section at times.

A much better solution would be to split the France( Colonies & DOM-TOM ) category into 2 new smaller categories of France( Colonies ) and France(DOM-TOM ).

TAAF could then be appropriately placed into France( DOM-TOM ) along with modern material from the other territories ( New Caledonia, Polynesia, St. Pierre, Wallis etc. ).

Addionally, French Andorra, which although listed by Yvert in the Dom-Tom catalogue, is currently out on its own as a separate sub-category under Andorra, and, for the sake of consistency, should clearly be in with the other Dom-Toms. Spanish Andorra could then be listed under Spanish territories and the whole Andorra heading dispensed with.

Yes ok for TAAF.as I understand that the vast majority of the territory (except, perhaps Adelie Land and the Madagascar disputed islands) are actually a "DOM" even though there is no permanent population in any of the lands.

Andorra is a country that just happens to be administered jointly by France and Spain (not separately). I think that this joint-rule country status has existed for over 700 years - it also has a permanent population of, I think, a little under 100,000. Andorra is also an independent member of the UN & the Council of Europe.

Andorra is not a French DOM or TOM neither is a Spanish territory and has its own parliament. I believe that the official language is still Catalan but might be wrong there

Is it therefore right to "dispense with" this small country for philatelic convenience? There are other countries in Europe that are even smaller......

Yes ok for TAAF.as I understand that the vast majority of the territory (except, perhaps Adelie Land and the Madagascar disputed islands) are actually a "DOM" even though there is no permanent population in any of the lands.

Andorra is a country that just happens to be administered jointly by France and Spain (not separately). I think that this joint-rule country status has existed for over 700 years - it also has a permanent population of, I think, a little under 100,000. Andorra is also an independent member of the UN & the Council of Europe.

Andorra is not a French DOM or TOM neither is a Spanish territory and has its own parliament. I believe that the official language is still Catalan but might be wrong there

Is it therefore right to "dispense with" this small country for philatelic convenience? There are other countries in Europe that are even smaller......

Yes ok for TAAF.as I understand that the vast majority of the territory (except, perhaps Adelie Land and the Madagascar disputed islands) are actually a "DOM" even though there is no permanent population in any of the lands.

Andorra is a country that just happens to be administered jointly by France and Spain (not separately). I think that this joint-rule country status has existed for over 700 years - it also has a permanent population of, I think, a little under 100,000. Andorra is also an independent member of the UN & the Council of Europe.

Andorra is not a French DOM or TOM neither is a Spanish territory and has its own parliament. I believe that the official language is still Catalan but might be wrong there

Is it therefore right to "dispense with" this small country for philatelic convenience? There are other countries in Europe that are even smaller......

Andorra should stay in its own right

Another one which springs to mind is New Hebrides - administered jointly by Britain and France

Believe me, I imply no slight to Andorra as a country or its people! I merely suggest that, philatelically speaking, it does not issue stamps in its own right, its stamps are solely issued either under French or Spanish administration and logically belong under territories asscociated with those countries. This situation is different to those smaller countries that do issue stamps under their own administration - e.g. Luxembourg. I see the division as being about philatelic boundaries, not geographical ones.

We have duplicate categories for French Antarctic Territories as follows:

Stamps > Europe > France (Colonies and DOM-TOM) > TAAF
Stamps > Topics > Polar Philately > TAAF

I have tried unsuccessfully to argue for Antarctic territories to be placed within the countries concerned (Britain, Australia, New Zealand, France) but you have decided to keep them together under Topics

If this is to remain the case can I ask that the category under France (Colonies) is removed and the items therein moved to Topics, thus providing consistency of categories for Antarctic territories, or better still agree to my original suggestion and close the Polar Philately category and move items to new categories under their respective countries - where many sellers and buyers expect to find such material anyway, according to much of the feedback I have received

Hi Sharon,

I have had a think about this problem and now believe I have the answer as we have been looking at this the wrong way. It is basically a question of where the Anchor links in the HTML code actually point to, and whether these access the same subset of data from the database.

The anchor link for "France(Colonies & DOM-TOM)->French Southern Antartic Territories(TAAF)" points to an href which produces a database listing of over 30,000 entries for the category internally labelled as 19756.

Similarly, the link for "Polar Philately,Antartica->TAAF(France)" points to a separate database listing of over 6,000 entries for the category internally labelled as 8461.

What is needed is for all those entries in the database, tagged as belonging to category 8461, to be updated to tag reference 19756. This would then mean that all TAAF items belonged internally to the same category - which would be of the order of some 36,000+ items. This would be achieved by a simple SQL statement which the technical staff can easily perform.

The second step is to change the anchor reference in the Polar Philately section to reference the same as that of the France(Colonies)->TAAF anchor, so that both references point to the same subset of the whole database and produce a listing of some 36,000 items in either case.

It does not matter how many references you have on the website to TAAF, providing that the links to them all reference the same internal category and produce the same subset of records from the database. Therefore you could just as easily add an Americas->TAAF tag, which would also work - providing it pointed to the same href reference point in the HTML code.

This general principle can be applied over the whole of the database, wherever you have duplicated listings for categories which are at present producing different subsets of data depending upon which link is activated by the user. Simply update one set of data entries and change the href in the updated link reference and the problem is solved.

Hope this is understandable, if not feel free to contact me.

Makes sense to me and is the same logic I would have applied in my IT days - or does it say more about my state of mind? (And no smart remarks anyone)