E4 Proposal - Split the Forums into 2 Sub-Forums

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TL;DR below in bold at the end. Warning: Wall of Text ahead.

With the ongoing rise in popularity Pokemon cards have garnered just this past year, nevermind these actual last few months, we’ve also seen an increasing amount of people begin to invest in Pokemon. From Poketubers popping up almost on a monthly basis to the increasing amount of Market specific threads - it seems that the hobby is gaining a lot of focus on the market and investment. Discussion has run so rampant that an entire thread had to be made and it has developed over 75 pages of dialogue SINCE MAY OF THIS YEAR. 75 pages in less than 5 months - no other thread has received that much rampant growth or attention in the years I’ve been a member. Or at least none that I can recall.

Using the “New Topics” feature that I presume most of us use to see what’s on the daily, it’s easy to find discussion on prices, the market, and questions related to them - meanwhile specific threads towards collections, history of the TCG, etc, are often lost in the mix. Thankfully this isn’t always the case on a day-by-day basis, but many people have mentioned feeling burnt out by the hobby and how the attention seems to have shifted from collecting specifically, to making a profit and having the hobby reduced to a numbers game.

Over the past several months, through discussion here but mostly on discord especially, many members including myself have felt that the growing trend of Market/Investing/Money talks has taken away the focus of the forums from a collections-based hobby, to a money-making hobby. I know that, as collectors, discussion of the market and prices is inevitable as it is inherent in the hobby itself. However, for many of us who don’t have a financial stake in Pokemon collecting or are just worried about our next acquisition, we don’t care to be bombarded with the constant noise and conversation about “the Market”.

However, let me emphasize this: At the heart of market and investing threads, I believe there is a vital core that is still focused on collecting. There is nothing wrong with market threads or discussion on investing. As it is, it is a natural consequence to the growing interest of the hobby and I do not wish for these conversations to stop. They have every right to be a part of this forum as any other thread. We are all collectors at the end of the day and it is likely that very few of us are in it ONLY for the money.

At the same time, I cannot ignore the growing frustration that I and others feel towards seeing these discussions constantly. It is difficult to NOT feel like what matters more to E4 is the money, when it’s all about the hobby itself. The forum as a whole feels remarkably more different than it did a few years ago. At the same time, I imagine that it is probably exhausting for those interested in the market and investing threads to be accused of not caring as much about the hobby when they in fact care about it deeply.

Let me get to my point:

I think both market and investing topics have a place in E4. E4, as a collectors community, should welcome these kinds of conversations. However, in order to make the populace more pleased on both ends, I believe we can provide a solution, though one I do not have the ability to change directly. This is merely a proposal and I understand that the ability to meet that proposal might be of more difficulty than I even know. I am not a graphic designer nor a web page designer, but I hope we consider this proposal nevertheless.

**I believe that in order for E4 to continue in a positive direction, we should split the forums into two sub-forums:

  • The Market Forum

  • The Collections Forum**

The Market Forum would consist of buy/trade threads, market discussion, investment, prices, price checks, growing trends of the market, and questions related to all of the above.

The Collections Forum would consist of collection threads, knowledge of the TCG and related sub categories, set release information, card/art appreciation, acquisitions, etc.

The other misc categories including the rules, introduction threads, and non-Pokemon specific threads can be left to the main forum as an aside.

In order for this to work, the “New Topics” button should also be split into these two sections OR have it so that each Sub Forum has their own “New Topics” button.

What would this effectively change? Honestly, I believe a lot.

I think this change would appease both groups depending on where people’s focuses were. It can be daunting to find a thread you were just in and then look up New Topics and see it moved to the 3rd, 4th, or 5th page. Splitting these two would make that problem less likely to occur.

It would also help fine-tune the focus and attention of each side. Marketers enjoy the ease of going through Market related threads while the rest enjoy the ease of looking up collection based discussions. No one sees a flood of either. No one has to bump heads. And we can both admit there’s a place for both.

Essentially what it changes is how the forums are perceived. I do not believe we’ve stopped caring about collecting nor do I believe our love of the hobby has diminished. I just think that, when money is concerned, conversation towards it blows up much more and is more likely to be in other people’s faces. This would dramatically decrease those odds and maybe invigorate more people to join the hobby - especially if they’re new and especially if they are starting small.

But I digress. What are your thoughts?
I know what I propose wouldn’t be necessarily easy and there would be of course changes and adaptations to consider. This is not a cut and dry proposal - there is room for discussion on the kinds of changes people would like to see.

TL;DR - Considering the ever growing expanse of market/invest/price discussion threads and collection based threads getting lost in the mix, I propose that the forums are split into two sub-forums - The Market Forum & the Collections Forum. This way, those who are interested in either can use the “New Topics” feature to see threads related there. Market people don’t have to combat with people who accuse them of reducing the hobby to a numbers game and Collections people can access hobby related threads without the risk of feeling burnt out on the forum. It should be emphasized that market/investment topics are still part of the hobby and have every right to be in the hobby and burn out towards these topics is completely understandable when you do not have a financial stake in that side of the hobby. This is a proposal garnered towards sharing a conversation to see if we want to consider this proposal seriously WITH the understanding that such changes might be very difficult to make.

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“Where are the collectors at?”

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There isn’t that much market discussion. Out of the most recent 20 threads, only 2 are discussing prices/market:

Naturallly as hobby’s expand and the average collector matures, time/money becomes more paramount. The modern collector enjoys the hobby while understanding the market. They go hand in hand.

Either way you can always create a collecting topic, as the 90% of threads are in the picture above. Otherwise the mods do a great job at consolidating general market discussion into mega threads. We will add more mega threads if necessary; that is the more likely solution.

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i imagine the market forum being the wild, wild west.

in theory it’d be nice, but sometimes “less is more,” to use a famous quote here from modernist thinkers.

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@smpratte, as I mentioned, this can change daily. I should have posted this two days ago when I had originally thought to do so when you would have seen the opposite. You will see this change a lot, but it is not uncommon to see market price conversations flood “New Topics”.

This isn’t about creating more topics - this about being able to sift through conversations easier and navigate the forums in a more digestible way.

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Vegetables represent at least 50% as much conversation as investing does on E4.

These are the stats I’m looking for in my Pokemon communities.

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the forums are really good the way they are. I’ve learned a lot as a lurker

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I like your solution and I also tire of the endless threads pertaining to buying/selling/grading/market but I think the problem lies in the New Topics button itself and not with the design of the forum. It’s already split up into sections for exactly what you’re describing.

I think an easier solution would be to have the ability to filter the New Topics button by threads relating to collections and art appreciation or price tracking and market related topics.

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I don’t know if that’s really a good data point to go from because that data only goes back less than 2 hours. What you’re saying is essentially “in the past 2 hours only 2 threads have been made discussing prices/market”.

My response to that would be: only 2?

Another data point to look at would be that at least 25 different threads have been moved into the market mega thread since it was created. There is clearly a desire for people to “Discuss the current price of cards and the market trends” as the tagline for that sub-forum invites, yet a lot of that discussion is being shepherded into one big let’s-not-have-too-many-threads-here thread.

Right now it feels like the market mega thread is where market threads are moved to die. I don’t think that one thread really serves its purpose any more - or if it ever did to begin with. All other mega threads on this forum are structured in a way where people post a thing and move on - they’re not intended for extended discussion which the market mega thread seeks to achieve.

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I agree with @azulryu,
Because it’s so general I rarely even open the general market thread. I’m sure I often miss some cool stuff but you only have so much time. Now if there was no general market thread at all, that would be fine too (since I rarely open it now anyway;) But my preference would be to end it and let people make individual threads.

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I think that there has to be an acceptance of the new place financial conversations have in the collecting world.

This affects all collectibles of all types. 10 years ago, the hobby was still always talking about the most expensive cards. People love that element of the hobby. That doesn’t make the conversation about collecting impure. There is no dichotomy between investing and collecting. They are intricately intertwined. E4 is not experiencing a metamorphosis in purpose. E4 is doing exactly what it always has: meeting the biggest, the best, the brightest, the most dedicated, the most curious, and the sickos that prefer miscut cards where they are at in their collecting journey right now.

Creating a community that doesn’t acknowledge the elephant in the room is never going to be healthy or thrive. E4 remains topical. Anyone can choose to participate only on the topics that they want to participate. People have the freedom to leave for years and come back as life takes them different places. People have the dignity to assert authority and put themselves out there when they know their shit and take a back seat when they don’t both without judgment or consequences for failing.

Every time a conversation comes up where people try to put their finger on the exact difference between a collector and an investor, the thread is filled with 200 people who all identify somewhere unique on the spectrum of investing/collecting. This is the natural diversity within the hobby that we need to learn to embrace. The flipper chad and the “pure” collector are equally annoying archetypes that miss the point. And the reality is that a lot of people aren’t ever even going to be at the same place on the scale. There are days when I’m pouring my wallet out to buy cards I love without a concern and days when I’m jumping on an opportunity to make some money that I see. We have old school icons that have never sold a card and old school icons who have made this their daily job. This boogeyman of the person taking advantage of the hobby to suck it of all of its life doesn’t exist because the barriers to entry of knowledge and reputation severely impede the ability of ignorant people to influence the hobby on a grand scale. And even the few tiny segments that are impacted represent cards so rare that logistical challenges and the luck of when you entered the hobby are a bigger factor in who does and doesn’t obtain the cards.

E4’s growth comes with challenges. The staff feels them first. Increased moderation requirements. A sense of direction that needs to constantly be tended to and reaffirmed. And yeah, the members sometimes are going to have to flip through the new threads a little more to find the content they’re looking for. But all of it seems like a small price to pay when you consider we are winning more than any other segment of the collectibles world. We have unbridled growth, new members every hour, fresh excitement, new things happening, baller products from TPC, and so much more going for us. E4 is benefitting from and reflecting these new circumstances. And I firmly disagree that the response to it is to deconstruct what we have going.

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A pure market subforum could turn into r/wallstreetbets for Pokemon pretty quickly. @fourthstartcg really does a great job putting the smaller market threads into the Giant Market Thread, but maybe there should be more specific Mega threads. Like a ‘price check’ Mega thread or one for ‘what grade would this get’, or a ‘stonks/investing’ one.

The line between monetary stuff and collecting stuff is also often blurred. Like, I actually enjoy seeing when members share what they paid for an item in their collection threads. But at the same time I absolutely see your point @azulryu, I’d also rather if it was more about passion than money. For that reason I tend to avoid stonk threads and instead engage in artwork stuff and other more fun threads :blush:

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I agree that it is annoying how many discussions just revolve around prices/investments/flippers, but it would be hard to separate the two. Even the real collectors are going to talk about condition and ultimately prices on the regular.

But yes, it is super frustrating to constantly read about people buying just for investments or to flip the cards later for a higher price, probably to another flipper lol. But people are free to do what they want so not much we can do about it other than hope they get bored and move on eventually.

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I think the site functions well as is. I agree with @muk whereby if you encourage ‘market talk’ too much you risk entering cringe territory, there are already one or two folks who are clearly obsessed with talking about money and the value of their cards - they don’t need encouraging :wink: - not that I don’t really enjoy reading a lot of the market threads right now, I just think sometimes less is more. I tend to talk about that stuff frequently with a couple of friends privately and that’s how I prefer it (most of the time).

If it aint broke…

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You could argue though that a few months ago it wasn’t broke but got changed anyway;)

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Oh no, Mummy and Daddy are using me as a proxy in their fighting again :sob:

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Hasn’t fourthstartcg and other mods been moving market threads into the giant market thread. Without the movement of these posts you would see a lot of threads about market popping up.

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I think it’s perfectly fine how it is right now. If you don’t want to see market threads then just go Home > General/just a question/collection additions/articles & resources etc or whatever you want to see instead of using new topics button. I think collectors and investors are much too intertwined to split them in half without moderately annoying consequences at best

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I think the mods did a great job with the giant market thread. It was something people requested and serves its purpose in that I don’t have to read “will X go up or down?” ten times a day.

To improve the giant threads, one recommendation I have is an automated “welcome message” to new members that besides general rules goes over where to post market commentary instead of creating a new thread.

For new topics, you can add a string to the URL and save it to filter out sub-forums, but it became annoying to have to use it every time for me. Unfortunately pro boards does not allow the option to personally filter threads.

While I relate that the market talk can get overwhelming and frustrating, I strongly agree with Charlie that it has always been there. The key difference between e4 and older forums is stricter topic limits. If you were on PokeGym a decade ago, people were still discussing the market (though obviously in a different way, but constant noise about the price of Luxray GL Lv X going up or down is equally annoying). But the controversial / lightning rod threads got the most attention so the price threads were less noticeable. Instead of a dozen pages arguing over investments you’d get a dozen pages arguing over a new bill passed by the House of Representatives.

I love the collection posts but the replies will naturally be more along the lines of “awesome job!” And not debatable. If e4 loosened the rules on off-topic news you’d have far more distracting threads that people jump on. I’m already politically drained, I don’t want to feel obligated commenting on “H.R. ### Our honorable president’s New Cap and Trade Bill – Thoughts?” (Yes that is a genuine title I remember wasting hours over on PokeGym).

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