EFour elites

[krill]

@matthewevan

Mods-

If you like, you can take this down. It kind of went sideways- and I would like to add that since I posted the original message, several members have reached out to me directly to ask if there was anything they could help me with. That was very nice to see.

I learned a lot here.

1. I am not alone in the way I perceive this board
2. the board owes me nothing. And many people like the forum the way it is-with a real “expert level” membership that doesn’t need to interactive with the levels below them;
3. there is a level of worship for some of the members that really does divide this forum. Some find that warranted and the other half cringe at it.
4. there are many helpful people here
5. there are many smart people here
6. there are several salty people here
7. I think I am gonna hang around for a while and try to learn enough that you guys think I am adding something to the forum.

This thread got more of a response than I thought it would- so thanks for Chiming in everyone.
I will work on changing my profile pic

I don’t think I’d agree with number 2. There isn’t some elitism where members hate new members or uniformed members. Most people here are glad to inform and help people. The issue is putting things on the forum that can be very easily learned and figured out with a google search. Instead of a thread like “whats my collection worth” with some blurry pictures, instead ask “what would be good methods for determing the value of my collection?” I truly find this forum to be very open and welcoming in general so I disagree with number 2 entirely.

Also not sure who youre referring to in regards to the ‘worship of some members’. Only example would be is smpratte but even still I see plenty of people refute him and his opinions openly if they disagree like when the forum was arguing the legitimacy of a non holo charizard base 2 error. Otherwise I don’t notice any worshipping of other members.

[EnlightenedBulbasaur]

@krill

@matthewevan

Mods-

If you like, you can take this down. It kind of went sideways- and I would like to add that since I posted the original message, several members have reached out to me directly to ask if there was anything they could help me with. That was very nice to see.

I learned a lot here.

1. I am not alone in the way I perceive this board
2. the board owes me nothing. And many people like the forum the way it is-with a real “expert level” membership that doesn’t need to interactive with the levels below them;
3. there is a level of worship for some of the members that really does divide this forum. Some find that warranted and the other half cringe at it.
4. there are many helpful people here
5. there are many smart people here
6. there are several salty people here
7. I think I am gonna hang around for a while and try to learn enough that you guys think I am adding something to the forum.

This thread got more of a response than I thought it would- so thanks for Chiming in everyone.
I will work on changing my profile pic

I don’t think I’d agree with number 2. There isn’t some elitism where members hate new members or uniformed members. Most people here are glad to inform and help people. The issue is putting things on the forum that can be very easily learned and figured out with a google search. Instead of a thread like “whats my collection worth” with some blurry pictures, instead ask “what would be good methods for determing the value of my collection?” I truly find this forum to be very open and welcoming in general so I disagree with number 2 entirely.

Also not sure who youre referring to in regards to the ‘worship of some members’. Only example would be is smpratte but even still I see plenty of people refute him and his opinions openly if they disagree like when the forum was arguing the legitimacy of a non holo charizard base 2 error. Otherwise I don’t notice any worshipping of other members.

I agree with this except to say that there is certainly *some* level of worship for certain members in some circles. But generally the way that works is that the “worshipers” are the people who are newer to the hobby and have less well-formed opinions/ideas of their own.

[nuttun]

Okay I was not going to post here because I thought PokemonTrader, enlightenedbulbasaur and fourthstartcg already explained it well enough, but I might as well drop some concrete examples here to really illustrate that members here really do try their best to help others, regardless whether you’re an “old guard” member or a new member.

An example of a question that can be pretty much answered by doing some searching on the forums is this post that have been posted shortly at the writing of this post: www.elitefourum.com/t/grading-questions/30568/1
Yet as you can see, the new user was given very friendly advice almost instantly from other members with a lot of guidance and helpful tips. The response rate is frankly faster than typical customer service in a store. There is nothing wrong with posts like these, and if I was not writing this post and came across this, I would have gladly answered at the best of my ability.

There are definitely times when members don’t really answer a question; that is because they either do not have a perfect answer or you’re just asking for members to do 99% of the work to make a profit for yourself:

1. Example of when I saw pokecollectoramy’s post and I really wanted to help, but I do not have any information that I can help with (I felt super bad for this one!): www.elitefourum.com/t/price-check-xy176-champions-festival-worlds-16-staff/30380/1

2. Example of a post that I feel that more effort should be done in researching before asking a question (nothing against the poster!):
   www.elitefourum.com/t/price-check-on-this-collection-please-help/30124/1
   People would not be really willing to help you out if you do not help yourself first.

Thing is, if you spend enough time on the forums researching and understanding what piece of information you’re missing, members really do try the best of their ability to answer you, ESPECIALLY the older members I find. You would also know who to contact because specific members are good at specific niches and they would almost always be happy to help. For example, when I was stumped with the authenticity of my Zorua illustrator cards (https://efour.proboards.com/thread/19944/zorua-illustrator-back-supposed-glossy), I knew from reading and researching other posts that PichuFan is really knowledgeable in Japanese illustrator cards, so I specifically tagged him and he helped me out immediately. If I wanted specific Yugioh card discussions, I know that I can ask Dragonwarrior for his opinion because we collected card in approximately the same era.

New members need to know that to answer a question seriously takes a ton of time, and not everyone has that luxury. That’s why it’s really best to do a lot of research before asking questions; I genuinely feel bad when I have to ask a question to other members because I know it takes time to construct a detailed answer. I recently asked qwachansey a pretty specific question through messages, and he gave me an extremely detailed answer that took probably 20+ minutes to write down. However, without his help, the information was simply not out there; I genuinely needed some guidance for information that did not exist on the forums. Now imagine if all new members expect detailed answers from all the “old guard” when it can be easily researched…they will simply have no time to do anything else. Things are probably even busier for our moderators and admins with more and more new members…I’m sure as I am writing this right now Churlocker is preparing all the PSA submissions that everyone has submitted through Ludkins.

It’s completely fair to be worried with an expensive purchase and asking for guidance. It’s also really fair to have your own opinion about a subject matter. However, if the information is already available in the forums, or if it’s speculation, expect some friction with other members (or less replies) because we either saw the thread/post hundreds of times, and we all have our own different opinions.

Is the forums perfect? Definitely not, there has been times when I really disagreed with an opinion of someone else, or when I feel like someone is unjustifiably crucified for having their own personal opinion. However, I find the majority of the time, members really do try their best to help everyone out.

[mossdeep]

i will admit, i worship @pkmnflyingmaster. i keep a shrine of him next to my bed.

[cullers]

Can I have examples of what people are complaining about? I have no clue what’s being discussed on this and it comes up every now and again.

[papafrankgod]

@cullers

Can I have examples of what people are complaining about? I have no clue what’s being discussed on this and it comes up every now and again.

Im new and you dont want to give grades and price to all this old bulk I found in my basement Y U SO RUDE

[pokecollectoramy]

how did this thread get a little anchor that says “this thread is falling” next to it lol

[matthewevan]

I like the anchor. I must have done something good.

[pfm]

The anchor is from a new moderator playing around with his newfound powers. Apparently this moderator didn’t know the average user could also see the anchor.

It’s supposed to prevent threads from being bumped on the new topics even when people post in it. I think it’s sometimes preferable to a hard lock. I wanted to give it a test spin and since this thread basically ran its course it was a prime candidate

[milhouse]

[brendantheclayboy]

@pkmnflyingmaster

[thatblastoiseguy]

@matthewevan

A sour grapes rant

New members aren’t really welcomed here…

@matthewevan, I mostly do a lot of observing in general, and I can understand how you feel for sure. Look out for posts in the giant threads that go against the majority consensus - what happens typically to the poster?

What I’d like to add is that, just like any other form of social media, you’ve always got the choice to disengage. I disagree with quite a few of the points raised by some of the old timers here, especially when it comes to price movement and what is valued versus what isn’t, but sometimes it’s better to just absorb what other people are thinking and to decide for yourself whether they are right or whether you are right. Don’t let it ruin your day, and engage with members that you can get along with too.

If you look at market thread for recent posts, you’ll see some debate about 1st edition PSA 10 prices which I find to be… extraordinarily bullish sentiment. I come from an MTG background, and there are 7 PSA 10 Alpha black lotus(s) in existence. A PSA10 Alpha lotus signed by Mr. Rush was sold/traded last year allegedly for USD 900,000 (you can check out Scott’s channel on youtube for more details), and a different signed PSA10 copy went for USD 250,000 this year.

Not a point I’d bring up to invite more attention towards me, but a point that surely proves that 1st edition PSA 10 prices are not as ironclad as people think. Another one - if you go back 10 years into the forum to look about the sentiment about cards like the Daisuki primes, and how they are not valued because the art is reprinted, you’ll probably scratch your head and wonder why the unikarp is so highly valued here when the art was reprinted in the web series.

[pfm]

@brendantheclayboy

@pkmnflyingmaster

[enigma]

@thatblastoiseguy is right. No matter how experienced anyone is in the hobby, they cannot predict with 100% certainty what will happen in the future. Many of us here have disagreed on things that we only BELIEVE will or will not happen, and haven’t been proved yet - our best guesses are only that, guesses.

I remember smpratte’s many videos where he says a modern card should never be worth more than $50 raw and Evolutions was printed into oblivion, so it wasn’t a good buy either. Many members here echoed that sentiment, and buying Evolutions as an “investment” became a meme. Fast forward a few months, and boom, Evolutions turned out to be the best modern set to have invested in, and now everyone and their mother is talking about it and scrambling to get mint holos and reprint Charizards.

This time last year the majority opinion would have told you to put your money elsewhere and not in Evolutions. If you listened to those opinions, you would’ve missed out on the gold mine that Evolutions became. The point? Don’t go with the majority opinion, because at the end of the day it’s only an opinion, no matter how much experience the one making the claims has. Like @thatblastoiseguy says, read and absorb what those more experienced than you have to say. Then apply it to your own knowledge, situation and perception, and see what you come up with turns out to be true. Then pass what you learned and discovered to others. This is the cultivation of knowledge that E4 allows to exist.

[matthewevan]

Great stuff @thatblastoiseguy thank you.

And mods- I guess thanks for the anchor instead of the full delete.

[justinmew]

@enigma

@thatblastoiseguy is right. No matter how experienced anyone is in the hobby, they cannot predict with 100% certainty what will happen in the future. Many of us here have disagreed on things that we only BELIEVE will or will not happen, and haven’t been proved yet - our best guesses are only that, guesses.

I remember smpratte’s many videos where he says a modern card should never be worth more than $50 raw and Evolutions was printed into oblivion, so it wasn’t a good buy either. Many members here echoed that sentiment, and buying Evolutions as an “investment” became a meme. Fast forward a few months, and boom, Evolutions turned out to be the best modern set to have invested in, and now everyone and their mother is talking about it and scrambling to get mint holos and reprint Charizards.

This time last year the majority opinion would have told you to put your money elsewhere and not in Evolutions. If you listened to those opinions, you would’ve missed out on the gold mine that Evolutions became. The point? Don’t go with the majority opinion, because at the end of the day it’s only an opinion, no matter how much experience the one making the claims has. Like @thatblastoiseguy says, read and absorb what those more experienced than you have to say. Then apply it to your own knowledge, situation and perception, and see what you come up with turns out to be true. Then pass what you learned and discovered to others. This is the cultivation of knowledge that E4 allows to exist.

I completely agree. Efour and YouTube can be an echo chamber of popular opinion and of the more prominent voices in the hobby. Sometimes, the experts are wrong and you can only trust your own opinion and research.

One example is a post from 2017 by Gary saying that the cd promos are the “worst Pokémon investment ever.” Who would’ve known that those cards would be so valuable?

[odds]

@matthewevan

@fourthstartcg

@pokemontrader really hit the nail on the head here. I will note that pinned on the General Board is a reminder to be courteous to new members and the moderation team frequently removes posts which are argumentative, condescending, or unhelpful. There are some cases where that isn’t caught, but of course people do tend to look for the exceptions over the norm.

Your post seems to go in multiple different directions. First you seem annoyed that longtime members don’t take very basic questions from new members seriously, so let’s address that.

From the beginning, when E4 was UPCCC, it was never designed to be someone’s first stop in the hobby. E4 was, and still is, the main place for serious collectors. Now, what you define serious collectors as is a fruitless debate in and of itself, but let’s just call it someone who’s sincerely interested in the Pokemon hobby and wants to grow their knowledge base. Now, does that mean E4 can’t evolve and become a different place? No, but I’d be fairly certain the vast majority of members would like E4 to stay the way it has been.

As Michael noted, “how much is this binder I found in my basement worth” and “will this get a PSA 10” or “whatshouldibuy” is not the kind of discussion E4 was designed for. These are things that anyone with a general knowledge base in Pokemon should be able to answer. So when people respond in a less than friendly manner, it is simply because E4 is not the best place to ask these questions, just like I am not going to go to r/pkmntcgdeals to have a nuanced conversation about EX Series artwork styles.

Second, you seem to be annoyed that people are not being friendly to you specifically in debates. I really don’t know what to say to this other than welcome to the internet. The same pinned thread I cited above also notes that spirited debates are welcomed and encouraged. As @hyruleguardian noted, if you are posting exclusively in market-related threads, get ready to have your “hot takes” roasted. You are on a forum with the most experienced collectors in the world with centuries of combined experience. That’s not to toot our own horn, it’s just a fact. If you are looking for more cordial discussion, it’s more than within your power to find it.

I have an idea then- since this thread seems to prove my point.

I am an old man- not tech savvy… and I didn’t even know how to change my profile pic ffs…

EB finds a way to jump on me here too.
Everyone is very defensive.

But the newer folks do mirror my sentiment
Most see it both ways. So how do we get some of that information in the hands of newer folks like myself- while not annoying you all…and at the same time allowing soemeone like me to learn more and become a more contributing member of efour.

My thought? How about something for new folks beyond a welcome thread that gets buried.

How about a new member discussion thread. Where the more experienced members don’t have to go- if questions that are repetitive and mundane or beneath them are frequently asked. Perhaps new members can learn from each other there. A frequently asked new member category with threads that allows new members to learn the stuff that many of you already know.

You guys have been doing this for a while- but the prices are going up… because new blood is coming in. Maybe you build out what you have a little to accommodate those new folks. ( and put it in a place that members who don’t want to be bothered with it/ don’t have to be…).

If I am off base- let me know. But it seems like a pretty easy thing to do.

Hello @matthewevan,

As someone very new to E4 and the online community of Pokémon in general I have found E4 to actually be one of the most welcoming communities. I’ve dived through tons of old threads with great information, so the information is there. I understand the frustration or lack of welcoming that some new members may feel, but that’s the new members seeking a service not a community.

If your objective is to meet new people learn about Pokémon, it’s all here really the amount of excel spreadsheets I’ve been able to take as cookie cutters and utilize for myself has saved me honestly hundreds of hours.

The expectations of new members aren’t reality of what is offered here in my opinion & finally…

Welcome to E4, I hope to see you around remember this is a fairly big community it seems to me you’ve already connected with other new members that’s a win in my book.

vr

odds

[redsky]

I think I’ve seen many people come in lately asking for grade advice that seems to be geared towards their decisions to buy a card or not, not a genuine curiosity about a collected card, more as free advice before a purchase to imagine if they can make some good margin. Same thing with a few people asking pretty basic stuff that is more laziness than genuine lack of knowledge. I think they will learn pretty fast through responses most are not super interested in spending their time answering repetitive questions though it should be done respectfully on both sides.

There has been a large influx of new members that seem to have come straight from ‘investment’ or stonks hype youtube videos which is great in a sense but you’ll mostly encounter 2 types of people here: people that are mostly in it for personal collections that will help with questions or fun discussions but want you to do research and people that do both personal and business type deals who have less than 0 incentive to give you free financial type advice.

With all that said, the forum is pretty nice and the mods have taken several actions to limit some repetitive issues (think of the new reminder rule in the Buy section not to make posts just knocking on prices with no other value added) across several names you might see more often than not. I agree the forum might be a bit unwelcoming depending on what you’re looking for but in general I think it’s fine. The discord can be a bit of a different story for sure but that’s the nature of internet scrolling chat and people being more unfiltered. Just tune out / block anyone you don’t want to associate with if they’re really bothering you just like anywhere else and you should enjoy your time here.

I’ve had some bad experiences with certain members but you deal with it and decide what you want to spend your time on and who seems to be good people and you’ll feel better long term, it’s like anywhere and anything you do in a job or personal life.

[karl]

@matthewevan

A sour grapes rant

New members aren’t really welcomed here.
The old guard is very entrenched and set in their ways.
Sure- a lot of new people come here to get info on the value of their cards- but instead of being dismissive… wouldn’t it be better for the long term growth of Pokémon and the hobby to teach the new folks about all the cool cards that Pokémon has to offfer? All the sets? All the cool artwork?

It’s hard to break into the inner circle and I have already spoken to many new members here who have specifically said they are going to just sell everything because it’s harder to get “in” the community here than it is in the rest of the card world.

I know there are a lot of new “flippers” and money men moving in on your lifelong hobby - but do the long time members here have to
Make it so hard to be part of the community?

Just a sour grapes post- but you guys have so much awesome info- but sometimes seem angry when new folks come in.

I don’t know what You know. That’s why I came here to learn. I don’t need heat- I don’t need attitude. And I don’t need every post to be critiqued and turned into an argument. I know you are protective of your world and your community- but take it from me- you are scaring some good people away.

And I don’t just mean Logan Paul. .

To the many members here who have helped me- thanks! To the folks who read this and got mad… ask yourself why? And maybe you will understand why I posted it…

step 1. sell all your shitstep 2. buy every charizard on ebaystep 3. make a thread showing off all your charizards
take that, poke noobs.