I’ve been here since way back when this forum started. Generally this is a great community - especially the actual forum here online. It has definitely shifted a bit culturally from those who love the hobby to scalpers and “investors” but for the most part 95%+ of the online forum is healthy, knowledgeable, and doing good for the community all around.
The Discord server on the other hand is a nightmare. Maybe not the majority of members there but the loudest by far are the slimiest scalpers who just talk everyone down and even threaten people. I few weeks ago I mentioned scalping being bad for the hobby and someone DM-ed me threatening me. I noticed another discord message from some newbie today who mentioned them and she/he was brought with a literally “I wanna kill you” response.
I’m glad that the sentiment is still mostly positive and just overall different on the actual forum here; but the shifting culture of predatory scalpers who dominate ebay, reddit, and stalking Target/Walmart vendors are moving from their echo chambers over to the more tight-nit circles like this one. It’ll only get worse the more it’s tolerated. These are the same people who were previously scalping sneakers and watches. I saw Facebook post of a dad filming his son ecstatically pull DR Ethan’s Ho-oh and then immediately in the comments asking for $200 for it. Like dude..where did the joy go in this hobby.
*Yes I know my account claims it’s not that old. I lost my credentials when switching my email and my password manager 2 years ago so current login is a bit newer when I decided to make posts again. This is irrelevant to the discussion.
Besides the same sinkhole “my grading company is better than yours” people, and the needle being threaded on political discusssions on tariffs, e4 is way chill. Dont know what a discord is, is that a music note? Maybe delete this discord thing?
Yes the website forum is generally 95%+ chill - I agree on that. I don’t go on the Discord often, but the few times I have I found it pretty bad even for Discords low standards. If you think political discussions are bad here just imagine what they post in Discord
Many of those on Discord eventually will make there way here on the actual forum. I wish there were better systematic ways to reduce noise on tariffs, politics, violence, scalping, name calling etc but I suppose every social platform has it.
Just a bit sad to see it leak more heavily into this one
I’d say the internet in general has gotten more toxic over the years. The social media algorithms push decisive content down our throats for the sake of engagement. This content is loud and paints a picture that there are no grey areas and you are either right or wrong and the loudest opinion wins.
Some of this is bound to rub off on us. I feel that this has affected myself. Even though I’d consider myself to be very laid back, I feel like I’m quicker to anger when I see an opinion which is counter to my own. To combat this, I have reduced my social media use substantially in recent year and stopped visiting news sites.
This is anicdotal but I do feel like I see more toxicity in E4 lately. In saying that, this is still my favourite place in the internet and generally a really positive space. It’s up to us to keep it that way by fostering positive interactions.
Some of this is bound to rub off on us. I feel that this has affected myself. Even though I’d consider myself to be very laid back, I feel like I’m quicker to anger when I see an opinion which is counter to my own. To combat this, I have reduced my social media use substantially in recent year and stopped visiting news sites.
Idk if this feels pick-meish I do feel like I was one of the people that contributed to the toxicity.
A few weeks ago (and even before that), I was acting like a pure jerk for no reason, and it made a lot of other people feel annoyed and offended, and as more and more arguments I knew I had to make a change.
Again, I don’t know if this is a pick-me type message but its something I just wanted to mention.
(Also the discord is a shithole for a lack of words. Really toxic, don’t reccomend for casual players. Or really anyone in fact)
I left the discord a couple months ago purely because I realized it wasn’t contributing anything really positive to my life, while there are positive things on the discord overall it just wasn’t very beneficial to me
On the subject of the forum… I’ve been here for less than a year so I don’t have much to say
Social media is almost unusable these days because of how toxic people can be
The discord is completely different than the forum. I have collector friends from other discords that have joined e4 but decided not to talk at all or just leave after not participating much because they were not a fan of the environment. There are some chill and nice people there for sure but the toxic long term members are allowed to stay while newer toxic members are shut down or kicked from the server.
Yeah, there are some the mods have banned and that the others haven’t for much worse offenses…
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been called retarded, threatening to strangle me, even heard some tell me to kill myself. It wasn’t funny and I always feel on edge whenever I go in there.
100% when I was in the discord it definitely felt like a few people could do whatever they wanted, maybe not the mods problem but more of the tolerance of the whole discord for the actions
The wordles were fun though nothing negative about those
I don’t think anyone is going to claim that the discord is some kumbaya paradise where everyone happily coexists and nobody is toxic or unfriendly. By its nature it is a much more free-flowing and less heavily moderated space, for better or worse. Often worse. That being said, as someone who is active on the discord and has to moderate it, this post feels like you misunderstand a lot of the content there. The discord is dominated by Gen Z sarcasm and half-ironic humor. Especially on the discord, people say things as jokes that they don’t mean. That doesn’t make it acceptable, but the claim that someone was told “I wanna kill you” for saying scalping is bad is a clear example of a joke which is obvious to the well-initiated E4 discord member but perhaps not the new member or occasional user like yourself. There’s an argument to be made for more moderation, but the mods can’t be babysitting 24/7. I will note that while I can’t say for certain, I don’t think you reached out to any of the mods about your concerns before posting this thread. It’s helpful if people reach out and let us know if there are issues, but few people do.
Moving on, the thrust of this post (that E4 discord is dominated by “the slimiest scalpers”) just seems factually incorrect to me. There is no comparison between the E4 discord and the pump/bot discords coordinating buyouts and botting Pokemon Center. I think we have a few people who use bots here and there, but I can count them on one hand. However, E4 discord is also not the Pokebeach/Reddit comment section where people call for “scalpers” to be executed. There is a happy nuanced medium where people recognize that “scalpers” are a symptom of a wider market supply/demand imbalance which is not going to be fixed by moralizing arguments about “think of the children” or “MSRP.” So if people come in trying to complain about how scalpers are ruining the hobby, you will be quickly shut down by a small amount of logical argument, and probably more than your fair share of derision and mocking.
To me, E4 is still a wonderful oasis in a hobby that is becoming increasingly dominated by the lowest common denominators on both sides of most arguments. By no means is it perfect, but this post feels more directed at the general state of the hobby––indeed, you quickly transition from talking about something that happened on discord to Walmart/Target scalping and the comments of a facebook video which has no relation to E4. To me, there might be some selection bias at work here. Worried about the state of the hobby, you look to a large Pokemon chatroom with hundreds of users and find some evidence to corroborate your views.
I’ve seen a good bit of people talk about it, including people like Ms. Frizzle and some newer members. As a person once said: “Once you get shining crobat you get immunity” (obviously triple wasn’t the case, but then again, the discord loved triple, which is a bit of a red flag.)
Don’t worry, you know exactly who I am. This isn’t a show, I said it here and on the forum that I’m not particularly interested in arguing with anyone. You’re also Niko, a person who as said not so good things (i.e the examples I stated)
Glad to see you’re playing the civil part (even though it is passive aggressive)
You’re welcome to message me at any time with any concerns about the discord. Again, I’ll note that to date you have not spoken to me (and to the best of my knowledge, no other mod as well) about any issues you’re having on the discord. We are always there to help.
% my friend
