It's like PCGS is scrambling to hide evidence or something...

[gmarguli]

I have never had a problem with Sportsmoderator1. For a guy who apparently does this for free, I think he does a commendable job.

 

Did you frequent the Open Forum? SM1 would say "You cannot post X, Y or Z". Then he'd go post X, Y, & Z. When someone followed, he'd ban them.

 

He outright provoked forum members and then banned them.

 

He played favorites and would ignore things many people would do, but if someone he didn't like did it once, he'd ban them.

 

He is a major *spoon*.

[the_Thing ®]

Perhaps your post won't get pulled Greg. Mine was too graphically realistic I guess.

[dragon]

I don't believe that PCGS is scrambling to hide anything, nor do I think they've treated anyone unfairly. In fact, I believe they take a lot of unwarranted bashing in stride and let people get away with a lot more then most other company hosted websites would ever allow.

 

I too was very critical of their new "First Strike" program and voiced my opinion in several threads over there, but there are some people who just constantly bash PCGS on their own website to the point of it being rediculous and in very poor taste IMO, and then act hurt and surprised when they finally and rightfully get the boot.

[Conder101]

Explain why I got banned. For announcing that I would no longer be posting publicly and just lurking? Is publicly stating that "if I continue posting I know I would get in trouble with their rules so I'm not going to post" to be construed as "bashing" PCGS?

 

Now sure if they had asked for us not to post about the First Strike nonsense because of the litigation then sure I could understand that I would have refrained from doing so. But to treaten banning over criticisim of PCGS is absurd. And then to ban (apparently) for comments made in the past? They are losing it.

[BillJones]

The way PCGS has set things up now, if a collector posts a picture of a PCGS graded coin and asks for opinions on it, anyone who says anything less than complimentary about it can be booted off the their site with no appeal. That diminishes the value of their boards and makes it much harder to teach new collectors the ropes.

 

According to David Hall, PCGS is the authority, and they are always right. Anyone who disagrees with him can go pound salt. They can claim their right to censorship because they sponsor the forum, but their current heavy handedness is going to diminish the value of what was the leading numismatic forum.

 

I guess I’ll be spending more time over here. I never had any use for the PCGS registry because of their PCGS only policy. Now I won’t have any use for their forum because you have walk on eggshells to survive over there.

 

The PCGS weenies are welcome to it. Any collector who thinks that a monopoly in the coin grading business is a good thing for collectors obviously needs a lesson in economics.

[Zoins]

One thing to consider is that they are a public company and investors/analysts will be looking at the boards and reporting to their investment teams and Yahoo! Finance. If investors/analysts find anything bad or anti-TPG on the boards they may use it as a reason to drive the stock price down. From a corporate perspective, their stock price may do much better if everything that's said on their forums shows them in a positive light.

[Brian Hartman-migration]

It's hard for me to believe that their stockholders/analysts will be very happy to see the debacle that's going on over there now. I think they made a potentially bad situation exponentially worse.

 

[Zoins]

The movement is still young. Give it some time and see what the forums look like then. If it's still causing problems later on, they may rethink their policies, however, it's too early to say getting rid of all the dissenters and dissenting posts has been a failure.

[BillJones]

Their stockholders need to realize that making collectors angry is not a prudent way to do business. There have been a lot of complaints about poor customer service over there for many months. Now they out to ban everyone who disagrees with them.

 

Dealing with them was never much fun. Now it's become worse than a chore.

[Brian Hartman-migration]

I can understand wanting to wait to see what the final outcome is, but I think they've already done considerable damage, regardless of how things shake out. You don't get rid of guys like Mark and Conder without the board taking a substantial hit. And people with that level of knowledge don't take kindly to being strong-armed.

 

I'm a relative newbie to the hobby, so if I dropped off the face of the Earth they wouldn't notice, but you can't lose guys like that and not pay a price.

[spiny]

Explain why I got banned.

 

Insecurity. Revenge. Whatever. You were getting too much attention for stating that you didn't have anything good to say about them. If your thread would have quietly sunk I think you'd still have access over there.

 

Unfortunate that it happened this way, but I'm glad to see you, BillJones, and others over here.

[SkyMan]

Ummmmm, not to be a downer, but PCGS could give a rats rear hiney whether anybody frequents their board. As long as the amount of coin submissions stays the same they are going to be perfectly happy.

 

I'm just happy we have more posters over here, as hopefully we'll all be able to look at more pretty coins each day, and get the extra occaissional educational post or two.

[Conder101]

Insecurity. Revenge. Whatever. You were getting too much attention for stating that you didn't have anything good to say about them. If your thread would have quietly sunk I think you'd still have access over there.

Sounds reasonable. I can accept that explaination. Especially the revenge angle. They have threatened me privately in the past, and they do not like the work I've done on the slabs. Hard to maintain the fiction that grading standards have never changed and a slab from any era is the equal of any other when the collectors know it isn't true but they don't know when the different slabs were issued, and then I come along and list types and dates. I'm actually surprised they left that thread alone as long as they did. It's gone now. It and the NGC generations thread are both gone.

[spiny]

Ummmmm, not to be a downer, but PCGS could give a rats rear hiney whether anybody frequents their board. As long as the amount of coin submissions stays the same they are going to be perfectly happy.

 

I'm just happy we have more posters over here, as hopefully we'll all be able to look at more pretty coins each day, and get the extra occaissional educational post or two.

 

If that were the case then why did they just ban the people showing any real or imagined dissension and not just shut er down?

[spiny]

Insecurity. Revenge. Whatever. You were getting too much attention for stating that you didn't have anything good to say about them. If your thread would have quietly sunk I think you'd still have access over there.

Sounds reasonable. I can accept that explaination. Especially the revenge angle. They have threatened me privately in the past, and they do not like the work I've done on the slabs. Hard to maintain the fiction that grading standards have never changed and a slab from any era is the equal of any other when the collectors know it isn't true but they don't know when the different slabs were issued, and then I come along and list types and dates. I'm actually surprised they left that thread alone as long as they did. It's gone now. It and the NGC generations thread are both gone.

 

Wow. I know I shouldn't be surprised that they'd go that far, but I am.

[MAULEMALL]

I have never had a problem with Sportsmoderator1. For a guy who apparently does this for free, I think he does a commendable job.

 

Did you frequent the Open Forum? SM1 would say "You cannot post X, Y or Z". Then he'd go post X, Y, & Z. When someone followed, he'd ban them.

 

He outright provoked forum members and then banned them.

 

He played favorites and would ignore things many people would do, but if someone he didn't like did it once, he'd ban them.

 

He is a major *spoon*.

I completely agree,,,SM1 is a total TOOL

[MAULEMALL]

Insecurity. Revenge. Whatever. You were getting too much attention for stating that you didn't have anything good to say about them. If your thread would have quietly sunk I think you'd still have access over there.

Sounds reasonable. I can accept that explaination. Especially the revenge angle. They have threatened me privately in the past, and they do not like the work I've done on the slabs. Hard to maintain the fiction that grading standards have never changed and a slab from any era is the equal of any other when the collectors know it isn't true but they don't know when the different slabs were issued, and then I come along and list types and dates. I'm actually surprised they left that thread alone as long as they did. It's gone now. It and the NGC generations thread are both gone.

Conder,,,I would read almost every one of your posts across the street....You are MORE than welcome here.

 

[SkyMan]

Ummmmm, not to be a downer, but PCGS could give a rats rear hiney whether anybody frequents their board. As long as the amount of coin submissions stays the same they are going to be perfectly happy.

 

I'm just happy we have more posters over here, as hopefully we'll all be able to look at more pretty coins each day, and get the extra occaissional educational post or two.

 

If that were the case then why did they just ban the people showing any real or imagined dissension and not just shut er down?

 

My gut feel is because of PR. After all, in another year or two there will be many people who are new to the PCGS boards who will never have heard of Mark. Think of how many people said they would NEVER go to another baseball game after the various player strikes, yet it appears to me that MLB is still functioning.

[IGWT]

It's gone now. It and the NGC generations thread are both gone.

 

That's a shame. Maybe someone who has a website will volunteer to host the information.

[cladking]

PCGS should understand that there will be a lot more activity over here because everyone will go where the action is. And there will be a lot more action over here.

 

But since they consider the boards a revenue drain, perhaps we'll all soon be here.

 

 

 

On the bright side, things look a lot better than they did last night. The damage can be corrected.

[gmarguli]

It's gone now. It and the NGC generations thread are both gone.

 

That's a shame. Maybe someone who has a website will volunteer to host the information.

 

I've got lots of free space and bandwidth on pcgssucks.com

[IGWT]

I've got lots of free space and bandwidth on pcgssucks.com

 

That's actually a good idea! You haven't done anything constructive with that site for a loooooong time. I figured that your anger had ebbed to the point of apathy.

[MAULEMALL]

I've got lots of free space and bandwidth on pcgssucks.com

 

That's actually a good idea! You haven't done anything constructive with that site for a loooooong time. I figured that your anger had ebbed to the point of apathy.

I Love when Greg gets "Accommodating"

[James_OldeTowne]

I don't believe that PCGS is scrambling to hide anything, nor do I think they've treated anyone unfairly. In fact, I believe they take a lot of unwarranted bashing in stride and let people get away with a lot more then most other company hosted websites would ever allow.

I would like to respectfully point out that they gladly permitted much bashing of "other" grading services - such as NGC - and also allowed an awful lot of flat-out false information that could mislead less-informed collectors to overvalue the quality of PCGS grading, and undervalue the quality of grading at NGC and others. I am not disparaging PCGS in any way at all; on the contrary, I think they perform an admirable job of grading coins overall. But they are not perfect, they do make mistakes, they do certify "problem" coins, they do certify artificially-toned coins - in short, they are as human as their graders. I couldn't stand the number of misleading posts that implied virtual grading nirvana at PCGS.

 

PCGS certainly has the right to maintain their forum in the manner they see fit. But I really think a well-balanced approach and "feel" is best. I must disagree with your statement indicating that they haven't treated anyone unfairly. I though banning Conder101 to be senseless, uncalled for, and exceptionally unfair.

 

I have also been quite critical of NGC's use of "First Strike", right here on their own public forum, but the difference is that such discussions over here appeared to me to be civil, rational and generally strive to be factual.

 

I predict that in the long run, not much will change. This seems like a knee-jerk reaction PCGS' part. I think we'll seen a initial upswing in membership and posting here at NGC, but that will slowly fall back to more normal levels as many posters migrate back across the street and take their chances.

[NoTwilight]

I think they just have very, very thin skin.

[mrearlygold]

It's gone now. It and the NGC generations thread are both gone.

 

That's a shame. Maybe someone who has a website will volunteer to host the information.

 

I would have an interest in doing so if we could assemble an entire area that would show the historical and evolution of not only NGC but all TPG services in general.

[IGWT]

Tom - Conder's threads covered the generations of both PCGS and NGC slabs. I know that his research covers a much broader scope of so-called grading companies, but I don't know if he's organized it into publishable form.

[TomB]

IGWT, I have a copy of Conder's first edition of his slab book on my shelf right next to me as I type. It is titled Third Party Grading/Certification Services & Slab/Certificate Varieties and was published in 2003. Additionally, it came out on CD and I have a copy of that, too. The book has 436 numbered pages and is an excellent research tool.

[Bruceswar]

That looks like something I need to pick up. Sounds really cool.

[James_OldeTowne]

IGWT, I have a copy of Conder's first edition of his slab book on my shelf right next to me as I type. It is titled Third Party Grading/Certification Services & Slab/Certificate Varieties and was published in 2003. Additionally, it came out on CD and I have a copy of that, too. The book has 436 numbered pages and is an excellent research tool.

I have the book too, and have enjoyed the heck out of it.

 

Mike, incidentally, is a very active EAC member, and surprisingly, doesn't care for slabs at all. But he views their research as an endeavor completely separate from numismatics.