76 Topic by IronMagus

(6 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

Simple request.  I want to be able to filter my inventory to show only cards where "Edition Owned" is "Unknown Edition."  If there's a way to do this already, I don't know what it is.  I'm not seeing it as an option in the "Edition Owned" dropdown box.

While I'm at it, I might also request that we be able to set foil/promo/etc. flags en masse when importing card lists, like we can already with language, condition, and edition.

I just imported my 150-some-odd promo cards into my inventory, and now I'm going through them all one-by-one, entering which promo "edition" they are and marking them as promo and foil/textless as the case may be.  Since there are so many different "kinds" of promos (Launch Party, Release Events, Prerelease Events, MPR, FNM, WPN/Gateway, Game Day, Media Inserts, etc., etc., etc...), I just set the default value to "Unknown," thinking I would simply be able to filter them that way and see just the ones that still needed fixing.  Sadly, that is not the case, and the best way I've found to sort them all, since I can't just filter by "Unknown Edition," was to sort the inventory by "Added At" which does put the most recent additions at the top.  Problem is, as I edit each one, that changes the "added at" timestamp and kicks it to the top of the list.  It would be much easier if I could filter just the unknown ones, and then as I entered an edition for each one it would be kicked off the list instead of back up to the top, since it would no longer fit the criteria of "unknown edition."

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77 Reply by IronMagus

(9 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

steven_h wrote:

Another option is a mobile-friendly web UI...

+1

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78 Reply by IronMagus

(1 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

I've noticed this, as well.

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79 Reply by IronMagus

(15 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

9700377 wrote:

We shouldn't make new categories or change their stringency if that means that, say, I can't buy a "near mint" card off of TCGPlayer and list it on here as "near mint" with reliability. Near Mint does allow some flaws and I can understand some people not liking that, but the flipside is that I like being able to reliably open a pack and just list the rares as NM without having to make sure that they have tiny flaws, as many cards can have straight out of the pack.

A good point.  So perhaps I should just change my perception of what "near mint" means/is supposed to mean, and just list cards that I would have called "excellent" (obviously not "mint," but not "obviously played" either) as NM instead.

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80 Reply by IronMagus

(15 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

Kammikaze wrote:

I disagree with your proposed solution of changing the names of the conditions as it doesn't actually solve anything because they can be ambiguous.

It may not be a be-all, end-all solution, but I think it's at least a step in the right direction...

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81 Reply by IronMagus

(16 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

I'm still getting it here: https://deckbox.org/sets/751167

In the list of decks in the sidebar, the first quote works but the second one doesn't:
"Green Deck& ...
(although it does show properly as "Green Deck" on the mouse-over tooltip.)

And neither of them work in the page title in the tab (browsers: Firefox on PC, and Safari on iOS):
IronMagus's "Green Deck" - Deckbox

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82 Topic by IronMagus

(15 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

The current options for marking card conditions are:
Mint
Near-Mint
Good (Lightly Played)
Played
Heavily Played
Poor

I think this is wrong.  There's a big difference between "near-mint" and "lightly played."  A near-mint card is "so close to mint as to be nearly indistinguishable from it."  Basically, if you can actually tell (without a magnifying lens) that a card is not "mint," then it's not "near-mint" either.  That's what "so close as to be nearly indistinguishable" means.  Further, a truly "mint" card is so pristine that there's absolutely nothing wrong with it, under the highest scrutiny, even when you do put it under that lens.  Most of us have probably never even seen a truly "mint" card, and what we call "mint" is usually actually "near-mint."  For this reason, most other condition guides that I've seen lump these two together into one single "NM/M" category.

Now, the next step down from "so close to mint as to be nearly indistinguishable from it," at least here, is "light, but obvious play-wear." There's a whole spectrum of conditions that could fall into this category, from the tiniest nick on the edge of an otherwise-NM card, to unsleeved shuffle wear from a 6-round sealed deck event.  If someone says they have a card in "LP" condition, you don't know what you're gonna get.

The other day I traded a "LP" Sensei's Divining Top for a "LP" Mutavault.  I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but I was pretty disappointed when the card I received was in far worse condition than the one I sent.  But there was no way for me to indicate that my card was "not quite mint, but really still in very nice condition" nor him to say that his was "not quite beat to hell, but getting there."

I guess I should just call my barely-dinged-up cards NM, that's what everyone else seems to do.  But it doesn't feel right to me, knowing that near mint is supposed to be damn-near actual mint condition.  But SP (or LP) is so much worse than not-quite-NM.  I guess in the end it all just boils down to a matter of semantics, but my suggestion is simply to rename the current conditions as such: "Mint" should be renamed "Near-Mint/Mint" (after all, these two are supposed to be nearly indistinguishable from each other, right?) and the current "Near Mint" should be renamed "Excellent" to cover the not-quite-mint, but mostly-undamaged and not-obviously-played cards in between "Near Mint" and "Lightly Played."  You wouldn't even really need to convert people's collections to the new system, as most people seem to be calling these "Near Mint" already, anyway.  Just rename them, and they can mean what they say.

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83 Reply by IronMagus

(12 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

gumgodMTG wrote:

This seems like it would cause a problem matching promos as some users mark them foil and some do not since generally there's not a non-foil option for said promos.  When I'm looking for a promo I don't care, since they're all foil...

There are ways around that. One way might just be to have foils and non-foils as separate editions in the database, instead of using a flag. The promo cards would only have one edition, foil or non-foil as the case may be. Then for example, something like Ancient Hellkite would have "M11," M11 (foil)" and "MtG Launch Parties (foil)" as options.

Or maybe instead of that, the individual promos could be hard-coded to either force, or ignore, the "foil" flag on a case-by-case basis.

At the very least, a simple "Is Foil: [yes / no / don't care] option in the wishlist would allow users (like me) to specifically exclude foils if they do actually care.

Also sometime I see a foil and decide I'd trade for that, even though I didn't put foil in my wish list.

Worst case, it still shows up in pink background unless you have "exact matching" turned on.

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84 Reply by IronMagus

(12 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

sebi wrote:

sometimes I might just want a Lightning Bolt, I don't care if it's foil or not. Or is that not the case?

Sometimes, I might not be interested in paying premium prices for a foil card when all I want is a functional Lightning Bolt for my deck. I think that this probably the case most of the time; if someone doesn't specifically indicate that they want foils, they're probably not interested in trading for them at foil prices. If I've got a single regular Lightning Bolt in my wishlist and all you've got is a foil one, it shouldn't match us for $10 worth of trades.

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85 Reply by IronMagus

(2 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

You can send as many offers as you like. Until both parties confirm their address, the trade is not considered final and may be modified or canceled by either party (if a "proposed" offer has been "accepted" then it can no longer be modified, but you are still allowed to cancel if both addresses have not yet been confirmed. This may or may not discourage that particular member from dealing with you again in the future, but that personal choice on their part is the extent of their available recourse; you haven't actually done anything wrong at this point so you won't be facing any consequences.)

Just make sure you don't actually "confirm" two trades for the same card, because once that's done, you will be required to fulfill your end of the bargain or else you might face negative feedback and a BTR (bad trade report).

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86 Reply by IronMagus

(2 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

Can't you already sort by "date added"?

EDIT: sorry, the column header is titled "Added At," not "Date added," but that does what you're looking for.

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87 Reply by IronMagus

(10 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

Kammikaze wrote:

I really don't think the value breakdown of the cards matters. Which do you think would be more easily noticed by the magic community: 10,000 bulk rares of which there are probably millions in print OR a set of 40 dual lands? I would bet you good money that the magic community would recognize the dual lands over the bulk rares if they showed up on ebay or the High End Magic FB group. If I were a thief I would try to avoid the big ticket, easily recognized cards and focus on the cards that people aren't likely to give a second thought about.

I honestly think that "little more work" is enough to prevent enough thefts from happening that it's worth the rest of us losing the neat, but unnecessary feature.

I suppose that's a good point.  I guess I just wasn't thinking like a thief wink.  In the end, you're right, it is just a "neat, but unnecessary feature."

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88 Reply by IronMagus

(10 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

Kammikaze wrote:

@ jmigliore and IronMagus

Removing the total value from inventories absolutely helps prevent malicious activity. Making the total value just that little bit (or a lot, in some cases) more difficult to figure out can definitely deter would-be thieves simply because of the time and work involved.

"View tradelist, sort by price" seems like it would give a potential thief much more valuable information than knowing someone's collection value.  Yes, there's ten thousand dollars there, but is that a few dozen dual lands, or 10,000 junk rares?

It's like putting all your valuables in the front yard, and then locking the gate.  Now your friends can't come over to visit, but a thief can still just hop over the fence.  Yes, it's a little more work to hop the fence versus just walk through the gate, but this is only going to deter the most casual of would-be thieves.  Someone who really wants that new dual-deck VCR cassette recorder with stereo sound is going to come take it whether the gate's open or not.

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89 Reply by IronMagus

(10 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

jmigliore wrote:

For privacy reasons? We can still export it and add it all up.
All it's doing is creating more work for users. I don't understand how that's a privacy issue - the user is willingly showing all of their information. It's a simple feature to have it added up for us.

If the user wants to make his tradelist and inventory public - why can't we get a complete value out of it? All you have to do is add it up. A human can do it.

+1.  Not that I particularly care about being able to see the value of another user's collection, but jmigliore is absolutely correct in that no one's privacy is being protected here, as the collection value is of course still there be had by anyone with the time and inclination to add it all up.  This means that people who just have an innocent, idle curiosity -- "gee, I wonder how much IronMagus' trade list is worth..." -- won't be able to find out, because they won't care enough to go to all that trouble, but if someone wanted the information for more...nefarious reasons (whatever those might be), it's still right there for the taking.  This doesn't seem to solve any problems, and only adds more of them for those who weren't doing anything wrong to begin with.

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90 Reply by IronMagus

(12 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

rfioren wrote:

(although perhaps not added/removed from inventory)

Yes, the removing/adding from inventory could still wait until you send and receive, but the tradelist and wishlist should both update as soon as the trade is confirmed.  (Plus, these already ask you if you'd like to perform the action, so people who don't like it can always click "no," like I'm doing already.  I just think more people would click "yes" if they did it the other way.)

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91 Reply by IronMagus

(12 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

AsymptomaticPyrexia wrote:

It was explained to me that there are users who prefer it the way it is now and I have not heard anymore on the subject.

That's...well normally I would say "absurd," but I'm new around here and don't want to ruffle any feathers, so I'll just go with a more neutral "I find that bizarre," and ask why would anyone prefer to have cards listed in their tradelist or wishlist after they're no longer needed or available?

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92 Topic by IronMagus

(0 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Note the damage on the front top edge:
http://i.imgur.com/2HXAtHZ.jpg

You can't really see it from the back, or in a stack of cards:
http://i.imgur.com/oGoDKyK.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/jI1wvb9.jpg

(Okay, maybe in these hi-res photos you can see a little more clearly which one it is, but with the naked eye it's not nearly as obvious.)

Is this card "Slightly Played" or just plain "Played"?  Or does damage like this make it even worse than that?

My vote: "Other"
Reason: "You can't see the results until you vote yourself."

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93 Reply by IronMagus

(4 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Sure it can. Ornithopter has been under the battlefield under your control since the turn began, even though some of its stats may have changed.

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94 Reply by IronMagus

(3 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Hoo boy, I've had some doozies in the past, going both ways. I gave up a Grove of the Burnwillows once for a handful of uncommons. I traded Dark Confidant and Blood Moon for a Birds of Paradise. Traded a foil UNH Swamp for Loxodon Hierarch. I gave up Dark Depths one time for a Jester's Scepter. I traded a couple Damnations and multiple playsets of Cryptic Command for...some Standard junk probably, I don't even remember...when they rotated out of standard.

On the other hand, one of those Cryptics I had got for only 4x Char, and some of the others and both the Damns were MPR promos that I got for free. I got 3x Horizon Canopy for one Gaddock Teeg and a couple Wall of Roots promos, and the fourth one for a Taurean Mauler. I picked up a playset of Noble Hierarchs for a casual deck when they were like $5-10, and I traded my way into full sets of all five ZEN fetchlands when they were in Standard, at under $20 each.

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95 Topic by IronMagus

(12 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

Currently, when you send a card, you are asked if you'd like to remove it from your inventory and trade list, and when you receive one you are asked if you want to remove it from your wish list and add to your inventory. I find myself not using these features, because the timing is awkward. By the time I get around to marking a card as "sent," I have already removed it from my trade list because it's no longer available for trade to anyone else, and likewise by the time I receive a card that's been sent to me, I have long since removed it from my wish list. My suggestion, then, is as follows:

- When a trade is accepted (or perhaps only once both parties have confirmed their address) the cards should be removed from trade list and wish list.
- When you mark the cards as "sent," (or perhaps also when the trade is confirmed) they should be removed from inventory.
- When you mark the cards as "received," they should be added to inventory.

Thoughts?

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