Site Forum

I'm back with more team verification questions! This one is bugging me. I think I know the right way to do it, but I don't really like it.

The question concerns this card here. Mike Williams is pictured as playing for the Arizona Wildcats, while Derrick Williams and Deon Butler are pictured playing for the Penn State Nittany Lions (card found on COMC for this info).

I believe site protocol says the team should be listed as "Arizona Wildcats / Penn State Nittany Lions" and then linked to both.

But wouldn't it make more sense to do "Arizona Wildcats / Penn State Nittany Lions / Penn State Nittany Lions"? Seems to me that if you don't know football or college football well, the first option would leave it confusing as to where Derrick Williams went to college. It makes more sense to me to list all three teams in the "Team" field and only link to two. However, I will defer to a higher authority. Hopefully someone can point out the correct way to do it, because I found nothing in the forum or the FAQ (hence creating a thread so maybe someone else with the same question someday can find it!). Thanks in advance,

Jason

Difficult to comment without seeing the card itself.  But standard practice has been to only list the one team for the players all pictured from the same team (someone correct me if I am wrong).

I believe you're right, hence me being unsure. Here is the card in question; don't know why I didn't link it in my original post.

Listing a team multiple times doesn't make sense and is redundant.  Nowhere in the "Team" field, or any other field, does it state which team is associated with which player.  Nor are there any player-team links on the card's page.

It linked, but there is no image. I think that is what he meant by he'd like to see the card. The actual card.

This is the same as player name (think the 1970s basketball or football team leader cards where 3 of the 4 team leaders were the same player).

We list players and teams only once on the card. That has been Admin's directive for a long time. Now, again, there have been incredible amounts of improvements to the way the database functions, and maybe it can now handle multiple of player names and team names. I would suggest that you contact Admin and get the current official word. I'm going on official word from a while back.

Chuck, you know I agree with you. However....

It can be said that we can list the players and teams such that:

Player 1 / Player 2 / Player 3
Player 1's Team / Player 2's Team / Player 3's Team

I think it wasn't done this way before because the database didn't know what the heck to do with 2 entries that were the same. (Just like it couldn't handle NNO for a whole set.) It has evolved. I'd like to see what Admin's take is these days.

Oh, and I fixed the card in question to adheere to our current standards as we understand them. 

I have messaged Admin and will post a reply here when I get it (although with heading into work soon that may not be until tomorrow). I understand how the site has done it, and even mentioned in my message that at this point, to change the guideline means a lot of working undoing things. But yes, my concern/thought was that with

Player 1 / Player 2 / Player 3

Player 1's Team / Player 2's Team / Player's 3 Team

it would be a little more clear who played for which team, especially when there is this situation (three teams but only two players). Sorry if I didn't make that clear in the original post. Thanks again for all the help.

Jason

There are exceptions to every rule.  These cards look like they are breaking the rule.  But they are not.  The team is listed twice because each represents a different sport (TID).  One is the basketball TID and the other is the baseball TID.

http://www.tradingcarddb.com/ViewCard.cfm/sid/91951/cid/6567028/2007-Donruss-Elite-Extra-Edition---College-Ties-12-D.J.-Strawberry-/-Brett-Cecil

Seeing the card now, this is one of the cases where it might be a good idea to list three teams even if it repeats one.  The front of the card does not state the teams. Unless one knows much about College Football unis, one may not know what team the third (or second) guy is from. But, Admin will need to decide based on the capabilities of the database.

Third time trying to write something - each time, I think of a different "first" roadblock.

What happens when multiple players are listed, but on the same team?

What do we do with all the cards that already have players and teams listed? Do we need to go back and re-format all of those?

Do we need to have a "rule" in place that handles the way the order of the players should be listed? Is it in the order they are displayed on the card (left to right, top to bottom)? Alpha by last name? What if there are multiple pictures on the card and the same player is displayed more than once?

The "rule" as it is in place now covers all of these complications. If you can propose something that handles anything we would see (including these that I can think of off the top of my head), then I can see how we change up the process. If you cannot, we have a system that really isn't broken.