Site Forum

I generally agree with this, but I will still advocate for some amendments to take into account some of the ways the current hobby is run as well as covering old, oddball, previously unknown sets:
 

• During this current boom era, we've got an increase in companies, many with widespread name recognition, that do an awful job of including accurate checklists (or sometimes any checklist) for their releases. Panini can be irritating, but they've got nothing on Leaf, Wild Card, and Parkside. And the NIL world for college makes things more difficult since you've got "official" cards of college players that are often put out by companies that really only got started to make money off college athletes (ex. The Player's Trunk and ONIT). It's becoming pretty apparent that these companies do not care about the actual collecting aspect and are just trying to sell stuff to breakers, flippers, and investors and so checklists just aren't a concern for them.
• It's a global world now with the internet so we're finding out about more and more older sets that (like Dan mentioned) might be oddball little regional releases or part of some giveaway that was long forgotten. You might be able to track down a checklist somewhere online, but I know I have a bunch of cards from sets that I don't know much about and can't find a complete checklist.
• Living sets and on-demand cards are a thing and obviously a complete checklist can't be added for cards not yet announced, but we're already doing under construction checklists to keep up with them as they are released.

My main point is... this is a DATABASE and my understanding is that its primary purpose is to aid collectors in identifying cards. If that is truly the case, and because it is a crowd-sourced entity, we SHOULD include incomplete and under-construction checklists.

Look at it this way, if Joe Schmoo out there gets some cards and he's not super knowledgeable about the hobby, he's probably going to look up info on the internet. Good chance he'll end up here. Now, odds are, we probably have listed here the card(s) he's looking up. But what if we don't? Is it a card we were unaware of that should be listed? Is it a card we are aware of but belongs to a set we don't have a complete checklist for so it isn't in the database?

So, what if we do have incomplete checklists as a thing on here? Scenario: let's say somebody has a card from some weird set (that isn't an unlicensed thing). They come looking here and find an incomplete list that appears to be part of the set but no one else had confirmed it. Boom. We get some more info to further piece the puzzle together. 

Think of it like Sudoku. You have to start filling in information in order to figure out more information. With the number of people that use this site, the chances are far better of the group compiling a checklist than just one person finding all the info and uploading a complete checklist. But we have to know what information we need to be looking for. An incomplete (I really prefer "under construction") checklist that is accessible on this website becomes not only a source of information but also a bit of a treasure map/guidebook for others to help finish the puzzle.
There should absolutely be some firm rules about starting a CUC (Checklist Under Construction):

• The set should be older and no longer available from the company that produced it. I'd say a set has to be AT LEAST older than 1 year before it should be eligible as a CUC. Basically, if it isn't for sale anywhere other than the secondary market and no checklist has been discovered yet, there probably isn't going to be one.
• Has to be a Level 8 Permission or create a separate Permission level for this so that only people who have proven extremely reliable can start/edit a CUC
• Have a way to make a CUC obvious without first looking at the checklist page. Like an icon or a note that is visible on the browsing pages. And some way to make it obvious that a CUC is an official approved CUC and not just somebody else trying to slip some nonsense through.
• The individual effort and forum threads should also be utilized, as per the current policy stated by Dan, but I think maybe once it has a thread, it can probably go ahead and get a CUC because it's clear there is data available.
• Also, a CUC cannot be created unless there is at least one card scan for an entry on the checklist. Having that gives proof that something from this set exists and also provides an example to make it easier for others to possibly identify other cards in the set

I won't quote, but this is in reply to jlamberth.

The biggest reasons for not adding incomplete sets:
1 - Some people do not follow the rules and add 2-3 cards and it doesn't show as incomplete and therefore no one ever looks at it again
2 - It takes A LOT of work by those with higher permissions (Level 8 to be precise for adding cards to a checklist) to maintain these

Sure, it sounds grand to throw 5 cards out of 25 in the checklist but then when 20 more have to be added, and put in the correct sequence, it can take a lot of work. Admin has introduced a lot of tools over the past few years that helps with this, however, there still is too much work then placed on very few who actually do the work. And most of these incomplete checklists are added, of course, by people with lower permission levels who cannot add to their checklists (and in many cases, they can't even fix mistakes they introduced).

Your points for a CUC are very well-thought out, and I truly like the concept, but the problem still remains that it becomes the work of the site's L8s (not to mention the coding Admin would have to do to "tag" a set as a CUC), and not all of the people who are L8 do any of that kind of work here. So it is a very small subset of members who get stuck with the work on these.

If a member with lower-permissions gathers the info first, and does all that legwork, and then they uploada complete checklist, it removes all of that work from the few. That is honestly where we want this to be - in the hands of the people who can upload checklists, but not in the hands of those who can edit them once they're uploaded.

(Side note: We uinderstand mistakes happen, things are missed, etc. This isn't to say that those who fix things don't want to fix things - I think we do it because we like it and we like giving back to the community as a whole - but we don't want to be saddled with extra responsibilities of tending to these CUCs.)

Houston we have a problem!!!    

It is being crowd-sourced.   Dan has said it all on checklists.   We can say it about all areas of the site.  Admin set rules but many do not read or follow them.   Then other members have to fix them.