Site Forum

It's been almost 2 months since we finished the "Glossary Project". (Which was really "part 1" of the project - define all missing glossary entries.)

I was kind of working on a few different things in the meantime - trying to get a feel for what might just naturally fall in to place next. I didn't notice any one thing taking over. So.... that means it's time for me to spearhead the next task.

But, it doesn't come without me already tracking some stats (of course!). And I'm going to take a vote (since election day is right around the corner for the USA) on which area you'd like to see us tackle next.

Here are the areas I've been tracking: Missing Dates of Birth (DOBs), Missing Checklists, Name Validation, & Team Validation.

Missing DOBs - Currently at 40,449 missing - 2 weeks ago at 40,560

Mising Checklists - Currently at 10,218 - 2 wks: 10,163 - 2 months: 11,290

Name Validation - Currently at 17,162 - 1 week ago at 17,047 (yes, it's going UP)

Team Validation - Currently at 55,839 - 1 week ago at 56,559

I have a method to find and clean up the sets that have no names or teams missing and clear them out. I just started on the Team ones and haven't touched the Names yet. So, those numbers could actually be misleading at this point.

Honestly, I'm not sure any of these 4 can ever get to 100% completion, but we can certainly get better than where we are now. Like I said, I've been doing a little here, a little there (while still keeping a close eye on the missing glossary entries). I want to know which of these 4 areas you'd like to help with and clean up first. (I'm assuming we'll get through them all eventually.) OK, Vote! :)

• Checklists
• DOBs
• Names
• Teams

Thanks!

PS: I will cast my vote in this as well. But just not yet. I don't want my vote to swing anyone else's. I have my vote ready.

I've been spending most my time on Team Valadation this year and even suggested it be the next project as the glossary was getting close to completed.  That get's my vote.  I think some of the others might be easier, but aside from obviously checklists, I think it is the one that can help collectors the most.  Having all the teams show up for all the cards will immensely help team set builders.  That's my opinion though.  It will be tough though since not all the teams are in the database but if everyone worked together maybe we could make a list of teams and the Admin could add them in, unless we can do it ourselves, I've forgot if we can or not.

I do believe any teams that are not in the drop down list needs to be added by Admin only.

My vote is for name and team validation. Getting each card to connect to which person it belongs to is far more important than birthdays. I consider names more important to teams but a single team collector may not agree. The teams listed are also not entirely accurate as we still have college cards like Classic and the like being listed as professional cards, which they have not now and never have been. Checklists are also important but aside from keeping up with new releases I've got all the information I can locate already up, I think.

I will say the attention you've brought to it reminded me to go in and verify the listings for the sets with multiple people/teams on one card in 2016-17 Hoops and I also took the time to link each of the said cards, something I didn't bother to do previously. (I figured I would do them when I got the cards, but realizing that I almost never complete insert sets, I decided to do it when I posted the checklist). The majority of inserts and parallels and the base set all linked to PIDs so they don't need any verificaiton, which is good.

I'm still new to the site, and I'm currently focused on getting my own collection uploaded. In the interest of contributing, I've been making corrections and adjustments to some cards' listings along the way, together with uploading photos for any cards previously lacking them, of course. I'd like to thank the GIANTS (NY, SF, Andre, Jolly Green, and others!) who've arrived before me to make this site as great as it already is! I'm happy to contribute in any small way I can :-)

Sadly, I don't have enough time to make any major contribution to the four projects you're debating on, but my suggestion would be to focus efforts on the Name validation. Seems the most useful.

I'm also voting for name validation. When I'm adding a card to my collection, I always check if validation is needed. I also try to check the rest of that set, making sure there aren't other cards that need validation. 

I have been doing teams as I come across them.  For a few years I was doing DOBs.

My vote is team validation first then name validation.  I'd say we wait until after name validation to do DOBs because with name validation, a lot of new names will likely be added.  

I also think that if we do team validation we will need a thread for team name requests because I've come across several teams that are not in the DB

I've spent countless hours working on names. It's the only thing on this list I enjoy doing.  And it kind of has a domino effect.  If I add all the names from a new Bowman set, for instance, the new PIDs pick up the cards from the parallel sets too, so the list from several sets are shortening at once.  Unless you're doing obscure athletes like an SI For Kids set, most new PIDs you create will grab cards from at least two sets.  In baseball, it's not uncommon to get over 10. So I'm fixing missing info from 10+ sets all at the same time with almost every PID I create.

I've also been working on both names and teams. I usually do it at work when it's slow, but fixing other people's mistakes does tend to take time - even at work.