Site Forum

So I'm just asking, is there a way to search for a generic term without the proper name coming up?  For example, if I typed in "thunder" wanting a card of the weather event and not the American Gladiator, is there a way to distinguish the two?  I'm asking because the thought of collecting cards of weather events sound interesting to me but I wouldn't want to sift through tons of results just for people/character names to keep coming up.

If there isn't would that be an option people would want added to the search feature?  I'm thinking maybe after you type in "thunder" on the search page maybe having an option of removing all proper names of "Thunder", or as was stated above entering a PID of "0" in the search results.

For perspective, when did your conversation with Admin take place, Dan?  That would be useful to know. Is it current information?  Is it possible some of these people also communicated with Admin, since that time, and got approval?

The search feature only works on sets, players and teams that have IDs. There's no way to search for cards that have PID 0 or empty PID (and you wouldn't want to waste system resources on that anyway).

Not sure if it's been fixed, but there used to be a glitch involving one-word names, where if I would create a non-sport PID for say Lily Munster, it would also pick up any unattached cards titled Lily.  Maybe that's why the zero PID was created.  That didn't used to be a thing back in the day.

I think that only happens if something without a PID matches the Name that was just added. For example, if we create a PID for a character named "Diamond" under Non-Sport, it'll attach any card in the system under that same category that has a blank PID. By putting "0" as the PID when editing a card Name, it prevents any PID auto-assignment to that card later on.

The communication with Admin was Feb, 2017, so yes, 3+ years ago.

However, current FAQ:

https://www.tcdb.com/FAQ.cfm?ITEM=Names#12

That pretty well covers it, Dan.  Maybe you linked that earlier and I just missed it.  I see these PIDs sometimes in search results that weren't there before, and i knew what the rules used to be, but i thought maybe some things changed while i was gone.  I see now that wasn't  the  case.  Can't get much plainer than that link.  Thanks!

I reached out to ADMIN today regarding PIDs for "specific" animals and received the following answer. "Yes, specific names as in your example of "Great White Shark" should get a PID." 

I received this: "Generic terms for animals, no PIDs, but specific, proper names should."

Again asking, you could tag "shark" and "Great White Shark" as um... I guess sharks or water creatures and then you can look for them by tag correct?  Still thinking about weather, and since you can't search for general descriptions, maybe seeking them out by tags would work better, no?