Site Forum

Before you read this post, understand a few things. Yes, it's long. Yes, this is about minute variations found on many late 1980s and early 1990s cards. Yes, this is about adding them to the site. No, this is not a thread to share your opinion about how you collect them or how the site displays them, or anything along those lines - though I can't and won't stop anyone from doing so, I won't be responding to any of the comments like that. This post is simply to clarify how these will or cannot be added to the site. I will be using the "one-star" vs "two-star" Topps examples, but understand this also works for the "dot" vs "no dot" for Leaf and Donruss.

Whether intentionally or not, you might find one of these variations. Let's say that as you flip through your 1991 Topps Glossy Rookies set, you notice that your Steve Avery card has one star on the copyright line, but the image on the site has two stars! What next?

First, do some research please. Cards don't get added one-by-one unless they absolutely have to be (think Topps buybacks, where we can't be sure what's out there). Go to COMC. Find the set, go to each card, zoom in, and flip it over. You'll clearly be able to see what cards have * vs **. For a small set like this, you can probably do it yourself. For a larger set, like an entire 762-card base set, use the resources you have! A forum post asking for people to go through, check their sets, and verify what version they have is a great way to get many hands to make light work. Findings can be documented on a Google Spreadsheet so everyone can share. Get creative!

Second, once your research is done, submit an IR on the set in question explaining your findings. Include links to the group forum post, or to the COMC set ("I have personally verified both versions for all cards in the set on COMC"). This tells us that you did the research. Then, a L8 member can use their "mystical powers" to create a copy of the checklist (that's not a TCDB function; that's done by hand, for what it's worth) and then append it to the end of the current checklist. After that, Admin does a magic resort while at the same time waving his wand and making the new "subletters" for each card number pop out into their appropriate spot. Voila! The set is now updated! That's it - just like adding a new checklist, do all of the required research, get all of your ducks in a row, and provide the information. Can't find a single card, but 23 of the 24 have it? Fine - we'll add 23 of them because one can't be visually verified. No big deal if you've exhausted all avenues of research, because we only add the cards that have been visually verified to exist. 

Now, what you don't do to get the results you want:

• Submit an IR for one card
• Submit an IR using the world "probably"
• Submit an IR asking to add an entire extra set when you can't provide proof that all cards exist in said variation
• Submit an IR asking for a partial VAR set to be added
  • Using only the cards you have in your collection to say "I have 12 * and 13 **, so we need 13 ** VARs" doesn't cut it.
• Submit an IR before you've done all possible research on your own
  • Resolvers, and even members in the forums, are willing to help. Help. Not do it for you. Initiative goes a long way

Finally, please remember that the larger the set, the more painstaking this operation is. Dan (vrooomed) has done a lot of work to get the sets that are currently set up like this correct. That's not discounting the research done by many helpful members as well, but I'm simply referring to the actual updating of the checklist alone. It's a multi-day process (though Dan may have it down to a science by now). My point is that if you ask for a big set to be updated, be patient for it to be updated, and be patient before you ask for another one. These are no "small potatoes". 

I think that's everything I can think of, though I invite others with beneficial input to add on. I also invite anyone with questions to ask them in response, if they weren't answered here. I guess I should add my typical disclaimer that this isn't meant to be a hand-smacking, or directed at anyone in particular - it's meant to be constructive and helpful.

Edited for typos

Unfortunately, there is no great way to mass update Card Number, Note, or Note2 for base sets - all of which need updating when an entire set contains variations. Because of the apparent site limitations, edits have to be done in groups of 20, pause for about a miniute or so, then do another 20. Insert/parallel sets are little easier.

OH. For a very strange reason I thought this thread was about Dr. Seuss books. I don't know why I thought that for this site. I guess because I think of the community here first THEN I think OH Yeah it's all about the Cards.

Soon as I saw "yes it's long" I stopped reading