Site Forum

I don't know if people aren't fully aware of the site rules or what, but I'm seeing some of my name edits switched back to names that don't appear on the cards, and that's aggravating as hell when it happens to dozens of them.

Here's a friendly reminder of how the Name field of cards should appear on this site:


#1 IF THERE'S A FULL NAME ON THE CARD, ENTER THE NAME AS YOU SEE IT ON THE CARD. If it says "Michael" instead of "Mike", use "Michael".  If he normally goes by "Tom" but the card says "Tommy", use "Tommy". If it has a "Jr.", add the "Jr.". If they use a comma before it, put the comma. If they don't have the "Jr.", don't put the "Jr."! Cards are linked to PIDs, not names, so cards with "Ken Griffey" or "Cal Ripken" don't automatically mean they're assigned to the father. If you're entering something new and the system assigns it to the wrong PID when you enter the name as you see it, just change the PID to what it should be. Not that difficult to get it right the first time.

#2 If there's a partial name or only a first initial, enter the player's full name. If you see "AARON", enter "Hank Aaron". If you see "C. RIPKEN", enter "Cal Ripken".

#3 If the player's name is misspelled, enter the correct name. Do not enter the misspelled version! The correct process is to add a Note1 ("ERR", "COR", "UER") then explain the misspelling in Note2 (e.g. "ERR: Last name misspelled "Pucket" on back").

#4 If there are multiple players named on the front, enter each one as they appear left-to-right or top-to-bottom, separated by " / ". If it's a Team Leaders card with a team checklist on the back, the correct format is "(team) Leaders / Checklist (First Player / Second Player)". For example, "Phillies Leaders / Checklist (Mike Schmidt / Steve Carlton)".  If there's no team checklist on the back, eliminate "/ Checklist".

#5 If it's an unnamed group of players, enter the group as displayed on the front, then only link to clearly identifiable players from that team or group. For example, "Runnin' Redbirds" in Name1, with secondary links to Ozzie Smith, Willie McGee, Vince Coleman, etc. Also remember that only the focus of the card gets secondary links. If it's a Cardinals card with three Cardinals and a Padre in the background, the Padre does NOT get linked.


Most of this is in the FAQs and on the Permissions page, but if you're unsure about how something should appear, please reach out to an L7 or L8 that has experience with the database! It's frustrating to make corrections only to see others change them to something that doesn't fit site standards. Let's work together!

Just asking but wouldn't points number 2 and 3 contridict point number 1? As you stated, they are linked to PID's anyways, so shouldn't it be exactly how its listed on the card and then linked to the player. I never understood why point 1 would be acceptable and not 2 and 3.

Not just Admin's rules (link below), but it's a better presentation. It's also the reason why we don't put checklists in all uppercase.

https://www.tcdb.com/FAQ.cfm?ITEM=Names#14

But what about number 1?  I didn't see that listed in the FAQ.  I understand the better presentation aspect, but I was just wanting clarification.  Also Admin's rules are what we go by and I respect that, I just wanted to make sure others were aware as well, so replying also bumps the thread.  Also to maybe create a discussion since in the past there have been instances where the Admin has made some changes based on what the member's think is best.

However, until those changes are even considered, I agree that we go by what the Admin says.  Thanks for bringing this to the attention of the members.

Although not specifically addressed, I assume #1 also goes for the cards that contain nicknames in the player name. Ed "Too Tall" Jones, Kenny "Sky" Walker and Carnell "Cadillac" Williams come to mind. Many times I've seen the nicknames removed or, in the case of Ed Jones, the quotation marks removed. A name of Ed Too Tall Jones looks silly. The quotation marks signify that it's a nickname. In a few cases the cards use parenthesis: Ed (Too Tall) Jones. I put whatever is on the card front in the name field for these cards.

Good point on the nicknames. Yes, they should be entered as seen on the card with quotation marks.

For #1, the Permissions state "The person named on the card is the one that should be associated with the card.", and the reason why we go with what's on the card is to make the site as user-friendly and accurate as possible. Here's a quick scenario: you have a user holding a "Jorge Bell" card, they search the database and we have it listed incorrectly under the more common "George Bell" with no images uploaded, and now they're wondering if they have a special error card, while another user may go one step further and ask for their special "Jorge" card to be added to the database as a variation. See how that would be annoying? We want to make it so the user searches for "Jorge" and finds "Jorge", while in the background, "Jorge" and "George" are linked to the same profile.

That being said, there are still thousands of Names in the database that don't match what's on the card, and even though others see corrections as being anal and pointless, we just want an accurate site.

Just to give a little history of the site into perspective here, which does not contradict anything Ed has said, however it shows why we have inconsistencies still to this day.

When the database first started, the only way to get a name on a checklist to link to the PID was the same as it still is for Team names - the Teams have to match exactly. This is why we cannot enter "NY Mets" or "Mets", it has to be "New York Mets" or there is no link. The same held true for player names. So if our PID was for "Cal Ripken Jr.", every instance in the checklists had to say exactly that for the link to happen, despite what was printed on the cards.

Over the years, Admin has introduced the "alias", which at first allowed a single alternate name to be used for a person. (This allowed a player such as "Albert Belle" to also have "Joey Belle" automatically link to the same PID.) Then the ability to manually edit the PID allows ANYTHING to be entered in the name field and linked to any person. Then, due (mostly) to so many wrestlers using more than 2 stage names over their careers, it was deemed prudent to allow multiple aliases for PIDs. This is where we are today.

That said, that also means the site's "Rules and Guidelines" changed over the years, which also means we will find instances of names not following today's rules. We are hopeful that the rules as they stand now will be the rules going forward for a long time to come. (The last update to this appears to have been in December 2016, which was the adding of the multiple aliases.)

Additionally, as I state in many of my posts these days, the site is crowd-sourced. Each of us thinks differently from each other. I just had a discussion with another member yesterday about adding checklists and the differences in our preferences in loading a checklist on the site. Their method is to upload a somewhat incomplete checklist and spend time on site making the updates to have it meet site guidelines, while I'm more of the mindset to handle it all in excel, and upload it complete, and have no need for edits once on site. But, the end result had better look the same. It's when they don't, that there is an issue. We need to ensure that we're familiar with the rules and guidelines so that we can standardize the checklists.

If you see a situation where you think you should change something, look in the change log for the set. If you see where it was already changed by someone to what you think is wrong - reach out to the other editor and ask why they did what they did. Maybe they were right, but maybe they were wrong, but a little communication between you will stop the redundant back and forth "fixing".

Updated to fix a couple typos.

Oh, and the whole reason I even started replying - at one point, the use of quotation marks and other special characters in the Name field would "break" things - simply put, they weren't supported. This is another reason some names in checklists that go back before Dec 2016 may not meet the requirements of today. Cards that had Jim "Catfish" Hunter could NOT be entered that way here before 2016. Site existed for almost 9 years without that ability, and now has had that ability for only the past 4+ years. It will take a long time for us to find all of these nuances.