1994 Magic the Gathering Revised Edition Gaming Forum

Alphabetical by name (last name if dealing with "humans"). It keeps the site uniform over all catagories.

when you place your magic cards, pokemon etc.
you sort them by color or by name.

we are talking about playable cards.
not sports

We are talking about ALL cards. Alphabetical order. Covers non-sports and gaming. ALL CARDS.

we are talking about playable cards.
not sports

This is a database not a game play site. Data is sorted in an increasing manner according to some linear relationship among the data items; card numbers, names.  

we are talking about playable cards.
not sports

you have 200 sets of magic in the archive all sorted by color, and 10 sets of cards that you want to mix colors, you are ridiculous

The cards that are numbered are grouped by color. Happy that Wizards decided to go that route. NNO sets are a different story but I had been thinking for some time whether or not it would be allowed to create "teams" for Magic sets, irrespective of cards in NNO or numbered sets. Like for example

Mountain - team = Land (Magic)

or

Prodigal Sorcerer - team = Blue (Magic)

and then when viewing a set you can use the team drop-down menu to view just those card types. Same could be done for Pokemon since they have types.

Interesting idea, I think this has some potential.  This way, the checklist can still be listed alphabetical to adhere to the site guidelines and still have the ability to have the cards easily found for the gaming members who know about the different types/groupings.

As is so frequently recommended here that when one has an idea of how to better do something, ask Admin instead of getting many differing opinions.  I did so this morning and this is what he replied with:

We should definitely make an exception for MTG cards and how the MTG community does things.  We currently already make exceptions for the card numbering in Pokemon sets.  One thing that may (or may not) work is using the layout for sets with no base, where each color is treated as a separate insert.  This might satisfy the need to group things by color while also making it less daunting for those trying to find things if the list isn't completely alphabetized.

I believe it would mean listing the sets where there is no #ing by insert sets such as this one https://www.tcdb.com/ViewSet.cfm/sid/254515/1977-Edito-Service-World-War-II, the insert sets being the colour. I have asked him to confirm if this is the intent of his response. If so, aby MTG collector AND knowledgeable member of this site's inner workings (or two members working together) will need to set it up this way, having Admin do his magic when only he is able to do it.

I totally get were both sides are coming from in this discussion.  As a database developer, you do need logical ways to sort and store your data, which if there aren't card numbers, alphabetical makes the next most sense.  But at the same time, I also know from experiance with gaming cards, that's sometimes a pain in the butt when you have the cards set up by color or type or whatever.  Ideally I think we all have to remember this site is for collectors and some types of card collections may not fall into the same ideology as others so we need to be flexable enough for both communities if we want to grow.

Sounds like that was Admin's intention, all inserts, no base. Easy enough to do, and Admin isn't needed to set it up. Just someone knowledgeable enough to guide those of us who know how to make it happen. Also, we need someone knowledgeable enough to tell us which sets are duplicates now and which aren't. (Those will require Admin to remove, but can be done through the IRs.)