SCF Update - May 8, 2019 - Need your Input!

[wavescrashing]

I consider this to be great news.
Thanks for being so transparent on the future of SCF.

A few suggestions and questions related to the site:
1.) Are you currently (or do you plan to) advertise SCF through well known sports cards sites (e.g. cardboard connection) or card shows to increase user traffic?
2.) Faster throughput/performance would be great to see.
3.) +1 on plans to improve the mobile site.
4.) It'd be great to have the option to display a "trade manager summary" perhaps of confirmed/pending trades in the UserCP.

[Mr Cardboard]

Thanks for taking the time to keep us updated and continuing to keep the site available!

[Craiggb]

Scott, You do a great job and i love this site. Its the only one i use ttm. Thank you craig

[cska91]

The one thing that I would like to see improved is search capability on the site. I think it's really lacking. For example, limiting a search to a specific forum, like hockey card trading, and not anywhere else... or searching for a specific phrase and have only verbatim results come back. Right now, when I search for precious gems I get precious metal gems back as a hit. Doing things like excluding certain words would be a dream. Hopefully this is helpful. It's my two cents, anyway. Needless to say, appreciate that this site exists and the work you do to make it run.

[CardsAndPhils]

I didn't read all of the responses, so somebody else may have mentioned this. One thing I would find IMMENSELY helpful is if in the TTM section, if a player requires a donation to sign, could that be easier to find? I've had three different requests returned unsigned (or with a note asking for me to resubmit with proper donation), and I wonder if others didn't bother to send the cards back without a donation. Thanks!

[CatdaddysCards]

My most desired upgrade would definitely include a way for us to get away from picture hosting sites and BB code.

#2 would probably revolve around the sluggishness of the site, as a whole.

#3 I would like to a way to separate base trading from autos/relics/SP's etc. There's absolutely nothing wrong with trading base, just makes for a lot of threads to scan through when I am looking for other types of cards.

[scottkoz20]

Please see some direct replies below....

I didn't read all of the responses, so somebody else may have mentioned this. One thing I would find IMMENSELY helpful is if in the TTM section, if a player requires a donation to sign, could that be easier to find? I've had three different requests returned unsigned (or with a note asking for me to resubmit with proper donation), and I wonder if others didn't bother to send the cards back without a donation. Thanks!

@CoolHandLuke - could something like this be done with a checkbox indicating that a donation is required (maybe add in an optional field to allow for details about this donation)?

This would be something in the meantime that can be added to the comments on the failure while I understand what would needed to be done programmatically on the TTM.

My most desired upgrade would definitely include a way for us to get away from picture hosting sites and BB code.

#2 would probably revolve around the sluggishness of the site, as a whole.

#3 I would like to a way to separate base trading from autos/relics/SP's etc. There's absolutely nothing wrong with trading base, just makes for a lot of threads to scan through when I am looking for other types of cards.

the issue is vBulletin itself... there is no way at this point to avoid the 3rd party and/or the BB code. You can use the Attachment function in the posting, but it does have limitations

In the trading sections, I can add in a Prefix for Base Card Trading. I would be hesistant in adding another forum as it would just add more load onto the database

The one thing that I would like to see improved is search capability on the site. I think it's really lacking. For example, limiting a search to a specific forum, like hockey card trading, and not anywhere else... or searching for a specific phrase and have only verbatim results come back. Right now, when I search for precious gems I get precious metal gems back as a hit. Doing things like excluding certain words would be a dream. Hopefully this is helpful. It's my two cents, anyway. Needless to say, appreciate that this site exists and the work you do to make it run.

There was a modification that I had added in last year that I needed to pull off after Black Sunday in October to ensure that the site got back running again that did help in the searchability of SCF. While I'm home for the next week, I'll work on reintegrating that search modification to forums.

I consider this to be great news.
Thanks for being so transparent on the future of SCF.

A few suggestions and questions related to the site:
1.) Are you currently (or do you plan to) advertise SCF through well known sports cards sites (e.g. cardboard connection) or card shows to increase user traffic?
2.) Faster throughput/performance would be great to see.
3.) +1 on plans to improve the mobile site.
4.) It'd be great to have the option to display a "trade manager summary" perhaps of confirmed/pending trades in the UserCP.

1) Sites --> No; Shows is something that I would like to work with promoters and/or members that setup in getting cards or flyers about SCF at the shows. Additionally, I have thought about getting SCF T-shirts done so when members go to shows, they can wear them to shows.

4) Well, that information for the Trade Manager is on the left hand side of the UserCP page.

trade_mgr_usercp.PNG

I can add in a link to the SCF Member Menu at the top right to go to the Trade Manager.

member_menu.png

One suggestion would be maybe to clean things up a bit to delete some threads that the people are done with. I know some people leave at the end to close the thread comments.

there is the ability to mark your own threads as being "closed"

closing threads.png


However, I think a change in the verbiage is needed to be more global in closing a thread.

I would love to see a system of some sort implemented where you can enter a card/player's name into a database (that is shared to a point) that also has the photos for said card(for generic non patch cards and such) so that it isn't necessary to photograph every single insert you may have. I know that it would need people to upload said photos and add details but it is doable with the right card and excel shared document or online photo hosting service. It would be handy to have on the phone so I wouldn't have to upload the photos to my laptop or flickr first

Well, we have some of the pieces you are mentioning in the Inventory Manager already, if I understand correctly your vision. There are aspects that need to be enhanced but I believe vast majority of this already is in existence.

If you have specifics on your thoughts, please share. I want to be sure I am on the same page with you.

Hello! I am newer to the site. I have really enjoyed using the inventory manager and uploading hi-res photos of my PC!

I don't know if there is a practical solution for this but many of the images I attempt to upload from my phone seem to be outside of the requirements. I end up using the compress app and then I upload the the compressed file with no issues. I wonder if similar software could be integrated to automatically resize uploaded images (similar to the process seen in the "compress" app).

Another suggestion I have would be to have a single tab for inventory with radio buttons to filter PC/TOUT.

I love the site and glad I found it! Thank you!

Dan
Crown Town Cards

Thank you for finding us! As for the image resizing automatically, I'll defer this to @CoolHandLuke to discuss this further. I understand you point completely.

If I were to pick one thing to improve it would be query responsiveness. I have no idea what technology is powering the backend but just based on how things "feel" it seems you're using a relational database of some kind - MySQL maybe? Have you considered perhaps a true Microsoft SQL Server instance in Azure? Azure usage-based pricing is super cheap compared to true "server hosting" and I would imagine the performance users would feel when just clicking stuff on the site would be massively better

Well, you have nailed part of the issue with the backend database storing the forum information. However, one of the issues that I need to understand is how vBulletin can/would run with a cloud database that is not hosted on the same server. I am working on this research at this point.

Scott glad you are back, a busy life i a good life.

I have been in contact with the mods on the football boards and would like to get my New York Jets Collection into the SCF Hall of Fame.

Reach out to me if you have any updates on this process.

Thank you for what you do.

I'm not sure I saw this submission... i'll check with @lil5up3rman and @bakemeister about this

I have brought this up before but, I would like to see some kind of way in the TTM manager that you could have teams names that you can click and it would give you the team addresses. For example, if someone wants to send to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, instead of having to search for an individual play to find the address, you can just click a teams name and it takes you straight to the address that is being used most often or even just a list of the address for said team. Sometimes it can be a pain when you are trying to send to someone that isn't listed in the TTM manager yet and you have to search through a bunch of different players just to try to find the address for the team.

Like this? --> https://www.sportscardforum.com/scft...wplayer/4/4513

The team information can be found by selecting Team Fan Pack on the left hand menu.

If you are thinking about something different, please let me know.

Welcome back Scott!

Everything here is awesome.
The only thing I would like to see as a change / upgrade is to the data base / inventory manager. I just wish more people would use it. For some of us we use the site plus a website or photo host. It is time consuming taking care of both (yeah I can be lazy lol). I would like the inventory manger easier to access from the message pages. That may lead people to it.

Effeicent, not lazy

I think this would be a discussion I would need @CoolHandLuke to be more involved with.

I am happy you own SCF & with the updating you've done
How do you add teams to NASCAR ?!?!?
A reply from a mod within a few days of posting would be nice …
I've only tried trading at 1 other place without much luck & stay away from beckett
Keep up the good work
Thanks

Team in Nascar? Racing Teams such as Hendrick Motorsports?

[cska91]

I thought of another thing (not to pile on) - is there a way for a user to delete threads that user started? I have tried looking into this before and seems like that's not an option right now. It would be great, if a user could go into MyThreads and remove old threads forever. Otherwise, my threads gets kind of messy. Thanks!

[BBonds25]

Been here since darned near day 1, and have had no complaints.

Keep up the great work Scott!

[scottkoz20]

I thought of another thing (not to pile on) - is there a way for a user to delete threads that user started? I have tried looking into this before and seems like that's not an option right now. It would be great, if a user could go into MyThreads and remove old threads forever. Otherwise, my threads gets kind of messy. Thanks!

found that this can cause issues with the Database - however, I'll defer this to @DirtyHarry