In other communities I have been a part of, the administrators of the forums got together with people from the website to make ultimate databases of said collectibles. Then each member could go through the database, and put checkboxes next to every figure they have in their collection and save it.

 

This could display a "Collector" icon below the person's avatar that is a clickable button that would navigate to a viewable version of the person's collection. It's a way for the collectors to sort of show off their stuff to the others, and also minimizes time needed when people are posting trades and things like that.

 

Has this been discussed in the past? Is it planned now? Was it one time tried and given up?

 

Love to see a feature on this great site! Thanks a ton :)

strangly we are talking about this in the mod area tho im not sure what stage its at but i know its early days and thats if it is going to happen. im sure an other mod can fill you in better

... not to be a tool, but you can always just put the link in your sig I've done this several times in the past. It will always read "MY Collection" or something to that effect :tflaugh just saying.

That would only be one benefit of a figure database, which would go far beyond just allowing people to link you to the ones they had.

It would also have pictures of all the figures, links to their reviews on TFormers.com (or something), technical and bio data, etc.

 

Having a collection link in your profile is, like I also said, just one benefit of it.

This was the intended vision for the current version of my website. I eventually dropped the database side of the idea very early when I had determined that I did not have the space requirements for this task. I also did not have the time to do it. I spent a good month or two on database structure and design too. I believe the main reason for me dropping this idea was that I always encompass the entirety of a collection, especially foreign products. So what I did was change my site into being a giant checklist. The original design I had come up with was pretty intense. I believe ErikB should remember more about it. I had tried to contract out the development for it but it just never happened. I couldn't handle doing the process design by myself, and couldn't wait for the guy I hired to do it for me. So I dropped that part of the project. It was a great learning experience, however.

 

The original design was to support these items:

1. Track collection of figures, boxed or loose

2. Display collections as thumbnails for each item in the users profile

3. Enable the creation of want-lists, trade-lists and sale-lists that the site would automatically match up with.

4. an integrated feedback system

5. the ability to pay for a product or set up a trade.

6. A built in price guide reflecting current market conditions (this process was completed but never implemented)

7. the ability to search for items based on copyright stamp, color, series, etc.

 

Its an extremely daunting task to do this. It would have taken me years to just get started! This is something that an entire TEAM of people would be needed to complete. It was just beyond me and the measily 3 other people I had working with me on the project. Its not to say that it is impossible to do it, but a finished product, if started today, wouldn't be available for a couple of years.

Yeah, you need a team. That's why I suggested it as a community project. Stuff like this has been done on sites before - like Magic card forums that have an entire database with all that stuff for every card, and even allow a user to build their deck and show it to others. Great and VERY helpful and useful feature for all members.

 

All the thumbnail things are great too, that's just bonus. You need somebody managing a milestone plan where you start with basic functionality then work up from there.

That's how I started it out. I ended writing a CMS from scratch because of it, which was pretty fun. My model for the idea was Beckett.com.

I would love to see a rally to get a project like this started, and get a ton of technical and organizational minds together with some designers to really make a great version of this. For starters it could be its own website, and then when it gets really good it could be integrated into the boards or something.

Board integration was the annoying factor iirc. I wanted to use the authentication/rights module from iPB, but I couldn't get it to work. If you want a site like this to have a board on it, then you need to design it with that in mind. I eventually dropped that notion and tried to do the site.

 

My reason for discontinuing the project was because I didn't like just typing crap into a database. I started it, but I found that I stopped remembering things about the toys. So I scrapped that idea (but kept the page design as you can see) but ended up typing up the pages manually.

 

Here are some starter tables if anyone is interested in doing it. Unfortunately, my test server account was deleted, so I don't have any of the design discussions anymore.

 

-- 
-- Table structure for table `color`
-- 

CREATE TABLE `color` (
 `color_id` int(11) unsigned zerofill NOT NULL auto_increment,
 `color_name` varchar(128) NOT NULL default '',
 PRIMARY KEY  (`color_id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM  DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=4;

-- 
-- Dumping data for table `color`
-- 

INSERT INTO `color` VALUES (00000000001, 'red');
INSERT INTO `color` VALUES (00000000002, 'blue');
INSERT INTO `color` VALUES (00000000003, 'black');

 

-- 
-- Table structure for table `country`
-- 

CREATE TABLE `country` (
 `country_id` int(11) unsigned zerofill NOT NULL auto_increment,
 `country_name` varchar(128) NOT NULL default '',
 PRIMARY KEY  (`country_id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM  DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=4;

-- 
-- Dumping data for table `country`
-- 

INSERT INTO `country` VALUES (00000000001, 'United States');
INSERT INTO `country` VALUES (00000000002, 'Japan');
INSERT INTO `country` VALUES (00000000003, 'England');

 

-- Table structure for table `manufacturer`
-- 

CREATE TABLE `manufacturer` (
 `manufacturer_id` int(11) unsigned zerofill NOT NULL auto_increment,
 `manufacturer_name` varchar(128) NOT NULL default '',
 PRIMARY KEY  (`manufacturer_id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM  DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=4;

-- 
-- Dumping data for table `manufacturer`
-- 

INSERT INTO `manufacturer` VALUES (00000000001, 'Hasbro');
INSERT INTO `manufacturer` VALUES (00000000002, 'Takara');
INSERT INTO `manufacturer` VALUES (00000000003, 'Antex');

 

-- 
-- Table structure for table `mold`
-- 

CREATE TABLE `mold` (
 `mold_id` int(11) unsigned zerofill NOT NULL auto_increment,
 `mold_name` varchar(128) NOT NULL default '',
 PRIMARY KEY  (`mold_id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM  DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=2;

-- 
-- Dumping data for table `mold`
-- 

INSERT INTO `mold` VALUES (00000000001, '1984 Sideswipe');

 

-- 
-- Table structure for table `releases`
-- 

CREATE TABLE `releases` (
 `rel_id` int(11) unsigned zerofill NOT NULL auto_increment,
 `toy_id` int(11) unsigned zerofill NOT NULL default '00000000000',
 `toy_name` varchar(128) NOT NULL default '',
 `color_id` int(11) unsigned zerofill NOT NULL default '00000000000',
 `country_id` int(11) unsigned zerofill NOT NULL default '00000000000',
 `manufacturer_id` int(11) unsigned zerofill NOT NULL default '00000000000',
 `mold_id` int(11) unsigned zerofill NOT NULL default '00000000000',
 `series_id` int(11) unsigned zerofill NOT NULL default '00000000000',
 `year_id` int(11) unsigned zerofill NOT NULL default '00000000000',
 PRIMARY KEY  (`rel_id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM  DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=3;

-- 
-- Dumping data for table `releases`
-- 

INSERT INTO `releases` VALUES (00000000001, 00000000001, 'Sideswipe', 00000000001, 00000000001, 00000000001, 00000000001, 00000000001, 00000000001);
INSERT INTO `releases` VALUES (00000000002, 00000000002, 'Sunsteaker', 00000000004, 00000000001, 00000000001, 00000000002, 00000000001, 00000000001);

 

-- 
-- Table structure for table `series`
-- 

CREATE TABLE `series` (
 `series_id` int(11) unsigned zerofill NOT NULL auto_increment,
 `series_name` varchar(128) NOT NULL default '',
 `country_id` int(11) unsigned zerofill NOT NULL default '00000000000',
 `year_id` int(11) unsigned zerofill NOT NULL default '00000000000',
 PRIMARY KEY  (`series_id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM  DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=4;

-- 
-- Dumping data for table `series`
-- 

INSERT INTO `series` VALUES (00000000001, 'Transformers', 00000000001, 00000000001);
INSERT INTO `series` VALUES (00000000002, 'Diaclone', 00000000002, 00000000001);
INSERT INTO `series` VALUES (00000000003, 'Beast Wars', 00000000001, 00000000000);

 

-- 
-- Table structure for table `year_table`
-- 

CREATE TABLE `year_table` (
 `year_id` int(11) unsigned zerofill NOT NULL auto_increment,
 `year_name` varchar(128) NOT NULL default '',
 PRIMARY KEY  (`year_id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM  DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=4;

-- 
-- Dumping data for table `year_table`
-- 

INSERT INTO `year_table` VALUES (00000000001, '1984');
INSERT INTO `year_table` VALUES (00000000002, '1985');
INSERT INTO `year_table` VALUES (00000000003, '1986');