Feature List Plethora

[Wajo357]

Since there was a rumor of a site redesign, no better time than to remind you of some of the features that would be nice to have. Some of these features already exist in *similar* websites and I think would be very helpful here:

1) On product page - Rate a product - simple star rating 1-5

2) On product page - Discuss a product - simple discussion where people can discuss issues or things to be aware of

3) On product page - Youtube reviews - embedded. People can add links to reviews and you can watch them within the page

4) Better gamification of the site for people who contribute (with points)

5) - The biggie! Selling... Make it tied to peoples wish list. Include notifications, if a seller posts below a certain price..

6) Integration with facebook and twitter (automatic posts when people add to collection or want to sell)... as an option of course

7) Pages should be have a little bit more color and be a little less crowded

Email notifications when an item you own is updated - especially renamed

9) The ability to subscribe to a category or search result and get notified when an item is added or deleted.

10) An app that can scan bar codes and take pictures and allow an item to be added from the phone.

Is that enough for now . See... thats what happens when you get my hopes up!

[shmax]

1) On product page - Rate a product - simple star rating 1-5

Yes, that one dates back to the days when 'ol Tec (shmax member #5) was around. We'll get to it one of these days, but I don't know if we have enough users flowing around to get much value out of it. It's the kind of thing I could probably bang out in a day or so, so maybe I'll see if I can get 'er done between big projects.

2) On product page - Discuss a product - simple discussion where people can discuss issues or things to be aware of

Hmm, I don't know. We average about one non-bug/non-me forum post per week. Do you really see people chatting up these toys on dedicated pages? We do already have a "comments" field that nobody ever really uses. One thing I've been thinking about doing is trying to separate the comments out into more of a wiki-feel, with history and mark-down syntax--maybe that would make people feel more comfortable.

3) On product page - Youtube reviews - embedded. People can add links to reviews and you can watch them within the page

Interesting. Maybe that could be tied into the feature discussed above.

4) Better gamification of the site for people who contribute (with points)

I've been dreaming of doing an "Achievements" feature for years. Kind of a big feature, though.

5) - The biggie! Selling... Make it tied to peoples wish list. Include notifications, if a seller posts below a certain price..

Working towards this one, fer sure.

6) Integration with facebook and twitter (automatic posts when people add to collection or want to sell)... as an option of course

I've made a few half-hearted attempts towards this. I was going to do Twitter, but was held up by the fact that some joker had already secured a "shmax" account for himself. I went so far as to register the "shmax" trademark, and got Twitter to award me the account (the other guy wasn't doing anything with it), so I guess I have nothing stopping me, now.

7) Pages should be have a little bit more color and be a little less crowded

I have a redesign of the entire site in the can. I actually spent $1k on a "designer" (re: a 16-yr old in Pakistan grubbing extra money on 99designs.com), and between him and I we have a shiny new look. Just need to get around to implementing it.

Email notifications when an item you own is updated - especially renamed

That's a good idea. I had an "alerts" system as well for a while. You can remind me about this one after the store is underway.

9) The ability to subscribe to a category or search result and get notified when an item is added or deleted.

Another good one, but really all you have to do is look at the "new additions" sidebar for any category you're interested in, or better yet, sort the view by "date added".

10) An app that can scan bar codes and take pictures and allow an item to be added from the phone.

We have a guy working on a mobile app. Well, he started on it--I don't know how far he's gotten. Personally, I would just buy a $15 bar code scanner from China, and go to town. You can already search for products by UPC--just put your cursor in the search box, scan a toy with your scanner, and off you go.

I can give you an idea of my short and mid-term plans:

• Finish implementing test plan software (Bugzilla/Testopia)


• Launch newest code refactor (after testing thoroughly, of course). For those curious, I'm adopting PHP's PDO pattern for database access


• Implement new site design


• Hook up new access permissions and finally launch new profile page

After that I want to take a breather and think about what to do next. I really want to take a crack at the new mold system I've been dreaming about for a few years now (linking forms to molds, letting users browse by molds, letting users edit molds, track mold designers, height and width, on and on), but I could see maybe taking a shot at the review system before getting into that. I would really, really love some help on the site, if any of you are intermediate to advanced web developers. There's no money and probably never will be, but hey, at least it's hard, thankless work!

[tusko]

Sounds great!

I have no web design skills so I can't help, but I would like the value system working again.
I'd to see what figures are worth, and the US vs Can pricing differences are always pretty large.  I know you don't have a lot of data but I thought I'd bring it up again.

I'm really happy with being able to find and enter items into my collection.  I find the sub-section stats very interesting.  Am I in the top 100 Prime collectors?   Who doesn't collect this toy?

Great work as always, Max!

[shmax]

I have no web design skills so I can't help, but I would like the value system working again.

Oh, Tusko, you're one in a million. If only I could clone you a hundred times over. You know, in the big, green bubbling vats with creepy lighting. But what isn't working about the value system? It should be more accurate than ever, what with the removal of the fuzzy eBay matching...

[tusko]

Well, I like to know the value of my collection.  The potential in the way you have things set up are self-evident however it relies on a good pool of data of very specific items.

For my mostly Canadian TF collection there just isn't enough data and many of my items have zero value.
I want to know which figure is valuable so I take care of it.  I also want to know if I'm buying a vintage figure is it fairly valued.

So I'd like a methodology to assign minimum value to a figure to get rid of the zeros in my list.
I'd like figure/mold data pooled.  Is there really a difference between the UShttp://shmax.com/product_details/1196/red_alert and Canadian Red Alerts http://shmax.com/product_details/14586/red_alert_feu_d_alerte without box?  Are the values different?

[shmax]

Well, I like to know the value of my collection.  The potential in the way you have things set up are self-evident however it relies on a good pool of data of very specific items.

For my mostly Canadian TF collection there just isn't enough data and many of my items have zero value.
I want to know which figure is valuable so I take care of it.  I also want to know if I'm buying a vintage figure is it fairly valued.

So I'd like a methodology to assign minimum value to a figure to get rid of the zeros in my list.
I'd like figure/mold data pooled.  Is there really a difference between the UShttp://shmax.com/product_details/1196/red_alert and Canadian Red Alerts http://shmax.com/product_details/14586/red_alert_feu_d_alerte without box?  Are the values different?

Hmm, yes, I see what you mean. Maybe we can find some way to sort of fall-through to very similar toys when we can't otherwise find appraisal data. Unfortunately, we don't currently have a data model where toys that are similar are aware of each other. I always sort of figured that this problem would go away if we ever get more users. Well, I'll mull it over.

[engledogg]

Keep in mind that I have no idea what the system is capable of doing, but in instances like this (where both Canada and the U.S. feature all of the same parts, except for the instruction booklet), once that product is marked as "LOOSE" (as in tusko's post above), and there's no price data provided, could we report the value of the next available "shared" product that provides a "LOOSE" value?  Since the system is capable of knowing that a part can be shared across multiple products, would this be possible?

For example, let's say we have a loose "U.S." Red Alert with a reported value of $29.99, but we have no data for the "Canadian" version.  The only difference between the two is the single language instruction booklet for the U.S. and the bilingual instruction booklet for Canada.

Could we display the U.S. value for the LOOSE item since, once you remove the packaging, all of the contents (except for the instruction booklet) are identical and are shared parts across the two products?  That way the Canadian Red Alert would get a loose value.

In a way, if we're considering loose figures that are shared across multiple products, it would be almost like we're assigning values to the figures themselves.  However, I can see how this could potentially get very complicated when considering multi-packs and things like that.  Eh, I guess I didn't think it through enough. 

MIKE
engledogg

[shmax]

Keep in mind that I have no idea what the system is capable of doing, but in instances like this (where both Canada and the U.S. feature all of the same parts, except for the instruction booklet), once that product is marked as "LOOSE" (as in tusko's post above), and there's no price data provided, could we report the value of the next available "shared" product that provides a "LOOSE" value?  Since the system is capable of knowing that a part can be shared across multiple products, would this be possible?

For example, let's say we have a loose "U.S." Red Alert with a reported value of $29.99, but we have no data for the "Canadian" version.  The only difference between the two is the single language instruction booklet for the U.S. and the bilingual instruction booklet for Canada.

Could we display the U.S. value for the LOOSE item since, once you remove the packaging, all of the contents (except for the instruction booklet) are identical and are shared parts across the two products?  That way the Canadian Red Alert would get a loose value.

In a way, if we're considering loose figures that are shared across multiple products, it would be almost like we're assigning values to the figures themselves.  However, I can see how this could potentially get very complicated when considering multi-packs and things like that.  Eh, I guess I didn't think it through enough. 

MIKE
engledogg

That makes a lot of sense. Feel free to open a ticket for it, and I'll get to it when I can.

[shmax]

Would you believe I finally got around to this? As of now, when computing value for a product, rather than gathering collection data points only for the product in question, I gather collection data points for any "cousins" of the product as well. I define any two products to be "cousins" of each other when they have identical part lists (instruction booklets excluded). I just ran a script to apply this logic to every product in the database. Does that work for you, Tusko? It would help if you could verify that your collection value has adjusted accordingly.