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Thumbs way way down for the new PSA Pop Report search

miwlvrnmiwlvrn Posts: 4,266 ✭✭✭✭✭
in Trading Cards & Memorabilia Forum

Yuck. PSA's website debuted a new format on the population report pages today. The half grades and qualifiers are entered into a common section with the straight number and you have to look for the "+" or "Q" now; I can get used to that one as the same info is still there but just now how it has looked for a long time. The problem I have with the new look is when you type search terms into the pop lookup section, you get the following: "Note: A maximum of 25 results are shown per search." Personally, I think it is a terrible choice to have this in the programming. I will concede that the results turn up a lot faster than before, but that doesn't make up for the lack of results. For example, I think a lot of collectors enjoyed the ability to type in a name and have the results show you all items graded with that name, so you could learn what items existed of a particular player you were interested in and never knew about until spotting one on the pop report. Now you have to know what the card is before you find the pop. This will make the oddball and foreign cards a lot harder to ever discover. Not sure about general consensus, but I'm very disappointed with the latest search results format image

Comments

  • TNP777TNP777 Posts: 5,710 ✭✭✭
    WTF? Only 25 results per search? That blows. I used to be able to bring up all of Brett Butler's graded cards on one page.

    edit: and if I type in "1980 Brett Butler" I get the one response I know I'm going to get, and a page of other results showing George Brett.

    Not liking this at all.

    Search results for "1980 Brett Butler":
    1980 TCMA Anderson Braves 26 Brett Butler Anderson Braves
    1980 Topps 521 Ken Brett
    1980 Topps 450 George Brett
    1980 O-Pee-Chee 235 George Brett
    1980 Topps 114 Brett Callighen (hockey guy)
    1980 O-Pee-Chee 114 Brett Callighen (hockey guy)
    1980 Kellogg's 9 George Brett
    1980 Burger King Pitch, Hit & Run 13 George Brett
    1984 Star Brett 13 George Brett the 1980 Season-PT.2-Perf.
    1988-1989 Star Platinum 136 George Brett 1980 MVP
    1984 Star Brett 12 George Brett the 1980 Season-PT. 1-Perf.
    2002 Topps Archives Reserve 70 George Brett 1980 Reprint
    1980 Topps Superstar 5x7 Photos 14 George Brett Gray Back
    1980 Topps Superstar 5x7 Photos 14 George Brett White Back
    1980 MLB-A.L. Parks-Pass Pass Valid George Brett .390 BA MVP Season
    1983 Topps 364 Brett Butler (1983 isn't in the keyword search at all)

    Dodgers collection scans | Brett Butler registry | 1978 Dodgers - straight 9s, homie
  • miwlvrnmiwlvrn Posts: 4,266 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I can't see how anyone could be in favor of this switch. It seems as though they eliminated the old program and instead set up a common link between that and the data that comes up when you are filling out the online submission form. This format is fine for the online sub form, but just a huge mistake for the pop report search. Maybe if their customer feedback is universally strongly opposed to the new format, they might listen and restore the old version?

  • PMKAYPMKAY Posts: 1,372 ✭✭
    Wow this is stupid. I searched for Wayne Gretzky and 25 random Topps cards show up as the results, not even in order by year.
  • MapleleafMapleleaf Posts: 506 ✭
    I suspect they won't be going back to the old version since the new one is designed for one thing - the "shop" link.
  • CDsNutsCDsNuts Posts: 10,092 ✭
    The functionality is actually great but the logic in how it's set up is a big misfire. They set it up in a way where it only makes sense if you're searching for one particular card, which for most of us is rarely the case. I'm not sure they understand that we use the search function because we want to find the pops for all of the cards of a given player, not narrow it down to one or a few cards. It's almost as if they've created a shortcut so that you don't have to go in and click 'Population Report>Baseball>1982>Topps' to find one particular 1982 Topps card.

    I'm guessing the old search function was putting too much stress on their servers because it was propagating so much data at any given time and they figured this was a good way to thin out the search results. Terrible move, they should find another solution. Nobody will use this function as it currently stands.

    Lee
  • mikliamiklia Posts: 1,295 ✭✭✭
    i particularly dis-enjoy the 'no longer bringing up hits in chronological order' improvement in addition to the 'leaving out key releases' feature.
  • FavreFan1971FavreFan1971 Posts: 3,103 ✭✭✭
    Wow, what a drastic change.

    I get the idea to limit the searches to 25 to speed up the results but you should be able to run larger queries over night when the load is low. For instance if you want to run the Brett Butler entire PSA Pop you should be able to queue it and have a link emailed to you with the results. That is very easy to schedule in Oracle or SQL. I know that is what we do at work. Any queries that have a large cost are pushed off to after hours.

    Another option is to run these large queries one every X minutes to not over take the database. Lots of options here for a good customer service fix.
  • FavreFan1971FavreFan1971 Posts: 3,103 ✭✭✭
    Another option here is to limit LIVE queries to 25 lines. That is, if you want today's data you can only get 25 lines and you need to be darn specific to get what you want.

    If you want a larger report PSA can export a copy of the data one day a week and then that can get drilled by these larger queries. Who cares how much a read only database gets hit. They only should care about the live database and its performance. Heck, they could have several copies of the read only database too.
  • mikliamiklia Posts: 1,295 ✭✭✭
    an even better option is to have FavreFan make a new popreport search that actually works and give him free submissions for life.
  • FavreFan1971FavreFan1971 Posts: 3,103 ✭✭✭


    << <i>an even better option is to have FavreFan make a new popreport search that actually works and give him free submissions for life. >>



    Sadly, Favrefan is a lowly Project Manager that does not have the technical skill to do this for PSA. BUT - Favrefan has contacts and contractors that he could point to PSA if they don't have the in house skill set.

    And my finders fee is much cheaper than life free subs ;-)
  • itzagoneritzagoner Posts: 8,753 ✭✭
    where's the link for "TAKE ME BACK TO THE CLASSIC FORMAT!!!!" image

    ah.

    that's better. i'll hug my blankee now. image
  • firedawg45firedawg45 Posts: 1,251 ✭✭✭
    horrible psa, what where they thinking......
    # 2 Pete Rose Master Set , also
    collecting 1977 topps baseball in psa 9 and psa 10
  • PMKAYPMKAY Posts: 1,372 ✭✭
    From PSA:

    Hello,

    We have implemented a new way to search for cards. At this point in time it will only bring up the top 25 cards that match the search. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us.

    Thank you,
  • handymanhandyman Posts: 5,383 ✭✭✭✭✭
    agree. I thought 1980-81 Topps Pop was hard to look at.
    Booooo , Poor 1.
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