For my Playset Collection Project, I'm trying to get English versions of all of the cards. Because the trade matcher doesn't have a way to distinguish this, I get quite a few matches for foreign versions of the cards I want.

The foil tag works wonderfully, and I'm just wondering if other people think that tagging foreign cards would work too.

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If so, it probably wouldn't be used.

quote:

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Originally posted by BoltBait:
Wouldn't we need tags for each language?

If so, it probably wouldn't be used.

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I thought about that, but I think a single tag would be sufficient, really. People searching for foreign cards would narrow down their searches considerably just with a blanket tag, and it would be much easier than it is now. People who don't want foreigns at all wouldn't be affected either way.

Just because I know someone will say it otherwise, yes, it should probably be a "non-English" tag rather than a "foreign" tag.

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Even with a single FBB tag, a lot of people would probably still not use it. I like the idea (with some refinement) but, I don't think enough people would use it to make it worth while--we can't even get people to use the foil tag!

quote:

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Originally posted by BoltBait:
Most people that are searching for foreign cards wouldn't care for French White Bordered cards... they want Black Bordered Asian language cards.

Even with a single FBB tag, a lot of people would probably still not use it. I like the idea (with some refinement) but, I don't think enough people would use it to make it worth while--we can't even get people to use the foil tag!

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I agree, ideally tags per language would be nice, but I don't think it's feasible, at least not until people get used to the foreign tag. A single would make searching for those cards much easier than it is now, though. Better to look for a card among just the foreign tagged ones than to try and sort them out from all cards of that name.

Sure, not everyone would use it, but I think just like foils, it will catch on and at least most people would use it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by BoltBait:
Most people that are searching for foreign cards wouldn't care for French White Bordered cards... they want Black Bordered Asian language cards.

Even with a single FBB tag, a lot of people would probably still not use it. I like the idea (with some refinement) but, I don't think enough people would use it to make it worth while--we can't even get people to use the foil tag!

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True about the asian bit. I admit, if this existed, I probably wouldn't use it. The fact is, with foils, it's either foil or it's not. Sure you can have a foil in a different language and people may be disappointed when they find that on your list but for the most part they're straight foward. That's why the foil tag works so well. With foreign cards, there's so many variations that between people not using it and the variations in wants versus haves, it just wouldn't work.

If I'm not mistaken, Magic cards are currengly made in 10 main languages including English. As of 9th edition, there's also Russian making 11. There's also the prerelease cards which probably makes 20 or so languages (I don't know for sure). Also, in some editions, such as 4th, certain languages were WB while others were BB.

Also, there's the question of purpose. When somebody's looking for a foil, if the card has the foil tag, they know it's foil and all is good. When somebody's looking for a FBB Japanese Goblin Welder and a welder marked with an "FBB tag" turns out to be French, all is not so good.

Overall, I don't really think there's a way this could exist without being self-defeating and inevitably unused.

Thanks,
Billy Bones

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quote:

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Originally posted by Billy Bones:
Also, there's the question of purpose. When somebody's looking for a foil, if the card has the foil tag, they know it's foil and all is good. When somebody's looking for a FBB Japanese Goblin Welder and a welder marked with an "FBB tag" turns out to be French, all is not so good.

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So if you're looking for a Japanese Welder, you're saying you'd rather look at every list with a Welder on it than every list with a foreign Welder on it?

Yes, a more generic tag wouldn't work perfectly, but the fact still remains that it would make searching for given foreign cards much easier, as well as make it much easier for people who don't want foreigns at all to search for the cards they want.

IMO, some help is better than no help.

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quote:

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Originally posted by nderdog:
So if you're looking for a Japanese Welder, you're saying you'd rather look at every list with a Welder on it than every list with a foreign Welder on it?

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Sure that specific example might be easier but overall it's benefits are still very limited. Also, there are scenarios where a FBB tag would work against the person searching. One example would be if a person from a non-English speaking country were to post a list. They may either list English cards as FBB (unlikely) or not list cards from their language as FBB. For example, if somebody from France were to list a bunch of cards, while other European languages would be listed as FBB, French would not. This would just confuse the search engine and the people searching.

Also, let's say I'm searching from cards from Italian Legends. If I use the FBB tag in my search and somebody doesn't bother to use it on the Italian Legends cards either because it was the only other language or they simply didn't bother, I wouldn't find them. If the FBB tag didn't exist, I would.

Also, like in your personal situation, what if the card you were looking for was FWB. If we had a FWB and FBB tag there would simply be too much to do and people wouldn't use it. If the card was FWB, you would have the same troubles if the FBB tag existed or not.

There's yet another problem. While this isn't as much of a concern as some other stuff, what if people simply aren't familiar with the languages. This could cause troubles trading because people would expect one language and receive another.

Then there's the matter of new members. MOTL can be difficult to figure out and I think a FBB tag would make it a lot more difficult for new members to do things. For the most part, people have English cards. I'm not saying this to be ignorant, I'm saying it because other than the odd FBB dual or Italian Drain, most people only want English cards. A lot of the new members are just casual players who wouldn't really need the FBB tag or ever use it and it might only make things more difficult for people (for exmaple, if somebody didn't care what language but they didn't find the card because it was listed as FBB).

What if the cards had the FBB and the Foil tag? How would those two interact?

Also, if somebody's going through the effort of looking for a certain card from a certain edition or language, certainly they're willing to take the time and effort to check another list if somebody happens to have the card in a language other than the one they are seeking.

Again, I must emphasize that overall, this would cause a lot more problems and headaches than successes and would be rarely and unfruitfully implemented.

Edit: Also, if I wanted a Japanese Goblin Welder that badly, I would simply put on my Want list or Buy list "Japanese ONLY" and eventually, somebody who has a Japanese Welder would find it. I could even go as far as to put that somewhere in to the title of my list such as: "Want Japanese Goblin Welder" or "Want Japanese Cards". This would be much more effective than an FBB tag.
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I specifically said it should really be a "non-English" tag, not "foreign" so no matter what language someone speaks, it still works the same way.

I never even suggested using a black-border or white-border system, because that gets down to micro-management just like specific languages. It's just not that important.

Of course it won't be used by every person. Of course some things will slip through the cracks. The important thing is that if it's used even half as much as the foil tag is now, it WILL make a significant improvement for those who wish to use it. I know it would make my life a lot easier as my trade matches wouldn't get so hosed up with foreign cards that I don't want. Sure, we can all come up with lots of situations where it isn't a help, but the fact is that it wouldn't hurt at all. If you're worried about it making you miss a card because someone doesn't use the tag, just search the way you always have. You don't lose anything, but some of us gain a lot.

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quote:

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Originally posted by nderdog:
Well, considering that almost every one of those circumstances would be completely eliminated by using the tag the way I actually described, I really don't know what to say.

I specifically said it should really be a "non-English" tag, not "foreign" so no matter what language someone speaks, it still works the same way.

I never even suggested using a black-border or white-border system, because that gets down to micro-management just like specific languages. It's just not that important.

Of course it won't be used by every person. Of course some things will slip through the cracks. The important thing is that if it's used even half as much as the foil tag is now, it WILL make a significant improvement for those who wish to use it. I know it would make my life a lot easier as my trade matches wouldn't get so hosed up with foreign cards that I don't want. Sure, we can all come up with lots of situations where it isn't a help, but the fact is that it wouldn't hurt at all. If you're worried about it making you miss a card because someone doesn't use the tag, just search the way you always have. You don't lose anything, but some of us gain a lot.

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Well, to be honest, I've just been playing devil's advocate for a bit. I'm not particularly against the idea persay I just didn't see how it could do much good. Now I think you've proven your point rather tourougly and I believe I am in favor of a "non-English" tag. That way it might be a little easier to avoild the odd random card in another language and it might be a bit easier to find Japanese Foils or FBB duals or some such thing.

The only question I still have is how the tag would work or how it would interact with the foil tag.

Here's a very simple solution that I thought of. For cards that exist in multiple editions, such as the moxen, whenever you search for the card, the edition will show up in parenthesis next to it. Granted it's not always correct or people can enter it oddly, but for the most part it works. My suggestion is that people can put "(N-E)" next to a card that is non-English. That will act similarly to putting the edition such as "(alpha)" and it could show up when a search is done. Also, since this wouldn't effect the actual text of the card, like the foil tag, it wouldn't interfere with the foil tag.

LMK what you think.

Thanks,
Billy Bones

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FBB/FWB Tags would be .

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quote:

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Originally posted by Mr.C:
I'm all for it.

FBB/FWB Tags would be .

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Agreed.

You don't have to specify which languages in the tags (because some kids don't know what they got anyways or are too lazy to look them up) but just being able to say I'm only looking for FBB or for FWB in the search engine would make things muuuch easier.

Plus, not too many people have foreign cards so I don't see it being too much of a problem to implement.

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Besides this thread, has there been anyother discussion on this topic?

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quote:

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Originally posted by MasterWolf:
I think a Foreign Tag would be nice. However, the main reason people want to find Foreign cards is for the FBB oldys. So maybe a FBB tag instead? I know that wouldn't help you find a French WB card, but I dunno.

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I'd say starting out with a non-English tag would be a vast improvement. If it works out well, BB and WB could be added, or use them both from the beginning, but just separating out non-English cards would make the number of lists to look through for the specific version of the card you want much easier than it is now.

Why should I be able to separate my FBB cards and not my FWB ones?

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quote:

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Originally posted by nderdog:
I'd say starting out with a non-English tag would be a vast improvement. If it works out well, BB and WB could be added, or use them both from the beginning, but just separating out non-English cards would make the number of lists to look through for the specific version of the card you want much easier than it is now.

Why should I be able to separate my FBB cards and not my FWB ones?

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The way it should be is the following
english
asian
non-english (german, french, italian, spanish, port. etc)
russian (could be on it's own or with non-english)

And, in some cases the FBB tag might be confusing, if it would be used for both German Revised Birds of Paradise and Portuguese Ravnica BOP.. personally I think the term FBB should be limited to the basic set only, because it emphasizes the "black bordered" aspect which should be clear with non-basic set cards anyway.

-foil
-eng (english)
-asian (all asian languages)
-noneng (non english and asian languages)