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As a big supporter of COMC.com, I was a bit unsure what to think of the split between them and Beckett when it was announced. I definitely understand different practices, so I’m glad to see that COMC is pushing foward with its ideas to make the site even better. Here is the full blog post explaining how COMC.com needs collectors help to ensure enriched information is available for all of us to use:
The COMC development team is pleased to announce the public release of the COMC Challenges, a feature that enables the community to contribute to the upcoming COMC catalog. Your support so far with this project is inspiring and we’re thrilled to team up with the COMC community to provide card collectors and sellers with the richest and most accurate catalog possible. With your help, our goal is to make the best collecting experience ever.
Our signed agreement with Beckett ends on March 31, 2014. Over the next few weeks, we will transition the website checklist and price guide to our new catalog and suggested list prices. For a quick and smooth transition, we’re calling upon the community to help by participating in a series of Challenges.
The idea behind the COMC Challenges is simple: we have millions of card images, and we’re asking the community to provide information easily gleaned from the cards while our identification experts research the best grouping and naming of the sets. Challenges are designed to gather data as quickly and efficiently as possible by showing a series of cards and asking simple questions about them.
How it Works (I don’t care, show me the money!):
The Sports Challenge asks for the card’s sport. Next, the Players Challenge asks for the first two letters of a player’s first and last name. Cards with that information are then ready for the Teams Challenge, which asks for the team represented on the card, narrowing down the potential number of players in that group.
While you provide information through Challenges, our identification team is analyzing each card in our inventory to identify years and compile sets.
By combining the sport, year, team and player initials we are able to analyze publicly available rosters to further narrow down the list of possible players that might be on a card. We will finish off the first round of player data by introducing a new Challenge that allows the community to confirm exactly which players are on the cards.
Prizes
While you take on Challenges, you’ll earn points and compete to move up on the Leaderboard. On March 17th, 24th, and 31st, we’ll award $100 Store Credit to each of the 10 contributors who earned the most points during the previous week (Sunday-Saturday). Additionally, every 5,000 points you earn before April 1 enters you into a drawing to win COMC Store Credit prizes up to $1,000.
If you’re one of the first 500 players to earn 20,000 points, you’ll also receive an exclusive Founding Contributor badge that displays next to your username so everyone can see you were an original contributor to the COMC catalog.
We released a beta version of the COMC Challenges a couple of weeks ago to a select group of customers and we’re now ready to provide everyone the opportunity to contribute. With the help of the community, we’re over 30% of the way through the Player Initials Challenge for the four major sports. Under each Challenge, you’ll see a Community Progress bar so you can track how close we are to the goal.
Bottom Line
We’re excited to eventually include more details like player hometowns, cameos, and T206 backs. Please tell us in the comments below the kinds of info you want to see. Also, if you’d like to offer your expertise with any particular cards or sets, please email [email protected] with a list of your specialties so we can get in touch.
Your support has been great so far, but in order to complete our goal of a new catalog by March 31st, we need a lot more help. So share this post, tweet, blog, and talk to your friends and fellow collectors – let’s get the word out! Stay tuned to the COMC Blog for status updates on the COMC Challenges and catalog project as we approach March 31.
Thanks,
Grant Wescott
Program Manager
COMC.com