Would support for Magic: the Gathering rendering make you move site?

Question

A while ago, we had a discussion about the rationale for asking Magic questions on a separate site. Since then, the number of MTG questions here has gone through the roof. It is now the top game, by some margin, and responsible for 13% of all the questions on the site.

Since we adopted the Go site, I have been very impressed by the Go renderer, which makes really nice board images from a simple markup (example).

So, as one of your community advocates, I have been asking various people at SE about the possibility of rendering support for MTG (and chess as well). An answer I received today implied that if there were a separate site for MTG, support might be more of a priority.

I have a few questions for you:

• Do you think Board and Card Games is a good solution for a place to ask MTG questions?
• Would rendering support for MTG (symbols, automatic inline card images, ...) substantially improve this site for you?
• Would you move to a new Stack Exchange site for MTG if it had such dedicated support?

My personal opinion is that this is a great site for MTG questions, and we would be a much poorer place without them. I also don't believe that a standalone MTG site would be successful. And I don't see why there is any advantage to implementing a renderer later, rather than now.

But it's really up to the community to decide whether this matters, or not. So - what do you think?

Answer 1

Where the Magic questions go, so goes my nation; I'm committed to the MtG proposal, but if it is determined that it isn't necessary and that Magic has a better home here, so be it. Regardless of where it is, however, what is important is that working with Magic posts is convenient - at the moment, it is not. If it is easier to ask questions on another SE, they won't get asked here.

At 183 out of 1,421 questions, magic-the-gathering makes up nearly 13% of all our questions. I can say personally (having been involved in said questions) that not having an inline JavaScript card preview is a tremendous pain. That particular feature is pretty much the necessary feature on dedicated Magic sites (whether they be blogs, deck builders, trade sites, etc.). I don't see symbols as particularly important, but having a card preview is key.

EDIT: After reviewing the information @KevinMontrose added, I totally understand the legal reasons preventing this from happening at the moment. However, as a stopgap (that could be expanded to image support, should it eventually be possible), could we automatically link to the Gatherer web page for the card in question? It should just require an alteration of any however-tagged cards to http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/search/default.aspx?name=+["cardname"] (e.g. Lightning Bolt to http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/search/default.aspx?name=["Lightning Bolt"]). That way, we use official sources without scraping, and have a methodology in place to expand to images if it becomes possible later.

EDIT II: THE RETURN OF EDIT: After some additional discussion in chat today, I propose a markdown syntax of [mtg:cardname]. This would allow the regex to be fairly simple (and similar to tag replacement, as the tag syntax is [tag:tagname]) - all it would have to be is a regex replace, replacing the suggested markdown with pattern of

\[mtg:(?<cardname>[^\]]+)\]

and replacement string of

<a class="mtglink" href="http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/search/default.aspx?name=%5B%22$1%22%5D">$1</a>

Alternatively, if this type of one-off work is a pain, a structure for generalized HTML creation based on some simplistic syntax would be nice, to allow people to write user scripts to do the rest of the work. Some syntax to create a <span> tag with an easily-customizable class would let you move all of this into the "do whatever you want with these with user scripts" realms, instead of having to handle each of these requests as they come. Some may be more complex than others (Go, Chess, Mathematica, etc.), but others (like this) are simple.

Answer 2

I see Magic:the Gathering as one of the keystone games for this site and would hate to see the community split off from here.

Some enhancements to make the site easier to use for our most popular game are appropriate.

Answer 3

I'm status-declined-ing this, it's not something we can reasonably implement unfortunately (I do generally like the idea, as a lapsed MTG player myself).

The rub is, Wizards doesn't provide an official API for fetching card details (in this case, images). They have the (excellent) Gatherer site, but it's focused entirely on actual people.

The most recent reference I can find to a Gatherer API is from 2008, and isn't promising:

Q: Is there an API for access to the oracle card reference (Gatherer)? If not, is there a chance that there will be one? I'd love to create a fan site that has access to actual oracle data? –Jay, Omaha, NE, USA

A: From Dave Guskin, magicthegathering.com Web Developer:

Hey Jay,

Unfortunately, we don't have an external API for Gatherer with our current system. (For those who are going "huh?" API stands for application programming interface, similar to the way many websites query Google's search directly for their own search mash-ups. External APIs, meaning interfaces that anyone on the web can use, take a bit longer to develop and put additional strain on servers, but do allow the community the freedom to develop their own look and feel around the services.)

There are no current plans to implement an API like this in the near future, but it's certainly something we'll keep in mind when developing out improvements to the Gatherer system and other tools we have in the works that build on top of it.

Looking around at other sites, it looks like they've either scraped Gatherer or are hot-linking it (as Draw3Cards appears to do). Hot-linking makes me very nervous, period, unless it's explicitly allowed; content just disappearing a puff of smoke when an implementation detail of Gatherer is changed is pretty scary (I'm ignoring the conscientiousness of it for now, though that's pretty rough as well).

The Terms Of Use also seem to forbid either approach for commercial entities. So we're out of luck both technically and legally.

Answer 4

• Do you think Board and Card Games is a good solution for a place to ask MTG questions?

I'm satisfied that it's an adequate solution.

• Would rendering support for MTG (symbols, automatic inline card images, ...) substantially improve this site for you?

Dramatically, yes.

• Would you move to a new Stack Exchange site for MTG if it had such dedicated support?

Yes. Immediately.

Answer 5

Most of my questions on this site concern MTG, it was the primary reason why I joined "Board and Card Games". Nevertheless I really enjoy reading many other entries as well and I think the mix this site provides is great. Love the community and I hope it will stay the way it is.

I am sure that excluding specific games like MTG, Go, Chess, etc. will hurt our site here on the long run and that's why I will not support the MTG initiative on AREA51.

Furthermore, if all the knowledgeable Magic players should wander off, I will most likely go back the old forums where I used to discuss MTG before I was here. Hopping over to the new MTG site will only support the foul trend of shattering established sites into smaller sub sites that cannot sustain themselves. I will stay with "Board and Card Games" and support it as good as I can.

Concerning MTG rendering: Having some nifty features to support discussion won't hurt, for me it isn't necessary to discuss Magic here. I never felt like I need any additional functionality to express myself.

Answer 6

I'm not sure if this is really an answer, but there is a browser extension called AutocardAnywhere which will automatically transform card names into links which show the card image when you hover over it. It's available in the Chrome store (for free) and the description says it's also available for Firefox and Safari. If we're not going to have an official linking syntax, this may be the next best thing.

Answer 7

Card markup would be very helpful. Answers that involves a lot of options or examples of different kinds of cards can easily go to 30-40 card links, which the poster has to edit in by hand. Running into an unfamiliar card and following the link is rather focus-breaking for the reader.

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I think the sorts of topics this site can cover are different from the kind you'd see on a dedicated MTG Q&A site. Ideally, a large section of the stuff posted here should be relevant to "non-hardcore" MTG players -- players who do treat it a bit like a board game rather than its own special hobby, for instance. (I'll be the first to admit I'm not always very good at actually tailoring my answers to be useful to such players.)

I'd imagine a standalone MTG Q&A site would probably have a tendency towards more very specific questions -- stuff like "What's the best answer for Inkmoth Nexus?" or "How should my Legacy RUG deck sideboard to beat Zoo?" or "How can I improve my casual four-card combo deck?" -- with more of an assumption that players would know terminology, basic strategy, and weird bits of community slang.

Answer 8

I don't play Magic, but I'm still occasionally interested in questions about it. I think this site is a great place for Magic questions.

I'd like to see support for card rollovers in particular, preferably in a way they could be used for other games too.

As for land symbols etc. I'm not bothered, as long as I'm not going to type them by accident! I like the way that go positions are handled with the "Wcm31" keyword, maybe something like that could be used?