Accessories Questions

Cattrah

Cattrah

Dollar Store Baby Fakie
Joined
Jun 8, 2005
Messages
527
Question 1: For those of you who are huge accessory gurus, what kind of information do you keep about your accessories if you were to document it. I'm thinking:

pony it belongs to
accessory name
condition
additional notes

Would there be anything else reguarding that accessory you'd want to keep track of?

Question 2: are there any of you who are huge accessory addicts (just for accessories to the actual ponies, not clothing sets, etc) and would help me do some data entry for my collection system? It'll be a few days to a week before I'm ready for the help as I have to set up the database and then write the management pages.
 
I'm not one of those people that is currently searching like crazy for Lily's left wing to complete the flutters, or THE EXACT TOOTH that came with Baby Tic Tac Toe's pillow.. but I plan to be some day ;-)


I have a fairly good knowledge of particular accessories, and the things I don't know I just look up as needed.

As for categorizing my own things, basically I just remember it offhand. Currently I'm looking for Half Note and Tunefull's guitar brushes, a glo-worm and a few pieces to complete my Home Sweet Home. I don't really need a log, but I may get to that point eventually..
 
Count me in :D Anything to get a comprehensive resource on accessories would be great thing for this community to have. I've got quite a few accessories, including some pretty hard to find things. Just contact me when you need the help.....I'll be around.

I'd say you might want to add the category of "pony line" such as First Tooth Babies, for names of ponies that are duplicated (baby Lickety Split, Rattles/Tattles, etc.)

For foreign ponies, if you're going to go that far, you might want to list the country origin.

There are also alternate or variant accessories for the same pony, such as Sweetheart sisters didn't always come with the same colored ribbon. Maybe having a way to mark which one it is or if it's a variant may be helpful. That maybe too much detail and could be included in the additional notes section though.
 
Thanks for the input ashlyne, just what I was looking for. Each pony has its own record in another table and the accessories are asasociated with that pony, so therefore needing to distinguish the pony group and country of origin is already taken care of in my current design. Alternate accessories can just be listed with all the other accessories for that pony and have an (alt) note next to the name to indicate that it isn't in addition to the others, but an alternate one. Good ideas *brain wheels turning* I might be able to save some server resources by making an associated table, that way instead of having "white bottle with yellow lid" 20 times for 20 different ponies, it's only listed once, but associated with each of those ponies...mmmm good idea...okay now I'm just rambling about technical issues. :) Thanks! I'll keep in contact with you both.
 
Good suggestions, Silverfall! Be sure to distinguish between different sizes of bottles, rattles, ribbons etc in addition to color (ie, large rattles vs small rattles).

I know when I'm listing inventory, it would help if I listed the flaws then and there instead of having to recheck the pony every time someone asks about it - having that noted in the database would be very useful. Just giving an overall condition rating doesn't cover it, especially when people's interpretations of what "Good condition" can vary quite a bit. So that would definitely help to have that in the "notes" section or a separate "flaws" section, or if it could be incorporated into the "Condition" section.
 
I'm unfortunatly obsessed and I have an excel file full of info with all the variations. Each has a different column and when I get the item I just fill the cell green so I can see clearly which I have and scrolling down the page shows me which ones I need at a glance. Also if I have something which would need upgrading I fill the cell with orange - colours save space for me.

I use these column headings for adults;

Name
Ribbon
Brush
Comb
Hair Clip 1
Hair Clip 2
Damsel Hat
Crown
Wand
Friend
(Friend 2 UK)
Bandana
Hat
Flutter Wings
Shell
Misc
Misc 2
Sticker

and for babies much more complicated;

Name
Ribbon
Brush
Comb
Float
Bottle
Necklace
Rattle
Elastic
Nappy
Nappy box
Bib
Playpen
Rocker (plain)
Blanket
Dish
Spoon
Duck pull toy
Stack toy
Xylophone
Mallet
Sipper cup
Bandana / bow
Toothpaste
Toothbrush
Hair Clip
Main Toy
Misc Toy
Misc info
Sticker

If you'd like to see a copy I can email it to you :) I'd also be interested in helping out :)

Christina
Chrissytree
 
im not obsessive, but i keep track mostly by displaying them with everything they come with, as long as it never leaves the pony its from im ok. i use several info sites to figure out what went with who. as soon as i get a accessorie lot i identify and match everything, if its to be traded/sold or goes to a pony i dont have yet i put a sticky on it saying who it goes with.

~ Diana
 
I've been working on a little checklist for myself that goes by year and includes first, ponies and their associated combs and ribbons, then pony wear and every little item associated with that, then playsets and all the mess that involves (a list of decals is really a pain to do, but still kinda helpful!) and finally mailorder stuff for that year. Each item has a checkmark and when the whole "set" (playset, set of ponies (rainbow, sea ponies, whatever), pony wear outfit) is done there's another place to check. I combined stuff from Dream Valley and a MLPcollector; it's taking me FOREVER! But I like to go by years. Can't help it. Is that the kind of thing you're doing? Or x-ing the playsets and pony wear, and just going for the ponies' things themselves? I'd LOVE to see what you have!!!!

:)

-elph
 
hmmm, this is great input guys, I really need it cause I don't collect accessories (other than big ones like shells, floaties, hats, etc).

elphaba i think you have the closest idea of the type of utopia I want to acheive. Unfortunately I don't really *have* anything to show yet(for accessories), that's what this convo is about to formulate the design so everything works.

So here's a rough idea of what it would look like, let me know if this would work out for all of you accessory people's needs:

ponyexample.jpg


So the list at the top of the page would contain all the accessories you have in your collection that you've already entered, you can delete or edit to make changes incase you get an upgrade or something. The bottom half allows you to add a new accessory to that pony. You're allowed to have multiple of an accessory and if any variations exist they will also show up in the Add Accessory list with an (alt) next to the name. Condition is simply for an overall condition of the accessory. In the notes section you can say whatever you want such as who you got it from, how much you paid, specifics about the condition, if it's from childhood, whatever you like really.

So the question is, would this setup suffice for those who would be adding accessories? Note this is only an accessories view, on a separate page you would see all your pony's information. The idea is that you only see the accessories that belong to that pony so you know what you need to get and what you have. I'm thinking the Description field may be unessicary unless some people want to keep information that is that detailed about the accessory. I figured most of the info could be in the name, i would save on space and lower clutter. like with rattles the name would be "large purple/white rattle" or "small yellow/white rattle". Although I know the elastics were different colors, that's the kind of thing I would put in desc, although is it really nessicary?

In order to accomplish this I'll need someone to enter a list of every accessory for all US issue ponies (mail order included, not including playsets, but including individuals like Pony Bride) without duplicates, so if 10 ponies come with a white ribbon, you only need to enter "White ribbon" once.
 
In order to accomplish this I'll need someone to enter a list of every accessory for all US issue ponies
Click to expand...
Whew! That's a tall order! I'd be willing to get the main accessories list together but I probably wouldn't be a good source for ribbons and brushes/combs. I don't collect MIB/MOC ponies, so I would be relying heavily on other resource sites, which can be faulty or too general (like they don't specify between different shades of "pink" ribbons). You might want to solicit the help of MIB gurus for those accessories.

There are also some questionable accessories, such as did the purple valentine's twin really come with a bowtie? I've never seen it or known anyone to have it but some resource sites say she did. So if I do make a list, I would mark those accessories as questionable and make a note as to what resource site that info comes from.

I can't work on it for at least a week -- got to many things going on at once, but I'll see what I can do afterwards.

The format looks pretty good to me overall -- definitely more helpful than anything out there now. The only thing I would say is that I prefer to see a complete list of the accessories all together and highlight either the ones I have or the ones I need. That way I can see what sets are nearly complete at a quick glance. I don't care to have them in two separate places, because you have to compare the first list with the second in order to see what you have left to get. Just a personal preference though.

Are you going to have a separate listing somewhere where all the similar accessories are listed together, like an index or glossary? Greatponies.com has an alternate list of baby accessories like that, where all the playpens are listed together for example, with a note as to who they go to. That's been extremely helpful to me in identifying which accessory goes to which pony when I'm buying accessories in lots. For example, it's hard to remember who came with a medium yellow spoon and you'd have to look through all the baby ponies that came with spoons to find the right one.
 
hmmmm, good comments. I'll see what I can do about setting an accessories preference to show either all with checkboxes next to the ones you have or the way I've shown. That'll probably be a version 2 thing though just because there's so much other work to be done right away and I'm not sure how to code that right off hand.

See, the beauty of having everything in this widely versatile database is not only can you track your collection based on known information but it takes about 15 minutes to write a page that will display any information you want. As part of the public portion of this site will be a searchable reference guide, so for accessories all you'd have to do is enter the accessory description, like "white bottle with yellow lid" I do a search in the database in the accessories table for a name or description like what you described and it'll list all ponies with the accessory that matches what you described. Alternatively, it's just as a easy to populate one big list of all accessories and list the ponies they came with, depends on how narrow you want to make your search. Not to mention dynamics lists can also be sorted so you view by accessory name, description, or pony it came with.

The database is what makes this resource more valuable than static websites because you can on one page, find what you're looking for, instead of searching through several pages and wading through information just to find one thing. And really it doesn't matter how much you know or don't know, it's still just as easy to find what you're looking for.
 
...

I'd be happy to volunteer for data entry - I have loads of free time. All I'd need would be instrutions of whether you wanted *every accessory speculated* entered or only things which can be verified MOC somewhere. I'm happy to trawl the internet for proof MOC, if that kind of thing would help.

Christina
Chrissytree
 
well just finished the code for what I outlined earlier. here's what it looks like for those who are curious. I'd really like to redesign the site, but it'll probably just stay this way I don't have time to do all the backend coding and make it look beautiful.

ponycomplete.jpg


Chrissytree, I'd love to have your help, how long will you have lots of time? Doing this accessories thing will take A LOT of it and you'll probably get bored but I absolutely cannot have a half job done. It'll be too difficult for another person to pick up where you left off. But if you're committed, I can write the admin page tomorrow and you can get going. I would prefer proof of living accessories, not nessicarily MOC, but nothing like the first tooth baby sundance that was pictured in a catalog but no one ever actually seen it or have a real life picture of it. So for it to be entered it must be owned by someone, preferrably a picture having been seen too. For iffy items you might want a couple of sources and you'd be welcome to work with other people for verification but only you would do data entry. Remember accessories alone might take you more than a week or two to verify everything. You must plan for that kind of time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top