[New] EMC Market Buy/Sell Portal - Suggestions/Bug Reports

Awesome! I need this!

Alright! I've actually been working for over 18 hours straight now and didn't really realize it.

What I've now been building behind the scenes is the registration and login system, complete with:

• PBKDF2 secure hashing algorithm on all passwords with a 32 character cryptographically random salt.
• Username verification through the EmpireMinecraft website to ensure account ownership.
• Unique session handling for each login.

This means that all entries can be tied to a specific verified account, allowing for safe editing or removal.
After this I'm going to be focusing on tools to get data in the system quickly. I want to know what is easiest for a shop owner to quickly enter everything they are buying and selling.
If I built a tool that read your transaction history in your account and automatically populated the shop listings based on that, would you use it? You would have to give your password into the site unfortunately. That would have the power to read not only people who bought/sold to your shop but where you bought/sold items from on other shops as well, a multitude of useful data.
I suppose if I asked a random question at each login 'Do you buy/sell <insert item>?' things may slowly get populated.
I guess this part will be the biggest hurdle to overcome.

I didn't mean to say text decoration: none - I meant to say to use cursor: default

18 hours straight? That's not healthy, is it?
By the way, I tried to search for apple earlier, but couldn't find it

You seem to be missing the ability to list/search for enchanted books or items. It is a cool tool though.

I'm still adding items on a regular basis! Remember that Minecraft has hundreds. Right now the item count is at 166. However, my statistics show that less than 30 items have even been searched for, so the priority at the moment is probably going to be getting pricing data into the database.

I guess the focus should be on a few items only at the start. Probably just the top searches so far of diamonds, stone, cobblestone, and redstone. Once those have a decent data set, I can expand and focus on other items.

I feel like the two buttons though are almost a little ambiguous .... when you click buy does that mean you are wanting to buy them or the person who listed it is buying it?

(maybe could have a small description at the top ... and include an informative title for each to give it a 'hover text') ?

Alright, I feel like I've finally built something at least usable.

1) Fixed the layout and all the border stuff on the main page so it looks solid.

2) No buy/sell buttons. Instead there is just one button, which searches both. When you select an item you are presented with the top places to buy and sell.

3) Reinstated public adding of entries. Anyone can add an entry if they know the res#, price, and quantity.

4) Res#s are automatically validated, to ensure that it's a valid res and is occupied. Servers and usernames are automatically populated from res#s.

5) Any errors in the output are displayed, and you can actually fix them without having to retype anything.

6) Putting entries both on the same page removes the confusion where on the buy page, you are offering to buy, which is actually an entry that would appear on the sell page (because in order for someone to take advantage of your buy offer they have to be looking to sell). If that made no sense, that's exactly what I fixed.

7) You cannot submit a duplicate entry. If you try to add an entry which already exists, it simply updates the existing entry. No store can buy/sell the same item in the same quantity for different prices. You need to put the best one.

8) Added the ability to remove entries. In case the store is sold out or has no room to buy, you can remove the entry.

9) Added the ability to edit entries, based on overwriting the existing entry. You can click on an entry and choose to edit it now.

10) Pricing information is formatted, and if the price is zero, FREE is displayed instead.

11) The submitter automatically fills in the value of one stack. (Usually 64 but it knows the unique stack values of each item.) Making buy/sell by stack a bit easier.

12) A bug with the ordering was fixed. It was not sorting properly.

Thanks for all the great feedback and input! I think I addressed most of it now.

It seems like the registering is broken. It is complaining that my username doesn't exist.
Edit: it also looks like the icon is changing randomly.

It's doing the same thing to me: "Your username does not appear to be registered to EmpireMinecraft! Please double check for any spelling errors." I also tried entering my name with no caps and that didn't work either.

You shouldn't be able to edit anyone's entry, only the ones you have made.

Some players want to buy blocks specifically for building purposes and don't want to go through the process of crafting blocks. Other people want to buy in bulk and look for blocks because they want the commodity to take up as little space as possible. They may also expect to get a better deal by buying a commodity in block form and so are only interested in shops selling it that way.

It applies in cases just like you stated here. For example, someone wants to buy wood. But they want to see pricing on all wood (logs and planks of different types). But they don't want to type logs 6 times and planks 6 times and select each item individually 12 times. This may also apply to someone who is looking for multiple items of another type, like coal, gold, iron, and redstone ore. Being able to sort by ore will allow them to see all available items. Then if they want to narrow the search to each item in that category, one at a time, being able to do so by two clicks of the mouse on a drop-down box is easier than having to type each item's name individually.

Things like...

How do I list an item for sale?
How do I search for an item?
How do I sign up?
I forgot my Password. How do I retrieve it?
I have a question that's not listed here / I have an idea to make this website better. How can I submit my question/idea?
What does "Shrek is love" mean?

I hope the 48 hour expiration is just temporary while you are testing things. It's not too big of a deal if someone entered just a couple of items, but having to re-list a large number of items every 48 hours would not be a good thing. It would be helpful if you could choose an expiration date for your listing (Never, 2 days, 1 week, 1 month).

Alright... After a brief look, apparently I had hardcoded my own username. So it was searching for me and complaining it couldn't find you. I've done some extra verification that it works for both usernames.

I wasn't sure what icon to use so I put it random for now. I may have the icon change depending on what you search up, but I still need to decide what icon to display on the main page and account page.

I fixed this. And yeah the caps don't matter. It will automatically fix the capitalization to match the site. (This part I checked .)

I want to understand what you are saying. Are you saying that if one person creates an entry and leaves, no matter what that entry says is bought or sold and at what residence, it remains forever and can never be changed by anyone else?

Okay I've added all the blocks. To solve the use case where someone is not picky, I'm going to have a generic diamond category which lists diamonds and diamond blocks for comparison. Similar for gold with gold nuggets, ingots, and blocks.

The case you mentioned about wood is exactly what categories will do. In the case of ores, I'm confused. Are you saying that someone just wants an ore, any ore, to use as a decoration? In that case, obviously iron or coal will be the cheapest. Or do you want a page that lists a comparison for each and every ore separately?

I added them all. I will get started on the forgot password feature.

There's no 48 hour limit anymore. Items remain until removed. Even after removed, the data is preserved for easy restoration. If it's your shop and you restocked all the items, you can relist them in one click. If you restocked a few key items, relist those ones.

That's exactly what I mean. Otherwise, you could have a situation like this:
Let's say person A lists items. Person B comes along and happens to not like Person A for some reason. They decide to delete all of Person A's listed items.

Another option would be to require items to be updated every so often, otherwise they would be auto-removed.

You could also add a button or some other way for someone to mark a listing as no longer available. This also has the potential for being abused, but at least people would still be able to see the listing. If it was the only one, or one out of a few search results then they would still have the option of double checking in-game.

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More FAQ to add:

Someone already signed up using my Minecraft User Name and I'm unable to Join. How can I verify my identity with you and get signed up?

I ordered my pizza with pepperoni, but it came with canadian bacon. How do I get a refund?

I have added a feature which displays the removed entries so they can be restored easily. I have also added a feature which logs every change to the data so I can easily undo the actions of any particular user or IP address or time period. I will give that functionality to registered users as well for changes to their own listings.

To understand correctly, you expect a shop owner to log in and manually update every one of their items periodically in order to prevent them having to update their items in case of vandalism?

That is exactly what the Hide/Remove feature is for. I have updated so you can see removed listings now.

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More FAQ to add:

This is impossible unless your forum account on the site is compromised, because validation occurs through the account itself. They could not complete the process. If the process is not completed after a reasonable time period, the process is cancelled.

Added.

Thanks again for all the feedback! Has anyone attempted to complete the registration or is it still failing?

Wow, I can see you put much work into this! Great!

Registering kind of worked, even though I got weird text of which I don't know what it meant a lot, I could still just input the right information. When using my username and password (after validating my account) to login though, I only get this. (hosted on my own website, for the convenience of showing you the html)

Sorry... I was moving a few files around as you were using the site! (The main folder was getting too cluttered.) It should all be settled now and I'm done moving things.

I can see from the database that your account came through okay and you should be able to log in and use it now.

Changes so far today:

New Features

• You can now add items in bulk! Add 3, 5, 7, 9, 12, 100 items at a time quickly and easily through the 'Bulk Add' tool linked from your account. This tool makes it incredibly fast to add all the items from your shop. If you have any suggestions to make this process faster, I am definitely open to hear them!
• The marketplace now services 210 unique items, including the most recent addition of blocks, food, dyes, and enchanting items. You should now be able to list almost any item that your shop sells. If you can't find an item you buy/sell, let me know so I can add it!
• Now anyone can see/restore any listings that have been removed recently (in the past 3 days). Use the 'Show Removed' link at the bottom of the item page.

Bug Fixes

• Registration is fixed and should be fully working now.
• If you use an invalid session identifier, an ugly error no longer appears and the page fully loads.
• Removed dead links on account page.
• Buy/sell lists were backwards in your account.

Tweaks

• Search is now more effective to find popular items by including daily search volume.
• Login/session is tracked with a cookie as well.
• Item buy/sell quantities are now filled in with a default amount automatically.
• Result page now shows 5 results instead of just 3.
• Added lots of entries to the FAQ.
• When viewing a listing in an account, your default residence is automatically populated.
• Moved things around on account overview.
• Items you sell go first in your account view.

Back End

• Moved a lot of files around to create a more organized structure.
• All edits to listings are tracked by username or IP address. Any modifications to your listings can easily be reversed, a functionality to be available to registered users in the future.
• Search volume on each item is tracked daily as well as overall.
• Tracking on search queries which were not found. (To get an idea of any items people may be looking for that are not listed.)
• Separated default sale size and stack size. (Most items still default to sale by the stack, but in cases such as diamond ores, the default is 1.)
• Listing handling functionality has been moved to a common library to ensure consistency across the site.

Thanks so much for all the feedback. If you have an idea for how you'd like to see the site work or a feature that you would find helpful, please comment!

This was offered as an alternative so that shop owners could retain control over their own listings. I agree, not the best idea. I see that you've added a way to view recently removed listings. When I have time to check it out I'll offer feedback.