Introducing Auctions and Buy Ins and Announcing the Points System Changes

I can't wait to see all of the new possibilities with points.  This should definitely improve the site.

I hear that, I am new to the site and love it! Keep up the good work!

so... as a new member, I shouldn't even bother learning about the old point system?

Hey  VermilionSL and welcome to Blackborder!

I think as a new Blackborder member you might want to get familiar with the basics of the points system.

Apart from all the amazing new things you will be able to get for your points we will also make some minor changes in the near to the number of points users can earn for certain actions.
We will also create new ways to earn points, though most of the already established possibilities to earn points will stay the same.
Some bonus features such as the free T-shirts for points will stay the same, which means it might still be interesting for you to learn about the points system.

Feel free to send me any additional questions, suggestions or ideas using the contact form (use the "Editor" setting to reach me).

Make sure to visit daily in order not to miss anything and invite your friends to join the rapidly growing interactive Magic the Gathering portal that Blackborder.com is!

Have fun!
Andy

Great changes, the new deck edit feature is awesome!

The end of the monthly contest alone should improve site content but I look forward to the points system changes and it's improvements.

You should also add a counter to the deck section. So as you are making a deck you can see how many cards you have in it as not to forget anything.

I actually hate the point system a bit. If you look at all the top posters and go back and look through thier posts you'll see spam, spam, spam.

I think any sort of set up that encourgaed actualy feedback and discussion would be an improvement over the people that spend all day posting "nice deck" or "that might work" on every single deck and video without actually looking at the builds. To me it's one of the drawbacks to this site is that you can't get legitimate advice from most who are just looking to spam another thread for points. If they aren't spamming their submitting jank decks that not even newbies would run.

Changing the system would make the community considerably better.

This is a great suggestion. I know I lose track of the number when I'm posting.

See two posts on one thread from Blackborder's "number one" poster.

Pointless.

If you look wrench187's points activity, he has 6 pages of points going on for just the day of 6/30/09.  It also looks like he is getting double the points somehow, 200 for decks and 10 for comment votes.  On page 6 alone, I counted over 1500 points.  How intervesting <<spoken in a german accent>>.

We are aware of suspicious points system activities and are currently investigating this. Thanks. There will be consequences for all the users involved in vote rigging, cheating and spamming. So don't waste your time with it. Though the numbers you are giving (200 and 10) are correct, because that is how the system works, you receive more points for certain activities or votes. We are however adjusting those numbers in the future and are constantly working on them.

Make sure to visit daily in order not to miss anything and invite your friends to join the rapidly growing interactive Magic the Gathering portal that Blackborder.com is!

Have fun!
Andy

I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed this. I'm here every day just not posting when I don't see any point in repeating myself over and over or cut and pasting what the last five pepole cut and pasted.

I didn't look into it quite so much to add it all but kudos on that. It makes sense. Glad someone pointed it out.

Have you considered a spot for local tournement postings? Kind of a way for people to find new places to play or a place to play in general.

Thank you for your feedback and your ideas. We are thinking about the option to make tournament dates available, though there are several ways of doing this and we are evaluating all the different options.
However if you have any additional suggestions feel free to contact us via the contact form. Thanks.

Make sure to visit daily in order not to miss anything and invite your friends to join the rapidly growing interactive Magic the Gathering portal that Blackborder.com is!

Have fun!
Andy

do i detect a hint of jealousy? 

i just hope that if i get the points that I can still win stuff

Way to break that one sentence into two posts... double points!

Fail.

It is actually quite obvious if you click on the user's name, then view the points.  Wrench187 spent the whole day from 8 am to 10 pm obtaining points.  While this is very much spamming, I really don't see the point in caring about it other than putting the facts out.  We will see if Blackborder actually does something about it other than say they're going to do something about it.  Personally, I don't think anything will happen.  Either way, this will not stop me from visiting the site.  I have learned some things from this site so it is informative and I'm looking forward to more informative videos and articles in the future. 

Hey Deathliche

Thank you for your feedback. It is great that you like the site and that you can profit from our content. We will add even more amazing articles and features in the near future.
Concerning the suspicious points system activities, I can say that we will not tolerate multiple accounts from the same users, vote rigging, spamming and cheating and we are still investigating this. There will be consequences for all the users involved in such activities and this will serve as an example for anyone, not to try anything similar ever again.

Make sure to visit daily in order not to miss anything and invite your friends to join the rapidly growing interactive Magic the Gathering portal that Blackborder.com is!

Have fun!
Andy

@deathliche: i disagreethat the amount of time he spent on the site corresponds to spamming. if someone is unemployed (i don't know whether wrench is or not) the contest is a great way to support yourself while looking for a job, so he might have spent the whole day posting because he has the time to

personally, I'm broke but LOVE to play magic so I thought that posting and contributing the site was a great way to get some cards that I needed. I feel my posts have been of pretty good quality and have enjoyed contributing to the site. Hopefully the new contests are based a little more on quality than quantity perhaps some sort of review system by blackborder, but I think that the site is going in a great direction.

ROFLMAO, good one.  I didn't think of supporting oneself through posts.  He must have gotten in food stamps (or is it card now?) and went shopping because in the last two days he hasn't posted much. 

"Will Work For Points!"

I'm not unemployed but I am on vacation and I can post all day. I have no interest in posting just to obtain points though because it's doing nothing for me. I also feel that if I leave a post on a deck or an article that I'm leaving something worth while and you'll very rarely see a one-liner post out of me.

And really I don't care about the points of this person in question other than if he's cheating it's not fair to anyone else who is legitimately aquiring points for whatever purpose they choose. I think that more than just looking at the empty posts that a person makes you can tell a lot about the a person by decks they post, wether they are contributing to the site of just posting trash all day long. I very often find useful information in this site and I'd like to see it grow for the simple fact the information shared freely as opposed to some sites that wish to charge you to tell you about a fantasy CCG *cough* Star City *cough*.

The problem with it being free and the rewards system is that you will constantly have people throwing out the same cookie cutter vapid response on every single deck, never once having looked at even a land base. But that keeps the hits up, that keeps the advertisment flow and that keeps it free for us, but at the same time I hate it.

What a dork to do?

I work 3rd shift to all that say I'm on "food stamps". I have been watching this debate about if I am spamming or not. I find that no matter what one says about me, Blackborder will do what is right. I will be done posting on regular bases and will only use this site for the building of my decks and buying cards that enhance my decks. So to all that think I am spamming why don't you just post a poll to see what the Blackborder community thinks of this matter as a whole. There is nothing in the rules that says you can't help a fellow user on this site. Good luck.

I think there shouldn't be any more cash prizes 4 the ppl with the most points because all it does is start fights. This is suppost 2 be fun 4 ppl but its not when u have ppl cheating and fighting all the time or OR SAYING PPL R ON FOOD STAMPS JUST BECAUSE THEIR NOT ON LINE FOR 2 DAY. SOME PPL HAVE FAMILIES AND CANT ALWAYS BE ON LINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A quote taken from the announcement:

"In our attempt to improve Blackborder.com even further and build the largest interactive Magic the Gathering community as well as creating the best possible experience for our users, we decided to make some alterations to the points system and the ways in which prizes can be won.

We will discontinue the end of the month payout for the users with the most points, as well as the option to exchange points for vouchers (you can still buy vouchers until 2 July). We believe that these changes will improve Blackborder.com in the long run and that the majority of the Blackborder community will profit from it and your stay on the site will become even more enjoyable.

Those changes should be in everyone’s interest because we believe that they will further improve Blackborder's content quality and help create a flourishing Magic community."

Feel free to send me any additional questions, suggestions or ideas using the contact form (use the "Editor" setting to reach me).

Make sure to visit daily in order not to miss anything and invite your friends to join the rapidly growing interactive Magic the Gathering portal that Blackborder.com is!

Have fun!
Andy

I'll just come right on out and say it since it's become a bit confrontational so let's be more specific here.

To wrench:
Don't have a fit and leave the community. There is no need. My opinion is the same as the majority of the community and it is that your post are spam because they are pointless one liners.

"cconsolidate and it will run great. The Krosan Warchief is a nice touch."

"nice merfolk deck. my wife just made a merfolk deck."

While our new friend Editor Andy can't say it I will. What do those post even matter!? "cconsolidate and it will run great"... it's a 73 card deck with barely enough land to run a 60 card deck. You certainly could have said something useful there instead of being so vague and come on, please at least use the card tag. And as for, "nice merolk deck. my wife just made a merfolk deck." Did she really? That's neat! No really, it's not. Is it aggro, is it mill, is it control? We don't know because you didn't tell us. You just thought of something at random and posted it to get more points. And for the love of Akroma could you please try some capitalization and spelling?

I don't want to be mean about all this but everyone in this thread is dancing around the pink elephant in the room. If I needed any more toppings for the cupcake it would be the decks you post. A WHITE MILL DECK WITH KITHS THAT DEPENDS ON ONE CARD IN THE DECK!? If you were knowledgable enough to be posting to get to over 10,000 points you wouldn't have posted this pointless deck as well as the others you've submitted. And the worst part is that I posted my advice on the deck (which was legitimate advice as opposed to your dandy little droppings) you went back and changed it and renamed it. Thereby proving my point that this community can be great for sharing ideas and tweaking decks if people are willing to take the time to take an honest look at a build and share an opinion without the point system in mind. I bounce all my ideas off the other guys in my team and I truly feel like the opinions and advice I share here help. If anything I should get the 10,000 points you lost for the gems of REAL advice I've dropped and particularly for this post right here. (Though I honestly don't know what I'd do with them since I've never looked to see what points are for).

My Giant Growth worth of an opinion (yes the MTG puns keep coming) may get me banned which I hate because I've spent a chunk of money with this site and follow it daily but someone here has to say it.

Editor Andy, my man, you know it needed to be said, look the other way. I'm sure most others will agree.

Hey

Thank you for your in-depth comment and your thoughts. I agree with most of what you say, and no one has ever been banned for expressing his or her opinion ;-).

To summarize, there are indeed a lot of subpar, short and low quality comments and posts. This is one of the reasons for the upcoming changes in the points and prize system.
In addition I agree that there are a lot of "not very useful" decks posted in the deck section. We are currently working on this and will make some changes to the deck section and the upcoming forums to hopefully solve these problems.

I hope that you will keep visiting Blackborder.com on a daily basis and use our exceptional price guide. We will introduce additional features and new content in the near future. If you have any additional thoughts, suggestions and ideas concerning Blackborder.com do not hesitate to send me a message and we will discuss it together.

Have fun!

Andy

JUST 2 LET U KNOW!!!!!!!! I DONT REALLY CARE WHAT U THINK OK!!!! AND YES I'M WRENCH'S WIFE AND IF U HAVE A PROBLEM WITH WHAT I POST U CAN JUST SAY WHAT U WANT 2 SAY 2 ME!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOT GO 2 MY HUSBEND!!! I CAN TAKE WHAT EVER U HAVE 2 SAY SO LETS HEAR IT!!!!!!!

Ugh...

What to say, what to say? I'm beating my head on my laptop here with this stuff. The first thing I suppose I can say is that it is "husband" as opposed to "husbend".

The second thing I can say is that I think it's funny that your husband deleted his own Kithkin deck, then commented on it with another of his anymous accounts.

The third thing I can say is that you are wrench187 and not Mrs. Wrench. You're just another one of his account to spam and build up points with.

And the fouth thing I can say is.. What else is there to say? I've pretty well clarified it all and the problem has been settled. The reason I went to your husband (not "husbend") is because he was the one ripping us all off in the long wrongnot you and I've done my best to discuss this in much detail with our new editor. If anything, by looking at the post I think that you're getting terrible at what to say from which of your multiple accounts and it's all coming full circle now.

The jigs up.

I've always wanted to say that... :)

O and another thing if wrench "posted" the mill deck just so he could get points then wouldn't u think he would have posted it on his account and not mine. Ummm hello!!!! Y don't u stop and think before u start saying stuff like(he only posted a random deck for points)

The author on the deck was one and only "wrech187" and the deck has been deleted.  Then right behind that someone spammed it with another random post. If you go to the deck that I'm obviously talking about it will say who the author is. So how was this posted from you're account besides wrench187 since that's who it says is the author... I'm really thinking there's more to my theory of multiple accounts than there really is and I think you are further proving my point that you can't keep up with what you are posting on each account anymore. I think the whole site right now is full of the wrench infection and it's sad because this site has a lot of content to offer.

*sigh*

I can't argue with multiple accounts so until this is all smashed I'll have to give up on holding it down for the real folk on this thread.

Hey guys, it is a good thing to reflect and discuss everything openly and there are absolutely no problems with that. As I already said no one gets banned for expressing their opinion.

However I want to remind you to stick to the facts and keep the discussion civilized! Do not use CAPS for your whole post. In addition if you want to further discuss a topic which is of no concern to other users, with another member of our community, I suggest you use the personal message function in the account management section.

Thanks.

Sorry about that I definetly got caught up in the moment and got a little immature with it.

Can you tell me how to message multiple accounts all at once?

(Ok I swear I'm done with it now. It's late here and I can't win this. Goodnite Blackborder.)

looking at points totals, i've seen that the administrators have done some correction, and i applaud them for taking decisive action. i think this kind of behaviour will tone down after the removal of cash prizes