Welcome back to another installment of Words from the Streetz. I suppose there are those of you that don’t care about this strike and others that care adamantly about it. If you aren’t aware of it at all, despite the big button I posted on the main page and the several page discussion of it in the forum, then click here.

I will try and talk about more than just the strike. In fact, I may just open up my mailbox and talk about a few of the emails I’ve received over the last few months (and in some cases, years). I may just talk about some things on the horizon for MDV. I guess its time to get to writing, for me anyway, and then there is you. For you, I would ask that you keep reading.

First and Foremost – Thank you.

Thank you to everyone that has supported my cause during this endeavor. I appreciate all of the kind comments and defenses people have posted on my behalf. I appreciate the suggestions people have made. I appreciate some of the members of the site coming out of the woodworks to post their thoughts. I’m happy to see existing forum members comment on this matter.

If I haven’t said this before, I really do appreciate everyone that emails me, visits the site, posts a comment in the forums, joins the forums, writes a blog, writes and article, links to my site, etc, etc. Without all of you, Magic Deck Vortex would not exist. While I’m happy to host a site for the casual Magic Community, I’m happier to see I have a community to offer this. Without knowing people are there, I wouldn’t spend the time that I do, and I can spend quite a bit of it, making the pages and surfing the web and doing all of the other things that a site owner and webmaster does for a site.

Now, let me get back to the matter at hand. Know that there are so many comments I could be making right now about the strike, the requests of the Writers Guild and the users that have commented on it. However, I am going to hold back and collect my thoughts before I tackle that. For now, I propose a mailbox spree.

NOTE: If you don't want to read up on the Mailbox discussion I'm about to have, then click here.  It will take you straight to the section where I talk about the letter I've received from the Writers Guild.

Mailbox Mayhem

Below are some emails I’ve received over the years along with my reply and comments. Some of these emails are recent and one of them dates all the way back to 2005. Note that some of these emails and my comments may be touching on previous subjects already addressed in previous articles, but they will usually touch on a ground I either wanted to develop or discuss again for my own reasons.

Derek, thank you for the email. I have addressed this problem since and should you find any more problems with links and card images just drop me an email.

I would anticipate this problem has happened with a number of card pics. When I had to migrate to a new server thanks to that virus from 2007 that infected Magic Deck Vortex, I had to completely re-upload everything from my computer to the new server. However, that’s where things got complicated.

I was going to write a rant article about all of this, but I decided it wasn’t in good form. And thus, here is the low down of the matter.

• Magic Deck Vortex is infiltrated somehow by a virus that infected not MDV, but the server it was run on. This virus injected malicious code into the pages, both static and dynamic, that tried to upload something nasty to visitors’ computers.
• Streetz and brother Jason worked with the host to resolve this. That was tough all in itself – trying to tell the host the virus was on their server. Anyway…
• After about a month of this, the host agreed migrating to a new server was the best idea. And thus this was put into process.
• New server is set up. I had to upload everything to the new server. One of the problems with a UNIX server is that it is case sensitive. My computer that I build MDV from is not UNIX and thus case doesn’t matter. If I upload a file to the web with one character in a different case than what the page refers to, the file will appear broken.
• And there’s more. Shortly after the switch, my computer fries itself. One of the capacitors on the motherboard blew. Good thing I had a backup of the site.
• Unfortunately, the back up of the site wouldn’t import the old navigation structure so I had to pull a form of the site from my 2006 archives. And then I tried to take the files from the server and copy them onto my computer.
• I’m sure you can imagine the nightmare that was. Files were missing; files that were deleted in previous to the migration were still there. Case changes that I made to image files to make them work were undone and had to be redone… although keeping track of that can be a nightmare.  And thus a bunch of images were never re-corrected.

Wow – that was a longer reply than I expected. The lesson here is – help me out! Let me know when there is an error on a page, or a link or card image that is broken. I’ll try to fix it as quickly as possible so the site continues to run smoothly.

KD, thank you for the email. This is something that is VERY possible. If anyone has a zipped file of the card images, I will post one right away. If no one has something like this, I will have to try and find them all. Given that I don’t get these promos, it is hard for me to track. Anyone out there want to help?

Magic Libraries, a website that is no longer updated, used to keep track of this sort of stuff. However, there is a new site called Magic Librarities which was suppose to pick up where Magic Libraries left off. I haven’t perused the pages there for this, but we might find what we need there. Note that I featured the new Magic Librarities in late 2007.

If any visitor wants to step up to the plate and help me out here, just send me an email.

Speaking of linking to other sites, here’s an email from the webmaster of Nero’s Bloody Vengeance. I recently added them to the QUICK LINKS at the top of the home page under the header on the right.

Thank you for the kind comments Jason, and you are very welcome. I have always loved your link portal. For those that don’t know what a link portal is, it is a site that assimilates all of the content from a number of sites including Star City Games, Wizards.com, Londes and others and then posts them on one page for easy pickings by viewers.

With regard to linking in general, I have always had a fondness of cross linking. When I first started the website I spent hours exchanging links with other sites. It would appear that paid off. If you (readers) ever start a new website regarding Magic: the Gathering, let me know – I will feature your link. I update the featured links with five new links every month.

Reza is replying to an email I sent from the forum to all of its users who hadn’t posted in a while. In addition, his question is an interesting one. I don’t think you can get a copy of this card. Let’s see if I can pull up some information about it real quick…

Referring to this Ask Wizards, it would appear you have to commit a crime. To get it you will have to break into the Hobby Japan Head Office where it currently resides, and steal it. I wish you luck and I don't encourage stealing. However, I did put a picture of the card next to this section of the article. You can always print it and make a proxy out of it.

Hey! It’s death by aggro. Oh wait, he’s in the Writers Guild. All I have to say is stop striking! You’ll make me a happier person and the site a better place. More on that later, I guess.

Celixia is my baby. We are currently working on Powershift which is the second set of Celixia. It’s about 95% designed and currently we are in development. Wish us luck! About your Estos card, it’s not bad. We are using similar mechanics in Powershift.

Regarding tournaments, we tried a tournament a few years ago but it failed miserably. Lionden_56, another Writers Guild member, is working on getting a program for drafting the set. When we have another tournament, I will let everyone know. However, I’ll most likely just stick to MWSing a game or two every now and then.

Michael thanks for the comment. I would encourage you to check other combos if that particular one didn’t suit you well. And there are 100’s of combos within the MDV Combo Database.

I hope to someday revise the combo database so you can just type in a card name and have the database supply you with every combo ever posted using or referencing that card. It could get messy for cards like Stasis, Wrath of God and Intruder’s Alarm...

Drizzt, thanks for the email. The quick answer is NO. Right now I don’t have a database set up for that and I’m not sure how to set one of those up. I was thinking about taking a week off from the site so I could research using Access and other such database programs to do what you are asking for. For right now, I can’t.

However, reading this email again has inspired me to update the Vanguard spoiler. I hope to do that in the coming week.

The MDV Writers Guild Strike.

As the title of this article suggests, I received a letter from Tynion, aka Chris Newton, Thursday evening regarding the Writers Strike. Since we have been talking back and forth already via IM and PMs in the forum, I assume he wants me to publish this for all to see. It would appear our discussions haven’t been enough. And thus, here it is:

And now my replies:

You make my job look easy!? Are you kidding? There is no easy part of my job, Chris. I have to dedicate several hours every night to the site to keep new content flowing. Whether it is a new article, combos, links, promotional images, features or spoilers, nothing is just a quick 10 minute publishing for me. It takes me an hour to post a new set spoiler, several days to update creature spoilers, days to update the deck database, etc, etc.

However, you are right. There isn't enough reader response. Aside from throwing money at our visitors for a ‘who can post more comments on articles than the other’ contest, I don't know how to guarantee more comments. And throwing money or product at visitors for comments is not a good approach. People will start posting comments like “Great Article!!! It was Rx0rs!” Or however LEeT goes…

With regard to your first “demand,” I can show you the AwStats records of which articles are viewed the most and how many views they each get. Would that be satisfactory for you and the guild? Below is an example of this. From Jan. 10th @ noon to the beginning of the month, the following articles have been viewed the following number of times:

NOTE: I only included articles that have been viewed more than 50 times.

Also -- quick correction, the Writers Guild of MDV has only existed for about two years and didn’t exist when you started writing articles for Magic Deck Vortex.

With regard to your second demand, I intend on keeping up my own promise of providing a site for you guys to write. As far as the visitors go, I cannot force them to comment. It is up to the writers to keep writing, build a reader base and then write articles that promote discussion. As some of the people in the forum thread have suggested, write on varied topics that promote discussion. I can only be a medium, not a mover. I can promote the articles by giving them top priority on the main page and keeping the archives up to date with your articles. I cannot promise visitors will post comments.

Other forms of promoting your articles which have not been touched upon include the MTGSalvation Radar and other portals like Nero’s Bloody Vengeance and MTG Pop. I had to provide an RSS feed, which ButteBlues helped me install on the site, so that I could be included in these RSS feed portals. And I had to specifically request to be added to the MTGSalvation Radar when it was originally installed. I manually post an RSS entry every time an article is published so the possibly readership for your articles is increased.

One other suggestion I have for increasing your own reader base is choose your title wisely. I have to admit some of the article titles you guys have provided in the past have been lacking. The better and more eye catching the title, the more likely readers will open it up to view it. Also, your intro is everything. Make your intro entice the reader into wanting to read on. Other than that, the articles you have been providing in the past are fantastic.

I do agree that the quality of articles has surpassed my expectations and you all write fantastic work. Understand, though, that I wouldn't publish it unless it was fantastic work. I do appreciate you all exceeding my expectations, but this strike was never in my expectations and personally I think some of your requests and demands are beyond my control. And you have to understand that.

I will always be here for the writers of the site. I will always do all I can to promote their work and promote the website, Chris. How many times do I thank you guys in form of emails regarding you time involved and your dedication to the site? Apparently that is not enough.

But I will say this again, thank you for your time and your hard work on articles you’ve written in the past. I think this strike of yours has brought the issue to light and I really think people will start to comment more often on all of your articles. But the only way to prove this is to continue writing, Chris. And you know this. If the problem continues, I think we can discuss additional measures to IMPROVE the situation – but I can never guarantee more comments.

Oh, and I do NOT appreciate your arrogant remark regarding Dazboot’s article. I thought it was well written and very applicable to the matters at hand. Thank you, Dazboot. When this is all over, if the Writers Guild still exists, I will be inviting him to join!

That’s all from me right now. I will be sending Chris a link to this article as my response as he is representing the guild as a whole with this letter. I thank everyone for their support. I also encourage everyone to continue to discuss this issue in the original thread and comment on only this article in its discussion thread.

John Streetz
Owner of www.magicdeckvortex.com

You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here.
Find other articles by this author here.
Find other articles from this series here.

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Articles Spotlights from 2008:
A Fresh Perspective: Stasis - Part One.
The Apprentice Magician - Part Six.
Design on a Dime: The Lunch Meat Edition!
Fit the Flavor 2008 - FINALE!
The Games People Play - Market & EDH.
Sarpadian Empires, Vol VII: Foreword.
More Evil Than Evil.
Pauper Chronicles: Top O' the Morningtide to You!
Words from the Streetz: Uncommon and Common Magical Treasures.
The Writers Guild: The Inside Scoop.