It's a Web appliction designed to help autograph collectors manage their collections. It works on desktop computers and mobile devices (disclaimer: Android OS and IE browsers not tested). It was conceived in February, 2017 and finally launched in September, 2018. The primary goal is to help individual collectors but the larger goal is to become a community hub for collectors to discover each other's collections.

As of June, 2020 there is a graphtracker iOS app available from the Apple App Store (requires iOS 13.5). It is designed to work in concert with this Web app and provides a simple interface for viewing your autographs and wishlist.

Organizing stuff is hard. It takes time. We graphers all have "systems" for organizing our stuff. Some work pretty good. We use spreadsheets and binders and boxes and whatever. We do the best we can to be prepared, to quickly and accurately pull the stuff we need for that next graphing opportunity, be it be an impromptu player appearance or the next baseball team arriving in town. My system involved two spreadsheets, one for my autograph collection and the other for my wishlist, the cards, photos, magazines, etc. I wanted to get signed. When I got an autograph I entered the details (date, pen color, etc.) into my autograph spreadsheet and deleted the same item from my wishlist spreadsheet. A little redundant, but not too hard.

What was hard, was keeping track of which players belonged to which teams. I found myself continually moving cards from one binder to another as transactions occurred. Often, I missed a transaction. And just as often I didn't catch the oversight when I checked the team roster, pulled my wishlist cards and put them into an "autograph book." Imagine how stupid I felt when a fellow grapher would ask, "what do you have for so-and-so?" Or, "why do you have that guy?"

graph tracker is a Web app that simplifies and standardizes some of these issues. It doesn't help you with the physical organization of stuff. You still have to put your stuff in binders, piles, boxes, etc. but it does help with the following:

• Automated wishlists. No need to keep a list of what autographs you need. You tell the app what you collect and enter autographs as you get them. It tells you what you need.
• Player affiliations. No need to keep track of which team/organization a player belongs to. The app automatically updates player affiliations as transactions occur (baseball only). The app also empowers a subset of its members as Data Custodians with responsibility for keeping player affiliations up-to-date in those cases where the app is not automated (e.g. football) or it missed a transaction.
• Prioritization. We all have unique methods for determining what's most important. The app allows each member to assign priorties to their collections.
• Knowing who else is collecting your sets and players, who has the autographs you need and who you can help.
• ... and lots more.

So now, using graph tracker, when a baseball team arrives in town, I can search my wishlist by team name and the app tells me which cards, photos, magazines, etc. to pull. Or, when I go to Spring Training I can ask the app to show me my wishlist for each organization I'll be seeing.

My hope is that others will also find it useful. Happy graphing!

Pretty easy. But, before you get started you should check out the User Agreement and make sure you're comfortable with the Terms and Conditions of use. Once you start using graph tracker you'll have implicitly agreed to the Terms and Conditions.

To get started you need to register as a new member:

• You'll need an email address and login credentials (unique userid and password that you choose).
• Click the "Login" link at the top, right-hand side of the app's main menu.
• Click the link at the bottom of the Login screen that says, "sign up for graph tracker."
• Enter your information and click the "Sign Up" button.
• An alert message will pop up on your screen reminding you that an email has been sent that allows you to complete the registration process. You'll need to do that within 7 days.
• Click the "OK" button on the alert message
• Wait for the email to arrive. Check your spam/junk folders if you don't see it in your inbox.
• Open the email and click the link that says, "click here to verify."
• If all goes well, you are now a registered member and authorized to use the app. You should have been redirected to the app's Registration Confirmation page.

Once you're registered it's time to create your collections and enter your autographs.

To create collections, there are 2 parts. The first part is easy. You tell graph tracker which sets and players you collect:

• Click the "Collect" link on the main menu.
• Click "Show" next to "collect a set" or "collect a player"
• If you know the exact spelling of the set or player, just enter it, optionally choose priority "yes" and a rank, and click "Collect"
• otherwise, search for the set or player by choosing one/more search options and clicking "Search"
• On the list of sets/players, click "collect set" or "collect player"

If you can't find the set or player you want, it's possible graph tracker doesn't know about it yet. You can create a custom set or player (see steps below) or you can send a Feedback request and wait for it to be added. Or you can do both: first create the set or player and then request the app to add it so other members can use it too.

The true power of the app is the ability to create custom "sets," where set just means a group of something. You can create "players" too, and "teams" and "organizations." But custom sets allow you to organize your stuff the way that makes most sense. The app comes with card sets that can be collected by any member. Custom sets you create belong only to you. For example, you may have a 2016 Cubs Team jersey that has a few signatures and needs a bunch more. You'd create that as a set and then create "cards" (i.e. all the players that "belong" on that signed jersey). Then you'd collect that custom set. When you enter autographs you'll want to make sure that the set name for the autographs is the same as the custom set you created for the jersey. If everything matches, then your wishlist is accurate and reminds you which autographs remain to be gotten.

Here's a short description of how to create custom sets:

• Click the "myStuff" link on the app's main menu.
• Click "Show" next to "create a set"
• Enter the relevant information for your custom set and click the "Create" button.
• Click "Show" next to "add cards to a set"
• Enter the set name you just created and click "Find"
• For each player in your "set," enter the player name and other "card" information and click "Add card"
• Follow the steps above to collect your new custom set

After you're done creating and collecting sets it's time to enter your autograph collection/inventory. There are 2 ways to do this. Since most collectors already have some sort of computerized list of autographs, the easiest way is to convert your existing list into the format expected by graph tracker. Detailed instructions are here. Once you have a file in the proper format and location (i.e. file directory) on your computer or Google spreadsheet, follow these steps to upload your autographs:

• click "Autographs" on the app's main menu.
• Click "Show" next to "upload/download autographs"
• To upload from a file on your computer:
• Click "choose Upload File" button.
• Find the autograph file on your computer's list of files and click "Open" or "OK" etc.
• To upload from Google:
• Enter the long-ish set of characters that is your Google spreadsheet's ID
• Click the "Preview" button and verify that everything looks good. Fix errors as needed to ensure player names, set names and card numbers agree with graph tracker.
• Once you're satisfied that you've corrected all of the errors you can, click the "Upload" button.
• Use the autograph search area to explore your autographs and make additional corrections as needed.
• Manually enter any autographs that were skipped by the Upload process (e.g. players with a common name that the app could not uniquely identify)

The second way to enter autographs is to do it manually using the app:

• click "Autographs" on the app's main menu.
• Click "Show" next to "enter more autographs"
• For each autograph, enter the relevant information and click "Add"

Ok ... you should be up and running. Just continue to enter autographs as you get them, create custom sets as you need them, and send us Feedback as you think of suggestions for improvement, have problems using the app, want to volunteer as a Data Custodian, or just want to give us a shout out.

Cheers!

How much does it cost for an annual membership/subscription?

Nothing. graph tracker is a free service. There is no annual subscription, no membership dues, no cost to use it whatsoever. If you feel so inclined, there's a Donate button where you can send beer $ our way if you have a paypal account.

Okay, cool, but why is it free?

Good question. It does cost a bit to operate (cloud hosting services, etc.), but not that much. And there's definitely time and labor involved in maintaining the databases, answering questions and making improvements. However, most of that work would be done anyway. The app was developed to meet a personal need, but one we suspect others share. Beyond that, we all benefit from the data made available as the community grows and more people start using it. We'd rather error on the side of higher adoption and lower (zero) cost.

Will it always be free?

Don't know. That's the plan. However, if operating costs prove greater than expected we may have to reconsider. And if some rich corporation wants to drop millions of dollars on us for the rights to the software, who are we to say "no." In all likelihood, though, it will remain cost-free and ad-free. And if not, you can always download your autographs and walk away.

Speaking of autographs, how safe is my data?

Very safe. All the parts of the app are well isolated and run on trusted cloud services. That said, don't trust it completely. Always keep your own backups. The app provides a download mechanism and you should use it often just to be in control of your own destiny.

What sets does graph tracker have in it?

Just baseball sets at this time. All Topps base sets since 1951 plus a small subset of the more popular recent sets (Ginter, Topps Heritage, etc.). If you need another set, feel free to create it under your ownership (myStuff), add its cards and send Feedback asking for it to be included as a standard graph tracker set available to everyone. If you do the set up work, it's more likely to happen sooner. Thanks in advance!

So, is this just for baseball or sports autographs?

Not at all. It's true the original emphasis was baseball and set-collecting. However, as long as the "player" is known to graph tracker, you can enter an autograph. And even if the app doesn't have that person in its database, you can add them in myStuff as a player you own. In addition to athletes, "players" can be artists, musicians, actors, etc. - basically anyone.

Why is there no area for discussion groups?

Other sites do a great job of hosting discussion topics. No need to duplicate functionality. The scope of graph tracker is intentionally narrow. It's a data repository and search tool, nothing more. If you're looking for a place to communicate with other collectors, trade autographs, etc. check out SportsCollectors.Net.

Can other graphers see my autographs?

Absolutely! That's the whole point. If you want to keep things secret don't use graph tracker. In fact, (almost) everything you enter will be visible to others, including your email address. All communication between graphers happens outside of the app, either on other sites or directly via email.

I'd like to help. How do I become a Data Custodian?

Glad you're interested in helping out. Just send a Feedback asking to be a Data Custodian. Data Custodian is a vital role. You'll share responsibility with a few others in maintaining the accuracy of the app's data, particularly the information about players and which teams they're affiliated with.

Have other questions? Send Feedback.

It's all about relationships. Sorta like Facebook and other FOF (friend-of-a-friend) based systems, or 6 degrees of separation. Ultimately, everything is connected. The graph data model underlying graph tracker is what makes possible the rapid traversal of connected "nodes" so that you can ask, "which members can satisfy my wishlist?" and the app can answer in seconds. Here's what that looks like in pseudo query language:

MATCH (Collector {you}) - [:collects] -> (Set) - [:includes] -> (Player) <- [:hasautographof] - (Collector {not you}) WHERE you don't have the same autograph

And to find what out what stuff to pull for the next team in town:

MATCH (Collector {you}) - [:collects] -> (Set) - [:includes] -> (Player) WHERE you don't have the autograph
MATCH (Player) - [:isaffiliatedwith] - (Team)

Simple and powerful. Here's the (partial) data model in more detail:

• Nodes (the "things" the app knows about and is responsible for maintaining, plus custom "things" that you own and maintain)
• Sets
• Players
• Teams
• Organizations
• Collectors


• Relationships (how things are related)
• (Set) - [:includes] -> (Player)
• (Player) - [:isaffiliatedwith] -> (Team|Organization)
• (Team) - [:belongsto] -> (Organization)
• (Collector) - [:collects] -> (Set|Player)
• (Collector) - [:hasautographof] -> (Player)

Although the app and its data model were conceived in the context of sports cards, one can imagine how the model could be extended (tortured?) to accomodate other uses.

The physical architecture is a typical 3 tier design. The Web app is written in javascript. The middle (logic) layer is a Node.js REST API. And the database is Neo4j. Each layer is hosted by a different cloud services provider [NOTE: as of 4-17-2020 the logic and API layers are hosted on a personal computer].

One of the goals of graph tracker is to automate wishlists. For set collecting, the guiding philosophy is to include every possible instance of a player in a card set. That means that cards depicting multiple players will be represented in the set multiple times, once for each player. This applies to cards that explicitly identify the players (e.g. League Leader cards) as well as cards with group/action photos with little or no player identification (e.g. World Series celebration cards). In many cases the data in graph tracker is incomplete. Either we missed identifying a player in a photo or we got it wrong. Please send Feedback if you notice something awry.

The idea is to error on the side of completeness. So, a "card" in graph tracker is not the same as a card in a traditional checklist. Instead, it's the unqiue combination of set name, card number, and player. If you collect a set and you're not interested in getting group-photo cards signed by every player in the photo, simply delete (aka "skip") those cards.

One of the biggest challenges for the app is correctly assigning players to set cards. This is obviously simple when the player's name is Ryan Rowland-Smith but not as simple when the name is Alex Gonzalez or Josh Smith. Please holler if you spot an error.

Another challenge is correctly assigning players to teams. graph tracker processes MLB transactions every day and checks almost every minor league baseball roster for changes. Nothing has been automated for the other sports and sometimes the app has the wrong information for baseball team affiliations. Again, please give us a shout if you notice a problem.

Finally, player names ... what a mine field! By default, graph tracker uses the names from baseball-reference.com (btw - a HUGE shout out to that site!). Occassionally, we use the MLB, MiLB or NBA name if it's different and makes more sense. And rarely, we use something else entirely. There is absolutely no consistency or standards in the industry for managing player names. And, to exacerabate the situation, players own their names (hello Mike Stanton) and can change them seemingly on a whim. When you're entering autographs you'll need to use the player name in graph tracker. For example, if you have a database with 20 years of graphs and you got Giancarlo Stanton's autograph back when he was Mike Stanton, you'll need to change that player name prior to uploading your autographs.

We all know players are "special," but in graph tracker there are very special players. Remember, "player" is anything that can be associated with a set card, a team, or an autograph. Allen & Ginter sets are famous for including buildings, planets, strange people, etc., all of which are "players" in graph tracker. Here are some of the very special types of player:

• team name (e.g. Los Angeles Dodgers is a team but also a player)
• Checklist
• Miscellaneous Person (used in cases where you have an autograph on an item but you're not sure who it is)

TBD ...