BrickLink Discussion Forum

In Catalog, maxx3001 writes:

In Catalog, SylvainLS writes:

In Catalog, maxx3001 writes:

In Catalog, Teup writes:

In Catalog, Hygrotus writes:

In Catalog, Teup writes:

That's funny. I just encountered 4 of these:

LEGO just uses everything they have, maybe they dug up an old container with
the X bottom and mixed them in with the newer parts.

LEGO never throws anything away, this is how we got old Maersk blue 3001old in
modern sets

I wonder though: what happens when the variants aren’t functionnally equivalent?

LEGO doesn’t really care, a brick is a brick is a brick.

Except for 3001specials. They are a brick's brick and an example for all
the other bricks to follow.

Author:

Nathan123

Posted:

Nov 8, 2019 10:08

Subject:

Re: Forum Reforms

Viewed:

40 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, Adjour writes:

My personal opinion is the format is largely fine. I modded for years on a v
bulletin based board and the only real feature I miss is editing ability.

What I noticed is wholesome posts are largely ignored here. People posting mocs
or collections are almost completely ignored while drama posts create long chains
of comments

I remember a regular member posting a very nice collection photo because they
were excited about finishing or near finishing it iirc. I think it got two replies...

On Reddit, that same post would have got hundreds of positive replies.

I know personally I've had a few cool post ideas, but I know if it's
not negative or dramatic they will only be met with crickets.

Again, just my opinion

The difference in size is probably why there could be hundreds of positive comments
and upvotes while being met with silence here. Here there cannot be more than
a couple hundred people looking at the BL forum for any significant amount of
time from day to day. The issue in my opinion is that there isn't enough
interest to get more people using the forum but the other problem is that if
more people were to use the forum it would become harder to use as posts would
get buried that much faster.

Author:

Nathan123

Posted:

Nov 8, 2019 04:23

Subject:

Re: Forum Reforms

Viewed:

63 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, Admin_Russell writes:

In Suggestions, Nathan123 writes:

It seems the forum isn't getting the same kind of community involvement as
it once did. It is fairly common to see less than 100 messages per day and I
had to go back to July to find a day that had over 200. The way the forum works
right now it can be very frustrating and time consuming finding posts of interest
as even new posts get buried quickly under 2 or 3 more active posts and that
makes it difficult to participate in the forum if you do not have the time to
browse or search through it. In terms of utility the bricklink forum is not as
easy to use and enjoy as say brickset forum. There are a lot of good parts of
the BL forum but I feel it is largely being ruined.

My suggestion is that when a post is responded to the post itself moves to the
top but it doesn't show up as a new message, so if a post is made and has
10 replies it will still just look like one post on the forum. I would also like
to recommend that certain categories get put into a different area apart from
the forum so maybe for example buying and selling, inventory change requests,
and sales posts could be seperated from the rest so they don't bury the rest
of the posts out there and stagnate the forum.

The goal would be to allow more people and ideas to participate in the community.

There are certainly some improvements to be made - pinning posts, notification
/ subscription plans, ability to edit or completely remove posted material -
but most of what you are asking for here can already be done.

First, the BrickLink Discussions Forum is actually many individual Forums all
joined together, including hidden Forums backstage for our community admins.
If you don't wish to read everything, start on this page and read only what
interests you:

https://www.bricklink.com/messageTopics.asp?utm_content=subnav

Second, you can customize the Forum to your exact specifications, including viewing
each thread without the replies. You can also block certain Forums (e.g. sales
posts). See the settings on this page:

https://www.bricklink.com/messageFilter.asp?viewFrom=P

I've never seen a Forum with this level of user customization, and I believe
most members don't even know about these options. Try out these suggestions
and see if that helps your impression.

I have been reading the Forum consistently for over 10 years, and I've noticed
that like rainy and dry periods with the weather, Forum participation ebbs and
flows with time. And if by "community involvement" you mean people like Foster
and Dan/Jon beating each other up on a regular basis, that sort of behavior isn't
tolerated anymore.

Thank you for this information! I had no clue those options already existed although
I probably should have. It could be that the forum is just in one of those periods
of decreased participation but from the stats it doesn't seem like it has
really changed all that much in about 9 months...to me it seems it should be
busier and for whatever the reason is, it is apparent the forum just has not
grabbed people's interest.

Author:

Nathan123

Posted:

Nov 8, 2019 02:37

Subject:

Re: Forum Reforms

Viewed:

41 times

Topic:

In Suggestions, maxx3001 writes:

In Suggestions, calsbricks writes:

In Suggestions, jennnifer writes:

In Suggestions, Nathan123 writes:

I love the way this old Forum works. Sorry if I am in the minority. I would argue
that the lack of community involvement is directly related to the management's
antipathy.

Jen

+ several

+ a number of mine

If management is lacking, why use the forum, you can ask, suggest all you like,
it won’t change a thing.

BrickLink is going the way of the Dodo, while sailors are eating on.....

At this point it is just a money generating donkey, pulling a load to heavy for
its back

Why not ask though? Maybe it is unlikely anything improves but if no one wants
improvements then it will never happen. Wanting the forum to be more interesting
and grow the number of people wjo use it seems like is shouldn't be beyond
expectations.

Author:

Nathan123

Posted:

Nov 8, 2019 02:26

Subject:

Re: Forum Reforms

Viewed:

41 times

Topic: