42 replies to this topic

[CopMike]

From TLG´s new website ReBrick:

What is the basic idea with ReBrick?
ReBrick is a social media platform where adult users can share and discuss user-created LEGO content online.

It will not be possible to upload content to the site. Instead the basic functionality is for the user to bookmark content from other sites, such as Flickr, Youtube, MOCpages and similar sites, and have a discussion at the ReBrick hub.

ReBrick is a public stage for fans of the LEGO brick to share their wonderful models and creations with the general public.

Is ReBrick part of LEGO.com?
The ReBrick website is made and facilitated by the LEGO Group. But ReBrick is not part of LEGO.com. While LEGO.com is for children (of all ages), ReBrick caters to fans over 13. There’s no commercial agenda. The site will never be used to market LEGO products so you won’t see campaigns, adverts or advertorials.  

It’s your ReBrick!
The ReBrick project is a collaboration between the LEGO Group and the LEGO community. In fact, we could almost say it’s co-owned. Though The LEGO group retain ownership of the site, there will be no product announcements or any attempt made to market LEGO products. The content is brought in, discussed and ultimately owned by the community – that’s you!



Now go and check it out - ReBrick

[halfpenguinhalflego]

LEGO's own version of Brickshelf? It sounds pretty cool and after some inspection I think I'll end up joining!

[Bonaparte]

halfpenguinhalflego, on 15 December 2011 - 07:55 PM, said:

LEGO's own version of Brickshelf?

No, not really because you can't store any pictures on ReBrick. You can only link to picture here on Eurobricks, Brickshelf, etc. Of course we prefer our members to link to a Eurobricks topic when sharing something on ReBrick.

[Masked Builder]

Interesting.  I like the idea, I'm not sure where LEGO wants to go with this though.

[lightningtiger]

Masked Builder, on 15 December 2011 - 08:38 PM, said:

Interesting.  I like the idea, I'm not sure where LEGO wants to go with this though.

Easy answer......IDEAS....they want more ideas, oh and learn for the real world what products do well and what doesn't.
I'll go and a look in a minute.

[Flipz]

Please, please, PLEASE tell me there's a comment feature like on the LU Creation Lab.  

[Rook]

I signed up and it looks like I can't change my user name. It gives me my Lego.com purchasing name. So I'm out until Lego can fix that.  

[Dakar A]

his could be a good sign or a bad one, but right now, it seems like the site is getting bogged down by all the trafic (Presumably from here on EB), soit looks like I'll have to wait  bit to sign up!

[lightningtiger]

I've signed up just now and hit a brick wall, it won't accept my profile to get the ball rolling......Cop Mike help !

[AllanSmith]

lightningtiger, on 15 December 2011 - 09:58 PM, said:

I've signed up just now and hit a brick wall, it won't accept my profile to get the ball rolling......Cop Mike help !

You have to wait for email from LEGO to activate your access.  
I have joined as NZLEGOMAN1

[ibecks]

lightningtiger, on 15 December 2011 - 09:58 PM, said:

I've signed up just now and hit a brick wall, it won't accept my profile to get the ball rolling......Cop Mike help !

I'm getting the same thing - it keeps highlighting the 'about me' box in red but doesn't tell me what it wants me to do with it.

[brickmack]

Looks like it has some potential. There are some issues though, like the slowness (probably caused mostly by all of the visitors recently), and there are some things I don't like in the interface. Also it wouldn't let me look at anything on the site until I signed up (which took a while because for some reason it took 3 tries to get signed up). These will probably (hopefully) be fixed soon though, since it's still just in beta.

Also, I heard about a project called LEGO Octopus that LEGO was doing a few months ago, some online thing I think. Is that what this is, or another project?

[CopMike]

brickmack, on 15 December 2011 - 10:29 PM, said:

Also, I heard about a project called LEGO Octopus that LEGO was doing a few months ago, some online thing I think. Is that what this is, or another project?

This is it. It has had some other names before this launch.

[Mirandir]

Like some others I just can't create a profile. Am I required to enter some secret password into the "About me" text box or what?    When I click the "Create profile" button it just highlights the "about me" box. And it doesn't matter what I type into that @%¤#"£$ text box...!

Edited by Mirandir, 15 December 2011 - 11:09 PM.

[Fugazi]

halfpenguinhalflego, on 15 December 2011 - 07:55 PM, said:

LEGO's own version of Brickshelf?

Actually that could have been useful.

[blueandwhite]

I'm running to the same problem that others have mentioned.  The "about me" box remains highlighted in red and I can't continue further.  Any advice would be appreciated.

[Fugazi]

blueandwhite, on 15 December 2011 - 11:33 PM, said:

I'm running to the same problem that others have mentioned. The "about me" box remains highlighted in red and I can't continue further. Any advice would be appreciated.

You have to enter something -- anything -- in that box, it should allow you to continue.

Edit: Oh I see it still doesn't work for some...

[mikey]

Quote

Play nice.
Let everybody enjoy these cool LEGO brick creations in a good, clean environment. Don’t bookmark bad stuff: no content related to alcohol, drugs, tobacco, sex; or any kind of content containing realistic or extreme violence, or content intended to shock or disgust. ReBrick is not the venue for preaching or glorifying your political or religious views.  Content of any political or religious nature will be removed along with content that is not related to LEGO products.

This is why LEGO should not have bothered.  They need to have this clause as they are aimed at children, and I actually agree with the some of their 'Play Nice' rules - as simulated minifig sex or extreme violence does nothing for me.  But, as an ADULT fan of Lego I have no problem stumbling across simulated minifig sex or extreme violence, as I can easily make my own decision to view it or not.

I don't really 'get' what they are trying to achieve with this, as the 'online community' has had no problems thriving without their corporate intervention.  Call me cynical, but seems to me some quack internet marketer has rolled in to Billund and set up shop hawking 'magic social network medicine'.

Edited by mikey, 16 December 2011 - 12:24 AM.

[Superkalle]

Intresting idea. And interesting comments allready. Personally I'm still trying to understand what this is, and the purpose it fills.

Some questions that spring to mind, sorted in no particular order:

1) How will TLG ensure that credit is given to the original MOC creator when someone links an image in from Flickr, Brickshelf etc? A youngster who finds a "cool MOC" may not bother to state who made it. In the AFOL community we otherwise tend to be very careful to state who created a certain MOC.

2) How shall a person who has posted a MOC on Flickr, Brickshelf etc be informed that a discussion is going on at rebrick.com? After all, if you post on Flickr or MOCPages, you kind of expect comments directly there? Or in the case of a forum like Eurobricks, in the topic where the image was perhaps first posted. (Sure, there's now way to secure MOC discussions on the original host-site even today, but with rebrick being a dedicated intermediate layer, I'm still wondering).

3) Will rebrick.com cache images. I.e. if the image on the host site is deleted, will it become unavailable at rebrick.com also? (I guess I'm wondering if a MOC creator has the power to decided himself if an image should be available at rebrick.com or not).

4) I found that some image thumbnail at rebrick.com that was linked to TBB, and once there, you had to click again to come to the source - which in this case was an image gallery at Flickr. Is this the way it is supposed to be, or will image links somehow be converted to point directly to the source, where the original created shared it and perhaps made his comments about the model?

[technicmad]

Hmmm so I'm sure no-one is going to confuse rebrick.com with rebrickable.com - not sure if I should be happy or angry.

[Aanchir]

mikey, on 16 December 2011 - 12:17 AM, said:

This is why LEGO should not have bothered.  They need to have this clause as they are aimed at children, and I actually agree with the some of their 'Play Nice' rules - as simulated minifig sex or extreme violence does nothing for me.  But, as an ADULT fan of Lego I have no problem stumbling across simulated minifig sex or extreme violence, as I can easily make my own decision to view it or not.

I don't really 'get' what they are trying to achieve with this, as the 'online community' has had no problems thriving without their corporate intervention.  Call me cynical, but seems to me some quack internet marketer has rolled in to Billund and set up shop hawking 'magic social network medicine'.

What they're trying to achieve is to maintain their reputation as a clean and friendly family company. Even if something inappropriate was on a site they ran that was geared towards adults, it would still be something inappropriate on a site they run. And keep in mind that kids can still see a lot of the stuff on Rebrick, even if they can't have profiles there. And that the age cutoff isn't 18 or some other age people can agree is mature, it's 13. If a kid is on the site and their parents find them looking at something inappropriate, they're likely going to blame the website-- especially since "Mom, it's just a LEGO website!" is probably how the kid will try and defend their actions.

People seem to ignore that TLG's family-friendly policies aren't just altruistic or legalistic. They're not just doing it because they are concerned for the welfare of kids, nor just because they're afraid of legal repercussions, but also because they're concerned for their own reputation. This applies to the violence policy (another oft-debated topic in recent weeks here at Eurobricks), to their websites' "play nice" policies, and to every other policy involving the appropriateness of content they host, produce, or promote.

There's also the fact that age limits aren't just about the appropriateness of content. For instance, here at Eurobricks the age limit of 18 isn't strictly because the mods want us to be able to post a lot of inappropriate stuff, but more because they want us having mature and intelligent conversations.

Edited by Aanchir, 16 December 2011 - 02:09 AM.

[Lord Admiral]

That's the bit that gives a 3rd party site unaffiliated with Lego an advantage. While sites can throw these "adult" themes into its own category, hidden behind some sort of login or whatnot, Lego cannot even have such a thing.

While a community site is a nice gesture, I don't think this is any effective way of being a part of the community. The "official" status that comes with a site affiliated with TLG makes the content, as well as those who submit content, different--special even. For starters, it becomes a much bigger target for fraudsters. Because of the legitimacy it brings as an official site, even if the site doesn't host any of the pictures, it brings out the people who want the legitimacy but who cannot achieve it on their own.

Moderation is also difficult. Moderators on a fan site are also fans. Moderators on an official site not only have a certain legitimacy automatically attached to them, but they also lack the degree of freedom that their fan site counterparts have. It might not sound like much, but it may be the difference between say, a featuring or not featuring a "violent" diorama.

And for an official site, there is also an issue with the inclusion of non-official parts. If the 3rd-party part is some other company's IP but not licensed by TLG (like a weapon from Halo or some other video game). While fan sites can do whatever they want, an official site may not be able to have MOCs with these items featured.

There are other logistical problems with such a site. A lot of interests are niche interests. Adult-themed interests are one aspect of this, but there other niches like Star Wars, Fantasy/Medieval, City, etc. that a single site cannot devote itself to the way that multiple sites can. Furthermore, the inability to host its own pictures and sites makes entries easily go dead when the host drops their pictures or the account gets suspended.

It's a nice gesture, but I think it'll be ultimately futile. Especially considering the wealth of fan sites already present, all of whom lack the problems than an official community site brings. It'd be better if TLG only included their own official community-facing activities on their official community site and leave the community to do what the community is already doing perfectly fine, instead of trying to jump head-first in without really knowing what they're doing or what their place is in the community.

[Yatkuu]

Fugazi, on 15 December 2011 - 11:52 PM, said:

You have to enter something -- anything -- in that box, it should allow you to continue.

Edit: Oh I see it still doesn't work for some...

I was running into the same problem - I typed in a "." (dot) in the red square and it worked...

[Dfenz]

Superkalle, on 16 December 2011 - 01:44 AM, said:

Intresting idea. And interesting comments allready. Personally I'm still trying to understand what this is, and the purpose it fills.

I'm wondering the same thing. While it might be useful to see MOC pictures in the one place I hope the site doesn't become so swamped with pictures that you can't find anything. For eurobricks members with access to a very wide range of dedicated forums and the facility to monitor new threads as they arise across the entire site I'm struggling to see why I should bother reposting links to pictures to that site. I think LEGO missed an opportunity in that a hosting service by LEGO would probably prove attractive to many users that might fear the collapse of a photo hosting site or deletion of their prized photos of long-dismantled MOCs.

I'd prefer to post an MOC picture within a dedicated thread on a specific eurobricks forum such as the one for trains than upload it to the rebrick site and have it buried by all the other similar pictures. While the cream may well rise to the top, there are probably ways to mainipulate the system that I haven't even dreamed of that would artificially enhance the popularity of some pictures. Also unless people repost their older photos for a period of time there will still be a vast library of older stuff not in rebrick.

We all post MOC pictures for feedback purposes, hoping that our efforts are generally appreciated by our peers and that any criticism (if it must be received at all) is both measured and constructive. It remains to be seen if the feedback on rebrick will be better (or more) than for this site. Ultimately one test will be whether people get better and a higher level of feedback from a wider community on rebrick than they would get by posting links to the same MOC on eurobricks, flickr or other sites. I suspect that initially many of the people signing on will be members of other forums and will continue monitoring/using threads of interest to them on existing sites such as eurobricks or commenting directly on photos at flickr. Comparing feedback experiences on rebrick to feedback currently obtained will take a bit of time to analyse and the experience will perhaps determine if people go to the trouble of reposting photos on rebrick. As many people post their MOCs on multiple websites the comparison of feedback over the next few months can be made.

Of course there are people who don't post pictures of MOCs or comments at all and it is perhaps these people that potentially could benefit the most as they, in theory anyway, will now only have to go to one site for their fix. For these people a key ingredient will be the ability to access the type of MOCs they are interested in and in that regard there are probably some improvements that can be made to the way the information is displayed. For instance, I think far too much space is given to the twitter feeds many of which are inane and irrelevant to the 'rebrick' theme.

As a one stop gallery with tentacles spreading into other sites, it will be really important from a user experience over the next few months that the site gains a reputation not only for having the best and most comprehensive MOC picture collection around but that it is easy to explore. There's not much point in being a LEGO Louvre if the Mona Lisa is hidden behind sketches by 7 year olds!

[CopMike]

From Peter Espersen, Online Community Lead for the LEGO Group

Quote

Introducing LEGO ReBrick
The success of the LEGO Group in recent years owes a lot to the dedication and love of the LEGO® brick by consumers and the fan community. ReBrick is a step further along the road of collaboration with LEGO consumers, but now with focus on sharing and celebrating what consumers create with LEGO bricks. We hope that ReBrick will be a source of inspiration for everyone in the LEGO community.
What is LEGO ReBrick?
·         ReBrick is a social media platform where users over the age of 13 can share and discuss user-created LEGO content online.
·         ReBrick users can bookmark LEGO content from sites, such as Flickr and YouTube and existing LEGO community sites, and have a discussion via comments at the ReBrick hub. It will not be possible to upload content to the ReBrick site, so the traffic will be sent back to the community.
·         ReBrick is LEGO Group owned, but the selection of content rests primarily with the user community
·         ReBrick will both serve as a social bookmarking hub for easy navigation of the latest and coolest user-developed LEGO content, but it will also enable this content to be pushed to 3rd party social media platforms, LEGO fan sites and other LEGO sites by the users.
·         ReBrick is not commercial and won’t be used by the LEGO Group to market LEGO products.

ReBrick amplifies the vibrant LEGO community
There are millions of articles, videos and photos featuring LEGO bricks on the web, and more show up every day. Some fan-made videos on YouTube get millions of views within a few days. Clearly, LEGO fans are already out there sharing and chatting away big time.
But the fragmentation makes it difficult for the casual LEGO fan or those just entering the LEGO hobby to find the content they might be looking for or just browse for inspiration. It is our hope, that ReBrick will make it easier to navigate, enjoy and be inspired by the awesome content created by LEGO fans and also facilitate new connections between people in the LEGO community. ReBrick acts as a hub, gathering the most interesting, off-the-wall and astonishing creations in one place so that fans everywhere can join the conversation.

Releasing control
Millions of user-created LEGO objects are already driving thousands of conversations each day. ReBrick will let the users moderate themselves, with little involvement from The LEGO Group. A set of simple House Rules will ensure that the core values that most consumers associate with the LEGO brand will set the tone for content and conversation. We believe that the consumers themselves know and appreciate these values and will uphold them.

”Always in Beta” mindset
From the early stages, the LEGO user community has contributed to ReBrick, influencing the way it works, the design and the house rules. The LEGO community will continue to be closely involved in the further development of ReBrick. ReBrick will continue to be co-developed with the LEGO community adding new features on a regular basis.

And a video with him explaining the idea.