15 replies to this topic

[Leg-godt]

I recently had an ideas for community driven cuusoo projects.

First, we would have a community vote for a theme we want made.
When that's decided, we have a contest to build sets for that theme.
Then, we'll have a contest to make minifigs for the sets chosen.(\That way those who build well make good sets, and those who are good at minifigs make them.)

Then, we take pictures of the sets with the minifigs and post it as a community supported cuusoo project.

What does everyone think?

Thanks, Leg-godt


Edit: did I put this in the right place?

Edited by Rick, 27 April 2012 - 05:55 PM.
Moved to LEGO General discussion

[SilentMode]

I like the idea of a CUUSOO project that this particular community can get behind, and it definitely is possible. I like the idea you have of building this project in different stages (models, minifigures etc.), so that hopefully more than one person has input.

[Leg-godt]

Not only would multiple people have input,, since we would be having the best of every category, we would end up with something people would really want!

[TimeCruiser]

An interesting idea, but how are you suggesting that it work?  Would the winner of the first contest post the model to CUUSOO (after winning), and the winner of the second contest be added through collaboration?  

Or, are you suggesting that Eurobricks have an official account on CUUSOO, and the 1% could then be put toward LEGO set prizes for contests?  The latter would have difficulties under the current CUUSOO user agreement.  After all, the model would only sort-of be an original idea "by Eurobricks;" and Eurobricks is not even the 13 years old for having an account, much less the 18 years old required to post projects.  

Edited by TimeCruiser, 28 April 2012 - 07:27 AM.

[Leg-godt]

The second was more what I was thinking, with the winners being posted in one post by eurobricks (or a representative thereof, so it would follow the rules.), and the 1% would go to forum things, such as future contests(Maybe feeding itself? if it gets made you have another contest of this kind with the prizes paid for by the 1% from the set?). What do my fellow forumites think?


-Leg-godt

[TimeCruiser]

Leg-godt, on 29 April 2012 - 03:57 AM, said:

The second was more what I was thinking, with the winners being posted in one post by eurobricks (or a representative thereof, so it would follow the rules.), and the 1% would go to forum things, such as future contests(Maybe feeding itself? if it gets made you have another contest of this kind with the prizes paid for by the 1% from the set?). What do my fellow forumites think?


-Leg-godt

I would have no problem with it being tried out.  Of course, the admins' opinions have more weight in the matter, since it is their time and effort for initiating contests.  The biggest issue that comes to mind is if the winning entry is something already posted to CUUSOO, or if the winner decided to post it separately as well, so the contest rules would need to account for that.

[Leg-godt]

There would have to be rules saying that one could not post it previously. One of the advantages of this would be that your project would get much more publicity, being the official Eurobricks cuusoo project. I think we should do it! Why not?

[purpleparadox]

Great idea, we should do it!

When you say "community vote to pick a theme", do you mean a licensed theme (please, no), or a theme that Lego could produce without a license? I really prefer the latter. For example, the vote could be:

Sci-Fi
City
Western
Medieval
Trains
Action
(Military?)

A community Cuusoo project would be sweet!

[Leg-godt]

I meant the latter, we could also have themes never made before, i.e. Roman, Greek, Cavemen. The original idea was basically to see if we could have a fan theme, implemented through cuusoo. That would mean all the sets and minifigures made by fans.  
I don't know how far fetched that is, but this would be a starter.

The idea was that on the cuusoo post, there would be one or two sets, with the models by the fans who are bet at models, and minifigs by those who a best at those.
Maybe once the set wins the pre cuusoo competition, we could figure out a way to as a community revise it?

Thanks, Leg-godt

[purpleparadox]

Leg-godt, on 29 April 2012 - 11:20 PM, said:

I meant the latter, we could also have themes never made before, i.e. Roman, Greek, Cavemen. The original idea was basically to see if we could have a fan theme, implemented through cuusoo. That would mean all the sets and minifigures made by fans.  
I don't know how far fetched that is, but this would be a starter.

This. Is. Perfect!

[Leg-godt]

How would I go about asking the majority's opinion on this, or an admin?

Could someone who has the power to add a poll asking people if they want this?

Thanks, Leg-Godt

[The Blue Brick]

This sounds like a great idea. If we were to do this, I would definitely contribute.  

[David Thomsen]

I don't know if this belongs here, but I don't think it deserves a topic of its own. I often read a website called 'io9' where they have a regular feature highlighting new crowdfunded projects they want to support. I wonder if a similar thing could be done on Eurobricks, with a weekly news update highlighting new Cuusoo projects that should receive more attention. There are quite a lot of Cuusoo projects and the site is not easy to browse, so potentially awesome projects could slip into obscurity, especially if the person who made them doesn't have a base of associates who will help bump the project to popular attention.

The other thing is that people often don't seem to know how to use Cuusoo correctly to create the right impression of their projects, or explain what exactly they have in mind. And with so many projects to browse, it's easy to skip over them if the project does not immediately make sense, like if the picture is just a set of seemingly random parts or whatever. If there was a 'reviewer academy' type guide to help people present their project in an appealing manner, I think that would be quite beneficial.

For example, I just noticed a Hunger Games MOC with no actual mention of 'Hunger Games' in the description, so anyone searching for it is not going to find it. These are things people need to know about. What if there's an awesome Indiana Jones circus train MOC in there somewhere, but I just can't find it?

Edited by David Thomsen, 30 April 2012 - 11:13 AM.

[JackJonespaw]

David Thomsen, on 30 April 2012 - 11:08 AM, said:

I don't know if this belongs here, but I don't think it deserves a topic of its own. I often read a website called 'io9' where they have a regular feature highlighting new crowdfunded projects they want to support. I wonder if a similar thing could be done on Eurobricks, with a weekly news update highlighting new Cuusoo projects that should receive more attention. There are quite a lot of Cuusoo projects and the site is not easy to browse, so potentially awesome projects could slip into obscurity, especially if the person who made them doesn't have a base of associates who will help bump the project to popular attention.

The other thing is that people often don't seem to know how to use Cuusoo correctly to create the right impression of their projects, or explain what exactly they have in mind. And with so many projects to browse, it's easy to skip over them if the project does not immediately make sense, like if the picture is just a set of seemingly random parts or whatever. If there was a 'reviewer academy' type guide to help people present their project in an appealing manner, I think that would be quite beneficial.

For example, I just noticed a Hunger Games MOC with no actual mention of 'Hunger Games' in the description, so anyone searching for it is not going to find it. These are things people need to know about. What if there's an awesome Indiana Jones circus train MOC in there somewhere, but I just can't find it?

This would be a good idea. I also had another idea a bit like this, so here it is:

So EB has a "contest" of sorts, in which a members posts one idea each. Then, the community votes on which idea/MOC/license that they like and want the most. The idea/MOC/license with the most votes becomes EBs "official" project.

[Yatkuu]

I have had a similar idea in my head for a while... but my recent experience with CUUSOO kinda gave me a cold shower...
Anyway, here are the high level principles of what I had in mind:

A yearly contest around CUUSOO organized in collaboration with the major AFOL communities of the web... I probably don't know them all but I was thinking of EB, Brickset and FBTB (some kind of tri-wizard tournament).
The contest would have a theme picked by the organizers I'm not sure how but they could perhaps run metrics on what are the "hotest topics" identified on the forums.
The contest would be organized in 2 rounds... First round would be held on each separate website, at the end of this first part the champions of each community would be identified... Second round, on a separate platform, a vote between the champions of each site - the separate platform could be LEGO sponsored in order to remain "independent".
There would of course be prizes, but the grand prize would be the "commitment" of each community to support and promote the winner(s).

Why extend to other communities? Simple, we have to if we want the winning projects to stand a chance on CUUSOO - see how difficult it was to push the Western town?
One more detail, usually the contests are asking the participants to submit new MOCs, in the scope of this idea the rules would be different and participants would be allowed to give it their best shot, regardless if new or old.

If the Winchester had worked I would have offered to sponsor the prizes of the first contest with the royalties... Well, that didn't go as planned so we'll need to figure out something else but I'm sure TLG would be willing to support an initiative like this...

[Leg-godt]

@David Thomsen:
I agree with the idea of a sort of reviewers academy thing for teaching people how to post projects, but the idea of this would more be that you would have one project that because of the contest would get a lot of attention, and then hopefully be quickly voted to 10,000.

@JackJonespaw:
I agree with the idea of voting for a theme, but I think it would be cooler to choose the theme and then, once we have a theme, hold a contest,, so we would have many people trying to build in that theme, resulting in very good MOCs of what we vote for.

@Yatkuu:
I really like the idea of the three contests on three sites, which would be a great way to get enough votes.I disagree on the idea of the organizers choosing the theme, as I think it would be cooler to have a poll, as that would give us more choice in the matter, and perhaps make this all a bigger event, which equals more votes. Maybe we could have the second round on TBB? If we could get them to agree, that would easily get the project a ton of publicity.


I also think that the idea of having separate contest for minifigures and MOCs would be good, as usually when people are building amazing MOCs, they don's spend as much time on the figs then if they were only making minifigures.

This would also be good for TLG, as this would give a ton of publicity to cuusoo, hopefully convincing them to sponsor prizes.