Is a new voting procedure necessary for Lego Ideas?

[astral brick]

 

Let's face it, the current Lego Ideas' process is long, complicated and frustrating. In fact, given that a submission could be considered acceptable and given that, after months of waiting, the project could reach the 10000 votes, TLC's final review can eventually crush supporters' hopes. Maybe the way to go is represented by the recent Ten Years Anniversary Fan Vote procedure. Preselected submissions, only one vote and a few weeks to choose the winner.

What do you think?   

[MAB]

Who pre-selects the submissions? The point of ideas is that it is to highlight sets wanted by Joe Public rather than LEGO, so to pre-select the submissions they need to know what is wanted. So they could have a public vote for that ... which is the current Ideas.

 

[Robert8]

That would invert the review and vote phase

Because those projects in the 10 years anniversary poll, were already reviewed before the poll  started. That's why the winner was going to automatically become an Ideas set

That would mean they would have to review all the projects first, before starting a poll, which is impossible and wouldn't make sense

 

[TeriXeri]

It works fine as it does now.

It's not like it cost anything to vote, and even the submission will get a compensation if their 10.000 project doesn't make it into a set.

Honestly, sometimes I wonder how well known the Ideas website even is. Projects have over 2 years and 2 months to reach 10.000 and last round only had as few as 5.

Now I know from myself I only vote on very specific sets with a high probability to actually buy , and maybe there must be many other people like that.

Edited June 6, 2019 by TeriXeri

[astral brick]

4 hours ago, MAB said:

Who pre-selects the submissions?

TLC, which, in fact, already has the final word about the approval.

4 hours ago, Robert8 said:

That would invert the review and vote phase

Yes, and the outcome would be to speed up the process.

[TeriXeri]

30 minutes ago, astral brick said:

TLC, which, in fact, already has the final word about the approval.

Yes, and the outcome would be to speed up the process.

So basicly it becomes TLG's pick then, with another extra slap in the face where projects of completely different genres compete directly against eachother.

Sometimes 1, sometimes more sets can make it into a set in the current system, putting sets directly head to head where only 1 can be Winner is a bad move.

Then what would be a solution ? TLG asking themed submissions (City/Castle/Space/Licensed etc.)? Category-based picks (Licensed seperate from Non-Licensed for example). If that leads for more exposure/submissions, great.

I know LEGO IDEAS has those themed competitions fairly frequently but those are seperate from becoming sets.

If LEGO just picks a handful of sets with no filters it's not good ,on top of that, even less people will submit things if the pre-selection seems too hard/biased.

 

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Current system works a lot better as the public gets the first say, and then TLG later, not the other way around.

Also if an IDEA currently doesn't make it to 10.000, then it has had it's clear reasons, especially if it's up there for 2 year, people had plenty of time to vote if it were popular, as I've seen projects go from 0 to 10000 under 2 months.

The extending time system works great, some unpopular expire at 60 days, then if you reach 100, they have a full year to reach 1000, then 6 months to get 5000, and another 6 months to reach 10.000.

 

 

 

Edited June 6, 2019 by TeriXeri

[deraven]

I think the current process makes more sense.  As Robert8 said, TLG would have to review all submissions first which would be an enormous waste of their time... especially if you're suggesting they do enough review to ensure that the winning submission in that pre-selected group was viable for sale.  I think the process for that evaluation is much more extensive than you're assuming.  The first filter being the public and the creator's own promotion skills makes more sense.

That being said, I think if they added in 1 more option to the mix similar to what they did for the 10th Anniversary special vote, it might even out some of the perceived challenges you're talking about.  If I were to change the process somehow, what I'd do is have a runner-up kind of review where maybe the TLG team looks at sets that were above, say, 5-7,000 votes and up.  That is, the team privately takes a look at everything in that range that expired since the last period (which wouldn't be all that many to deal with but were still clearly ideas that had some public interest), does a quick scrub through them, and then does a basic evaluation on just a couple of those to put into a pool for a vote like the special one they just did... maybe even to move the set into the new full-review phase if not made into a set directly.

I mean, what really is the difference in viability between a set that unfortunately topped out at 9400 votes vs one that got to 10001?  Sucks for those people to be excluded entirely when they came close, so addressing that I think would be better than trying to dig through that thousands of garbage submissions to find the few that the TLG designers like.

[TeriXeri]

36 minutes ago, deraven said:

I mean, what really is the difference in viability between a set that unfortunately topped out at 9400 votes vs one that got to 10001?  Sucks for those people to be excluded entirely when they came close, so addressing that I think would be better than trying to dig through that thousands of garbage submissions to find the few that the TLG designers like.

The thing with expired projects over 5000, is that they also have been up there for the longest (26 months) so unless LEGO suddenly runs out of popular ideas at 10000 (let's say less then 4 for a review round), I don't see the need to rehash old expired Ideas unless the site dries up.

Right now there are 25 Ideas between 5000 and 9999 so not really lost in any clutter either.

One current project made it to over 5000 within 2 weeks even.

A couple years ago, LEGO themselves even asked for more Non-Licensed submissions at the time, so if the time calls for more submissions, LEGO will do it.

Edited June 6, 2019 by TeriXeri

[astral brick]

9 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

So basicly it becomes TLG's pick then,

It has always been Lego's pick (which is fair enough, it is their business after all).

9 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

with another extra slap in the face where projects of completely different genres compete directly against eachother.

This is already happening. And the true slap in the face is having ten thousand supporters disappointed instead of one (the designer), if only the decision could have been taken at the beginning of the process instead of its end.

9 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

If LEGO just picks a handful of sets with no filters it's not good ,on top of that, even less people will submit things if the pre-selection seems too hard/biased.

I think it is way worse to give false hopes to a designer, especially if he has reached the necessary votes.

[MAB]

2 minutes ago, astral brick said:

It has always been Lego's pick (which is fair enough, it is their business after all).

 

It hasn't though. LEGO have only picked from projects that have made it to 10,000, aside from blocking some IPs from the start. They do not pick projects from the outset. And that is the whole point of ideas, to see what people want. If they choose which projects could make it from the start and discount others, then after a few rounds they will end up with lots of similar submissions as people learn what will be allowed to be voted on and what will not. Plus it will be a huge amount of work deciding about licensing for every submission where a licensed property is involved, especially if it leads nowhere.

5 minutes ago, astral brick said:

And the true slap in the face is having ten thousand supporters disappointed instead of one (the designer), if only the decision could have been taken at the beginning of the process instead of its end.

 

1

There will still be people disappointed that their vote was not made. Think of all the people that voted for Stitch this time around.

[astral brick]

10 hours ago, deraven said:

I think the process for that evaluation is much more extensive than you're assuming.

I am starting to think that the evaluation could be something similar to: number of pieces + licence no/yes (economic feasibility of it). Moreover I am afraid that the uncertainty related to the acceptance of some themes (ie "mature" ones) can play a role even in the final decision and not only at the beginning of the procedure. Perhaps Lego should make the previous considerations about a submission in advance, thus saving designers' and potential supporters' time.  

[astral brick]

30 minutes ago, MAB said:

then after a few rounds they will end up with lots of similar submissions as people learn what will be allowed to be voted on and what will not.

Isn't this already happening? I think of modular buildings.

30 minutes ago, MAB said:

There will still be people disappointed that their vote was not made. Think of all the people that voted for Stitch this time around.

There is a huge difference between a democratic outcome and the current top-down approach.

 

[MAB]

39 minutes ago, astral brick said:

Isn't this already happening? I think of modular buildings.

 

 

What do you mean here? There are too many modular style buildings or not enough?  There are a huge range of projects on Ideas.

40 minutes ago, astral brick said:

 

There is a huge difference between a democratic outcome and the current top-down approach.

 

I don't know what this means. The ones in the recent 10 year vote all went through the standard system. They were not pre-selected by LEGO without a previous public vote to get to 10000. LEGO did not pre-select any possible sets that did not make it to 10000.

1 hour ago, astral brick said:

Perhaps Lego should make the previous considerations about a submission in advance, thus saving designers' and potential supporters' time.  

1

How much time should LEGO devote to assessing each submission? Especially licensed ones, as these can take a long time with negotiations. Supporters' time is next to nothing. Designers have to put in the effort either way.