What should or should not be on Lego Ideas?

[anothergol]

I'm quite baffled that Lego let this project pass:

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/117448

I mean, this is not the Titanic, this event is pretty recent, and not even mentionning the victims, the guy writes "A great tribute to the ship would be..".

I don't know if that's a troll project and how Lego let this pass, while they're very restrictive on everything.

Edited September 25, 2015 by anothergol

[LEGODalekbuster523]

I was thinking of doing a Ideas project based on the barricade from Les Miserables. Do you think it would be appropriate for LEGO?

[fred67]

I'm quite baffled that Lego let this project pass:

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/117448

I don't know. People still submit World Trade Centers from time to time, sometimes mentioning it as a "tribute" to the victims (although the boat is saying "to the ship," and not the victims).

I wouldn't vote for it, but while I don't want to stray from your point, I notice something else that bugs the hell out of me... why do people think they have any say in the price of the set?

Edited September 25, 2015 by fred67

[Lyichir]

I don't know. People still submit World Trade Centers from time to time, sometimes mentioning it as a "tribute" to the victims (although the boat is saying "to the ship," and not the victims).

I wouldn't vote for it, but while I don't want to stray from your point, I notice something else that bugs the hell out of me... why do people think they have any say in the price of the set?

Considering one of the things supporters are required to include is what they'd be willing to pay for a set, it can certainly help if the project creator provides an estimate of what their model, specifically, would be worth. I wouldn't be surprised if part of the reason why many large Ideas sets have failed is that supporters have lowballed their value. Lego may be willing to consider a large >$100 Ideas set, but if half the people who supported it stated that they're only willing to pay $50, it would be no surprise that the project would get rejected, since there'd be no way to be true to the initial proposal at a dramatically lower price point.

[dr_spock]

I'm quite baffled that Lego let this project pass:

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/117448

I mean, this is not the Titanic, this event is pretty recent, and not even mentionning the victims, the guy writes "A great tribute to the ship would be..".

I don't know if that's a troll project and how Lego let this pass, while they're very restrictive on everything.

It is not religious, warfare, political, violence, war memorial or whatever else I can't remember. You check their guidelines, they have a list of what is not acceptable.

I don't know. People still submit World Trade Centers from time to time, sometimes mentioning it as a "tribute" to the victims (although the boat is saying "to the ship," and not the victims).

I wouldn't vote for it, but while I don't want to stray from your point, I notice something else that bugs the hell out of me... why do people think they have any say in the price of the set?

People are better off estimating how many potential buyers for the set and not the price. I think somewhere in the guidelines LEGO mentions something about market size for your idea.

[Blondie-Wan]

It is not religious, warfare, political, violence, war memorial or whatever else I can't remember. You check their guidelines, they have a list of what is not acceptable.

It's also possible they didn't realize what it was. They might have just looked at the image and title, and skimmed over the text (or even not read it at all, just relying on a filter to catch swear words and such). I kind of expect that project to get archived soon, as soon as someone realizes it refers to a recent real-life tragedy.

Considering one of the things supporters are required to include is what they'd be willing to pay for a set, it can certainly help if the project creator provides an estimate of what their model, specifically, would be worth. I wouldn't be surprised if part of the reason why many large Ideas sets have failed is that supporters have lowballed their value. Lego may be willing to consider a large >$100 Ideas set, but if half the people who supported it stated that they're only willing to pay $50, it would be no surprise that the project would get rejected, since there'd be no way to be true to the initial proposal at a dramatically lower price point.

Yep. It's particularly worth noting that Ideas projects tend to draw votes from outside LEGO fandom; surely a lot of fans of cars, planes, movie franchises, or whatever set up accounts specifically to vote for projects they saw on social media, and if they aren't fans of LEGO in general they may have no idea what sort of price is reasonable for a set of a given size, piece count, or whatever.

[anothergol]

Considering one of the things supporters are required to include is what they'd be willing to pay for a set, it can certainly help if the project creator provides an estimate of what their model, specifically, would be worth. I wouldn't be surprised if part of the reason why many large Ideas sets have failed is that supporters have lowballed their value. Lego may be willing to consider a large >$100 Ideas set, but if half the people who supported it stated that they're only willing to pay $50, it would be no surprise that the project would get rejected, since there'd be no way to be true to the initial proposal at a dramatically lower price point.

Indeed. It's always worth mentioning the # of parts, which is more or less the same thing as coming up with a price (except for the ones not deeply into Lego, so it's not a bad idea).

It is not religious, warfare, political, violence, war memorial or whatever else I can't remember. You check their guidelines, they have a list of what is not acceptable.

It's a recent tragedy, you know like me that there is -no way- Lego would do anything relative to a risky subject like this, and certainly not to praise the boat itself.

As written above, the reviewer probably only saw "a boat", so I'm not blaming Lego for accepting it. I'm just really wondering about the motivation of the guy who posted that. Looks like hidden propaganda to me. Or surfing on popular events, I don't know - it's sure that if this hits a popular blog for its controversy, it's gonna get popular.

And it's certainly not for the beauty of the boat, that thing could be -any- cruise ship.

Edited September 26, 2015 by anothergol

[dr_spock]

Indeed. It's always worth mentioning the # of parts, which is more or less the same thing as coming up with a price (except for the ones not deeply into Lego, so it's not a bad idea).

It's a recent tragedy, you know like me that there is -no way- Lego would do anything relative to a risky subject like this, and certainly not to praise the boat itself.

As written above, the reviewer probably only saw "a boat", so I'm not blaming Lego for accepting it. I'm just really wondering about the motivation of the guy who posted that. Looks like hidden propaganda to me. Or surfing on popular events, I don't know - it's sure that if this hits a popular blog for its controversy, it's gonna get popular.

And it's certainly not for the beauty of the boat, that thing could be -any- cruise ship.

The optics are not good. Guy could be trying to profit off a tragedy. It still has to get to 10000 votes. LEGO can still axe it in the formal review process when they take a deep look.

[Robert8]

I'm quite baffled that Lego let this project pass:

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/117448

I mean, this is not the Titanic, this event is pretty recent, and not even mentionning the victims, the guy writes "A great tribute to the ship would be..".

I don't know if that's a troll project and how Lego let this pass, while they're very restrictive on everything.

It's just the ship

It's not like the project features the ship sinking or something

I think it's fine

[LEGODalekbuster523]

It is not religious, warfare, political, violence, war memorial or whatever else I can't remember. You check their guidelines, they have a list of what is not acceptable.

So would that rule out a Les Miserables barricade set?

[anothergol]

So would that rule out a Les Miserables barricade set?

that's fiction, and it's old - but with Lego you never know, they will reject it if the title isn't capitalized properly

[LEGODalekbuster523]

that's fiction, and it's old - but with Lego you never know, they will reject it if the title isn't capitalized properly

So it's fine as long as its fiction?

[anothergol]

Star Wars would fit in "religious, warfare, political, violence", so who knows? Can't imagine Lego seeing a problem in a classic book.

[dr_spock]

So would that rule out a Les Miserables barricade set?

May depend on what or how it is depicted. Here is their current list: They have the final say. But you don't know if you don't try. I think the odds are better if you have read and follow their guidelines. I guess it is like applying for a job.

Projects related to the topics below do not fit our brand values and will not be approved for publication on LEGO Ideas. We will decide how a project fits these standards.

• 
  a. Politics and political symbols, campaigns, or movements
  
• 
  b. Religious references including symbols, buildings, or people
  
• 
  c. Sex, drugs, or smoking
  
• 
  d. Alcohol in any present day situation
  
• 
  e. Swearing
  
• 
  f. Death, killing, blood, terrorism, or torture
  
• 
  g. First-person shooter video games
  
• 
  h. Warfare or war vehicles in any modern or present-day situation, or national war memorials
  
• 
  i. Racism, bullying, or cruelty to real life animals
  

[x105Black]

Star Wars would fit in "religious, warfare, political, violence", so who knows? Can't imagine Lego seeing a problem in a classic book.

I wouldn't think this is true.

[MAB]

Tagging is not a category system, it's just....tagging. It's useful and a "must" but scarce for a site like Lego-Ideas.

Lego Ideas is not a blog, it needs a real category system.

I always thought the point of Ideas was to come up with new ideas. What would the point of categories be? It seems to me that if a submission fits into a pre-set category, then it probably isn't really a new idea. Sure, you could have loads of blue space ships listed under Classic Space or just Space, but none of them will ever get made. So what is the point of having the category. You might have 1980s Movies as a category, but again is it really helpful? It would be pointing people towards submitting 1980s Movies sets (if there are any left that haven't been made into an idea yet.)

[Artanis I]

Yes, I think I agree there. Even tagging seems pointless (unless you want to see if someone else has submitted something like yours) since who looks for Ideas via the text content? Search for "car" and out of the 50000 projects 49500 are by Little Timmy and totally suck, 10 are okay, the rest are too big and expensive. And it took you all week just to filter through those. Surely the only way to browse Ideas for something you'd support is by seeing pictures. So, scrolling through thumbnails.

The only kind of categorisation that would be of any use would be in regard to the size of the model.

[ootkaman]

I disagree. I think it would be really nice to be able to browse categories, like many other sites use to arrange their information. I realize that not every project would fit into a category or theme, but even Lego sometimes places models in themes where they might not seem to fit, and it is useful when searching for those models. I, for example, really like castle sets, and it would be nice to have a category there people could choose (since not everyone with a project along those lines adds the "castle" tag)

I also don't use the search bar as much as I browse thumbnails, but sometimes I might search something like "80s" or "Books" if I want to see what people have done in that regard. Sometimes I also wonder if something is on there that I can support like "Sherlock Holmes" or "King Arthur", so I can find those too and see which one is most to my liking.

Edited October 1, 2015 by ootkaman

[Artanis I]

You can use the search function & tags for those sort of things, they don't need to be categorised for that. You would think that if a project contains King Arthur that the text would be included in the submission somewhere.

But encouraging going outside of the box is what Lego Ideas is about, isn't it? You can't do that by trying to categorise everything. And there's no point in having subject-based categories if the aim is for most of them to go under "miscellaneous"

Edited October 1, 2015 by Artanis I

[ootkaman]

I was more responding to what you said about typing "car" into the search bar, and the only real way to use the site would be to browse thumbnails. And you mention tags in your second comment as a way to search, but I thought you were against that idea

Edited October 1, 2015 by ootkaman

[Artanis I]

I'm not against searching with tags/keywords whatever if you are curious about what exists within certain given parameters. I would just suggest that most of the time, people are truly browsing, and such things as tags, categories etc aren't as useful. It doesn't separate the wheat from the chaff, just the apples from the oranges, and the good & bad apples are still all in the one box. And where do the hybrid apple/oranges go?

[Blondie-Wan]

I'm not against searching with tags/keywords whatever if you are curious about what exists within certain given parameters. I would just suggest that most of the time, people are truly browsing, and such things as tags, categories etc aren't as useful. It doesn't separate the wheat from the chaff, just the apples from the oranges, and the good & bad apples are still all in the one box. And where do the hybrid apple/oranges go?

Separating the wheat from the chaff or the good apples from the bad is our job; it's why we vote. Asking LEGO's people to not only categorize everything but also decide what projects we should vote for, so that essentially all we do is sit back and go "eeeeeeyup, those are the ones I want to see", defeats the whole purpose. It also creates more work for them that they don't want / need.

Remember, ultimately Ideas isn't just about throwing bones to fans; it's about benefitting TLG by letting some of us pitch concepts to them, while others of us sift through those concepts to help pare the deluge of ideas down to the ones worth looking at, and it's working well for that purpose. Generally speaking, unaccomplished, uninspired projects languish with a few or a couple dozen votes, while great ones make it to 10,000.

[ootkaman]

That's fine if others think categorizing is a bad idea. I just would love to go on there and not have to spend a lot of time going through genres that I would very rarely if ever support, such as space or Star Wars. I don't really have the time to sift like that, and I imagine some others don't either—and I think that makes certain projects "drown" in the process. Sometimes I will vote for a project outside of a genre I like if it is doing pretty well, but then it would show up under popular on the front page or under the list of most supported.

And I think Lego Ideas could make the process much easier by either eliminating certain projects that don't reach a minimum amount of supporters within the first week or month, or at least having another filter where you can show projects with a given amount of supporters (since it takes about a hundred clicks or so to get from most supported projects to those with a hundred or so). It is amazing how many projects there really are that sit for a whole year with a handful of votes

Edited October 1, 2015 by ootkaman

[ootkaman]

Just as an example, 13 out of the 21 projects due to expire in less than a day have less than 100 supporters. For me that is a lot of projects that don't even make it to 100 supporters in a full year. That either speaks to a lack of exposure (since some of those projects seem good), or a lack of quality

[MAB]

And I think Lego Ideas could make the process much easier by either eliminating certain projects that don't reach a minimum amount of supporters within the first week or month, or at least having another filter where you can show projects with a given amount of supporters (since it takes about a hundred clicks or so to get from most supported projects to those with a hundred or so). It is amazing how many projects there really are that sit for a whole year with a handful of votes

Imagine what will happen though. Let's say they reject a project if it has less than 20 votes after a month. What does the user do? They relist their project and it starts again. Same old crap but a new submission sitting there for another month until it gets rejected and then relisted again. You'll probably end up seeing the crap many times more than you do now, as it will be continually relisted and appearing as a new project.

I also don't really see the point of being about to filter out projects with less than 100 votes. It is like saying nobody should buy from a zero feedback seller on ebay. Someone (in fact 100 people) has to vote for the project to get it moving. If everyone was able to filter out low vote projects, nobody's projects would get votes. And your votes are no more special than other people's. If they have to put some work in to find projects to vote for, then so should you.

That said, I doubt any projects actually make it on ideas without external promotion. It is not regular voters that seal the fate of projects, it seems to be external advertising of projects that bring in the votes.

Edited October 1, 2015 by MAB