How dead is railbricks?

[Electricsteam]

Checking out the website for the first time in a year or so.... It's just sad to look at nothing is updated, no recent building instructions. Their forum is just full of spam.... 492 pages of pure spam!

[zephyr1934]

There are a lot of us still interested in keeping RB going in one form or another. Perhaps "mostly dead" would be a better term. As you can imagine, it was a huge amount of work assembling each issue. The forums on the website have largely been obsoleted by Eurobricks and flickr groups. Similarly, there is not enough "new" items beyond great MOCs to keep a blog going, and those usually surface in the discussion groups before any blogger could get to them. The back issues and the instructions pages are two essential resources that I think all involved with RB want to preserve. There are a few bureaucratic and technical issues keeping things in the current static form, top of which is that the web page is so obsolete that it probably needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. That is why the instructions pages haven't been updated in so long. While I had nothing to do with the backside of the instructions pages, I do know that there were numerous "hey RB, why haven't you posted my instruction submissions" from the public. The keys to the inbox were lost, then whoever moderated the instructions moved on, etc. etc. These hurdles can be overcome, but they require a fair amount of work.

Several of the other Railbricks folks wander though these forums and hopefully they can toss in their perspectives as well.

In the mean time, if there are a few tech savvy readers (as in: have made semi-professional web pages) who might be interested in reviving the instructions pages feel free to drop me a private message and I'll try to route it to the right people.

I for one think that the AFOL community needs a good repository of building instructions like on RB (only updated and maintained), both to help AFOLs build their first train MOCs and to help advanced builders to learn new tricks.

[M_slug357]

Why not move Railbricks here to onto Eurobricks?

Merge/transport as much of the original Railbricks' material onto the Train Tech forum, and then maybe instead of an actual magazine (E-zine?) have a recurring weekly/monthly segment on here titled "Railbricks:_____"

I really enjoyed reading those articles in the magazine, but I think it would be more organic if such materials were able to be discussed in a forum setting.

I think that if Train Tech in general had more contests, set reviews, and just more reading material in general, it would generate more traffic, and maybe more love for trains...?

For example, an annual challenge to build an engine that's less than 28 studs long, or the return of those mini technique builds...?

Just my thoughts on the matter

[Toastie]

I for one think that the AFOL community needs a good repository of building instructions like on RB (only updated and maintained), both to help AFOLs build their first train MOCs and to help advanced builders to learn new tricks.

I cannot agree more with this. And I also completely agree with the amount of time that "live" interaction with blog entries, discussions, etc. etc. require. In addition, the (brilliant) magazine must have been an enormous amount of work as well.

And: I also truly believe that the instructions section, and the back issues of the magazine will remain a gift to those who like to share their work. Whether or not instruction submission needs to go through an online system is questionable - I always feel a bit more responsible when things are not dumped somewhere, but rather go to a person. Given the amount of instructions published, this process still seems to be a viable approach: Send them to a dedicated email address and then wait patiently but not endlessly for a response.

I also believe that a peer review process should provide two independent brief assessments of submitted material, probably return some feedback for improvements to the author before publication and then they are put online. This requires that some people volunteer to review (as many as possible that is) and a (very small) board that assigns the review to the reviewers, collects the reviews, sends them back to the submitter (i.e., "accepted as is" or "please change this and that"). These reviews need not be any kind of elaborate - the work that was submitted so far to RB appears to be of very high quality.

What I like so much about the RB instructions is the organization of material: Very simple to locate, just train stuff, no things popping up here and there, just straight navigation to the instructions. Even if "outdated": I think it is still one of the best repositories and means to get nice train and train related instructions.

I am not a computer/website guru- none whatsoever, but I am on some editorial boards of research journals - the peer review process works very well and if there is any demand, just let me know.

All the best,

Thorsten

[Railfan9]

I think also showing how do hand made track which has seem to become a big thing (mainly switches) in the past few months would good idea.

[Electricsteam]

Why not move Railbricks here to onto Eurobricks?

Merge/transport as much of the original Railbricks' material onto the Train Tech forum, and then maybe instead of an actual magazine (E-zine?) have a recurring weekly/monthly segment on here titled "Railbricks:_____"

I really enjoyed reading those articles in the magazine, but I think it would be more organic if such materials were able to be discussed in a forum setting.

I think that if Train Tech in general had more contests, set reviews, and just more reading material in general, it would generate more traffic, and maybe more love for trains...?

For example, an annual challenge to build an engine that's less than 28 studs long, or the return of those mini technique builds...?

Just my thoughts on the matter

I've been wanting to get a contest in order since the one we had ages and ages ago for wacky locomotives..... I'd love to see a contest for tiny locomotives. 0-4-0 and such around that size....

[THERIZE]

I think that if Train Tech in general had more contests, set reviews, and just more reading material in general, it would generate more traffic, and maybe more love for trains...?

Well, I don't think it is really surprising for a forum that is based of a subtheme doesn't have many set reviews. With only one train per 1/2 years it seems pretty logical that we don't have many set reviews.

More contests would be nice. But looking at the other theme forums Train Tech seems to be a pretty calm theme.

[Farmer Harv]

I really appreciate the amount of work that went into Railbricks by all involved, and wish to thank each and every one who contributed. As a newcomer to trains, being able to look through the back issues and see how things have progressed is really quite interesting, and has already helped me as I move down the tracks. Just a great resource to have access to, and hope it will remain available for everyone with an interest in the hobby.

[spzero]

I agree lets get this forum going more, and content from rail bricks merged (I did a long time ago offer to sponsor a competition on here with the prize of the then soon to be released lone ranger train, but it never happened) I would still be up for my shop sponsoring a good train contest,

Edited December 18, 2015 by spzero

[kieran]

Its a shame not much activity any more, I have read all rhe issues a got loads from all of them. Thank for all the hard work