Making Eurobricks More Active

[rodiziorobs]

I just had an inspirational thought that I felt I should share here, since it is the exact nature of the issue at hand.

I visit this site often. Almost daily, although I am usually here only for <5 minutes and my most active discussion isn't Lego-related, or even Lego-adjacent (it's the "which movie did I watch recently" thread, for those curious). Anyway, since I would also like this to be a more active, positive place I have a goal for myself, starting now, and I am going to commit to it here:

"Every time I visit EB I will, before logging off, seek out three MOCs and comment on them."

This is just a goal, but I hope and truly believe I can stick to it. If any of you wish to join me, please do.

[Holodoc]

Thanks for the replies, guys!
Any further information about your background of browsing EB is helpful and of course appreciated!

@rodiziorobs Nice goal to work on! Fingers crossed you can stick to it!

[Peppermint_M]

That is a good goal to work to! Participation in a community is vital to feel a part of it and to also knit it together more. 

I think I might give the Three Comment Rule a go myself.

[leafan]

On 11/16/2018 at 4:58 PM, Holodoc said:

Thanks for the replies, guys!
Any further information about your background of browsing EB is helpful and of course appreciated!

Ok. Let me know if you need anything further after this.

I recently got back into Lego and wanted to find a community to geek out with about Lego and my favourite themes such as Castle and Classic Space.

The first thing I came across were Youtube videos so I started watching those and came across a random @just2good video that mentioned this forum by name, so that bought it into my consciousness.

Sometime later I did a Google search for something like "Lego forum" and this and Brickset were the main two that stood out for me, and this one probably won out because A) I had that seed from Just2Good and B) I prefer the basic look of this forum and the layout.

First thing I found when clicking on it was the Portal page, which was quite off putting to be honest, as blogs about MOCs and such isn't what I was looking for, but I found the forum link and hopped straight into the "Historical" section to see what was up with my beloved Castle. The first things I noticed was that a prominant member had posted a goodbye message and that it was overall pretty dead there, but with signs of past activity.

That goodbye message really made me want to sign up and tell him that he's not alone in his thoughts on Castle, so I did.

When I started to post my own topics, the major thing that stood out to me is that I could not post pictures as I had seen others do; only links. I've since learned that I need Flickr or a 3rd party account with Brickshelf (which frankly I cannot be arsed to setup) to actually post pictures because you don't host here. Would have made this post a lot better I feel.

More recently, I've read the entirety of this topic and honestly it made me feel a little sad but also made me aware of where different types of people are coming from in relation to what they want to see here. The major one being MOCs.

MOCs for me are cool to look at, but it's not why I come here. Infact, in my beloved Castle section, it's saturated with MOC posts and I feel that they should have a sub-forum of their own because finding discussion topics in there is harder for it. That said, it'd be rather dead at the moment - but I believe a new member is far more likely to dive into a discussion post if they can see it on that first page rather than being buried under tons of pretty MOCs.

Another thing that came out of reading this thread is that I could post more often and stop being a lurker, so I've really been trying to make the effort lately.

Thanks for reading and I hope that this was what you were looking for. Let me know if there is anything else specifically.

And finally @just2good - Tagging you to annoy you. Peace bro.

[Still Raindrop]

Well, I guess I might as well weigh in! I've been a member for a decade (plus a few months), and it's hard to believe that it's gone so fast. While I love the forum (and like forums in general), I've never been super active. There are three main reasons why my visiting and posting has tapered off lately, to an even lower amount than I had been posting previously. Two of them are personal reasons, and one has to do with how I see Eurobricks.

1. I have three kids now. This means that I don't have a ton of time to spare with building or crafting longer replies to MOCs (though I do still love seeing them!). In fact, I have a couple MOCs that I built a while ago, but haven't gotten around to photographing yet.

2. I sometimes feel like a thread-killer. This isn't just on EB, but I often feel that, when I post something, it will either be overlooked entirely, or it will be the last post. It's harder to engage thoughtfully when I feel like it won't go anywhere. But again, that's more of a personal issue than an issue with this forum.

3. It seems like reviews have been less frequent here--or at least, they've been emphasized less. The reviews that used to be common here were my absolute favorites (especially the Reviewer's Academy ones). I'm not a fan of video reviews, and I don't particularly care for the reviews that many other places do (I've found that almost all of the pictures that are posted in the reviews on a certain database website--I'm not sure if I'm allowed to mention names--are simply photos of the set and minifigures taken from the angles that are already on the box. There's usually no focus on cool/unique/new pieces, interesting building techniques, angles that we might not officially see, etc.). So, the fact that I don't see nearly as many reviews is also a bummer.

[BrickJagger]

23 hours ago, leafan said:

First thing I found when clicking on it was the Portal page, which was quite off putting to be honest, as blogs about MOCs and such isn't what I was looking for, but I found the forum link and hopped straight into the "Historical" section to see what was up with my beloved Castle. The first things I noticed was that a prominant member had posted a goodbye message and that it was overall pretty dead there, but with signs of past activity.

That goodbye message really made me want to sign up and tell him that he's not alone in his thoughts on Castle, so I did.

When I started to post my own topics, the major thing that stood out to me is that I could not post pictures as I had seen others do; only links. I've since learned that I need Flickr or a 3rd party account with Brickshelf (which frankly I cannot be arsed to setup) to actually post pictures because you don't host here. Would have made this post a lot better I feel.

More recently, I've read the entirety of this topic and honestly it made me feel a little sad but also made me aware of where different types of people are coming from in relation to what they want to see here. The major one being MOCs.

MOCs for me are cool to look at, but it's not why I come here. Infact, in my beloved Castle section, it's saturated with MOC posts and I feel that they should have a sub-forum of their own because finding discussion topics in there is harder for it. That said, it'd be rather dead at the moment - but I believe a new member is far more likely to dive into a discussion post if they can see it on that first page rather than being buried under tons of pretty MOCs.

Another thing that came out of reading this thread is that I could post more often and stop being a lurker, so I've really been trying to make the effort lately.

Thanks for reading and I hope that this was what you were looking for. Let me know if there is anything else specifically.

You're not alone on this at all. There aren't many Castle fans on here anymore, but that's not how it always was. The Historic Themes forum actually has more posts in it than any other forum on the site, and there used to be a ton of active members on there who whose main interest was in Castle. I started lurking on here around 2011 when Kingdoms was still going, and I joined in 2015 to post a rumor I had heard about a new Castle theme that was similar to Fantasy Era. That theme turned out to be Nexo Knights, and right about here is where you can see most Castle fans give up on Lego. I personally liked NK, and I lobbied the mods to keep the thread in Historic, unpopular as the theme was, because I figured that the forum would die without it. When it got moved to Action, I made Future Castle Sets in the hope that it would keep the forum alive. I definitely did my part 

I'd love to get back to when people just made random threads about Castle that pertained to the sets and we discussed it. As a matter of fact, @Itaria No Shintaku is starting up a game to determine the best Castle set, so make sure to go join in on that. 

[leafan]

14 hours ago, BrickJagger said:

You're not alone on this at all. There aren't many Castle fans on here anymore, but that's not how it always was. The Historic Themes forum actually has more posts in it than any other forum on the site, and there used to be a ton of active members on there who whose main interest was in Castle. I started lurking on here around 2011 when Kingdoms was still going, and I joined in 2015 to post a rumor I had heard about a new Castle theme that was similar to Fantasy Era. That theme turned out to be Nexo Knights, and right about here is where you can see most Castle fans give up on Lego. I personally liked NK, and I lobbied the mods to keep the thread in Historic, unpopular as the theme was, because I figured that the forum would die without it. When it got moved to Action, I made Future Castle Sets in the hope that it would keep the forum alive. I definitely did my part 

I'd love to get back to when people just made random threads about Castle that pertained to the sets and we discussed it. As a matter of fact, @Itaria No Shintaku is starting up a game to determine the best Castle set, so make sure to go join in on that. 

I had a nosey today at the thread you linked @BrickJagger and my my what a roller coaster that was! It started calmly enough, then fell into a gender debate, then a toy shop owner had early catalog access, then the mods got heavy handed, then then it was all a lie and toy shop "owner" got banned, then people really saw early Nexo Knights images and were heavily disappointed.

It did make me wonder though - what *is* going to replace Nexo Knights now it's coming to an end? @Itaria No Shintaku - Any thoughts? You were heavily involved in that thread.

I don't want to derail this thread though, so I'll finish by saying that although the discussion in above thread was all over the shop, it was at least entertaining/engaging, which I believe is what people are looking for and may be lacking at times now.

[Holodoc]

18 hours ago, Still Raindrop said:

Well, I guess I might as well weigh in! I've been a member for a decade (plus a few months), and it's hard to believe that it's gone so fast. While I love the forum (and like forums in general), I've never been super active. There are three main reasons why my visiting and posting has tapered off lately, to an even lower amount than I had been posting previously. Two of them are personal reasons, and one has to do with how I see Eurobricks.

1. I have three kids now. This means that I don't have a ton of time to spare with building or crafting longer replies to MOCs (though I do still love seeing them!). In fact, I have a couple MOCs that I built a while ago, but haven't gotten around to photographing yet.

2. I sometimes feel like a thread-killer. This isn't just on EB, but I often feel that, when I post something, it will either be overlooked entirely, or it will be the last post. It's harder to engage thoughtfully when I feel like it won't go anywhere. But again, that's more of a personal issue than an issue with this forum.

3. It seems like reviews have been less frequent here--or at least, they've been emphasized less. The reviews that used to be common here were my absolute favorites (especially the Reviewer's Academy ones). I'm not a fan of video reviews, and I don't particularly care for the reviews that many other places do (I've found that almost all of the pictures that are posted in the reviews on a certain database website--I'm not sure if I'm allowed to mention names--are simply photos of the set and minifigures taken from the angles that are already on the box. There's usually no focus on cool/unique/new pieces, interesting building techniques, angles that we might not officially see, etc.). So, the fact that I don't see nearly as many reviews is also a bummer.

1) We all know the personal reasons behind being active or not and I believe almost all of us who have stayed here for more than a couple of years have experienced the same. That's simply life. And there's nothing bad about it.

2) I know what you are talking about. Not expecially here but in general I feel a bit confused and worried when a) a discussion stops when I enter b) my voice isn't heard at all. And I agree - it's not EB-specific.

3) See point 1. Nowadays there isn't much activity in the academy. I don't know a particular reason, but in general we are a bit low on extreme active staff members right now. I hope this to change soon though.
Speaking of reviews I myself have posted a review about the new Statue of Liberty. It took me a couple of hours to do it and looking at your comment I strongly believe it's the way of reviews you like and appreciate, because I covered a lot of aspects.
To date I got more than 2000 views and replies from 11 members. So it comes to 2 members for each hour I have worked on that review. Figure out yourself if that is satisfying.
Don't get me wrong: I had lots of fun doing the review and I simply love the set - so that's not a problem for me getting so few replies. Sure I would have loved to draw more attention, but that's a point I can't change.

So it's less reviews an the one hand and less attention/appreciation to the ones existing on the other hand.

Which leads me to:

On 11/20/2018 at 4:13 AM, leafan said:

First thing I found when clicking on it was the Portal page, which was quite off putting to be honest, as blogs about MOCs and such isn't what I was looking for, but I found the forum link and hopped straight into the "Historical" section to see what was up with my beloved Castle. The first things I noticed was that a prominant member had posted a goodbye message and that it was overall pretty dead there, but with signs of past activity.

I think the frontpage needs an overhaul. Something like 'corners of interest': One for MOCs, one for reviews, etc. and the main space for news.

Just a quick idea that came to my mind.

Then we need techies to transform our ideas into forum software... [volunteers welcome]

5 minutes ago, leafan said:

I don't want to derail this thread though, so I'll finish by saying that although the discussion in above thread was all over the shop, it was at least entertaining/engaging, which I believe is what people are looking for and may be lacking at times now.

You are heavily working on it!

So if anybody wants to reply - please do it in the respective threads (see links above). Thanks!

[Itaria No Shintaku]

3 hours ago, leafan said:

I had a nosey today at the thread you linked @BrickJagger and my my what a roller coaster that was! It started calmly enough, then fell into a gender debate, then a toy shop owner had early catalog access, then the mods got heavy handed, then then it was all a lie and toy shop "owner" got banned, then people really saw early Nexo Knights images and were heavily disappointed.

It did make me wonder though - what *is* going to replace Nexo Knights now it's coming to an end? @Itaria No Shintaku - Any thoughts? You were heavily involved in that thread.

I don't want to derail this thread though, so I'll finish by saying that although the discussion in above thread was all over the shop, it was at least entertaining/engaging, which I believe is what people are looking for and may be lacking at times now.

I have mixed feelings.

If there is no castle/pirate theme in 2HY I'll say "yes I had hints poining toward this". 
Like many have said "castle doesn't sell well as it did once"

On the other hand if there is a castle theme in 2HY I'll say "yes I had hints pointing toward this" because when asked I've being told "you never know what may happen" and 1HY is totally disappointing in that way.

So, this time I really can't predict anything. 

I know for sure 2 UCS will happen in 2019.
I know for sure that the freefall tower will happen in 2019

I have hopes for a Imperial Flagship revamp in 2019.
I have hopes for a new nice castle theme.

Apart from this I can't really say anything.
 

[LegoModularFan]

Hey everybody, just wanted to say that to be honest, I didn't expect this topic to receive seven pages of replies and to be still a when creating it! Thanks so much to the whole community! Eurobricks is the best!  Keep up the great work everybody!   

On 11/14/2018 at 11:32 PM, rodiziorobs said:

"Every time I visit EB I will, before logging off, seek out three MOCs and comment on them."

This is just a goal, but I hope and truly believe I can stick to it. If any of you wish to join me, please do.

That’s a great idea, I’ll try to do it! 

Edited November 25, 2018 by LegoModularFan

[LegoModularFan]

I think this was mentioned by someone before but not sure so I'll mention it again; I think more importance should be given to the front page and featuring topics. For instance, I spot some amazing MOCs on several different themes that deserve being featured/front-paged in my opinion and more announcements of Lego sets such as the Lego Movie 2 wave. Also, showing that Eurobricks is still an active community, that members are having fun, that it's open to new members is what's going to convince more members to come! 

On 5/4/2018 at 7:31 PM, Robert8 said:

"Make Eurobricks Great Again" 

 

[Peppermint_M]

Okay, supplementary question:

What do people want to see on the frontpage? 

At the moment there is a little news, a little new MOC posting and contests.

Do people want to see MOCs that may be a little older posted on the front page? How about drawing attention to popular Discussions? Some sort of "Spotlight on" for subforums or a retrospective on certain themes or topics? 

[KotZ]

3 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

Okay, supplementary question:

What do people want to see on the frontpage? 

At the moment there is a little news, a little new MOC posting and contests.

Do people want to see MOCs that may be a little older posted on the front page? How about drawing attention to popular Discussions? Some sort of "Spotlight on" for subforums or a retrospective on certain themes or topics? 

I think the idea of "SPotlight on" for subs and such is a brilliant idea, and it could really help get some of the less active subs more active. Attention to popular discussions would be nice as well, although there then might be the issue that was brought earlier of there being 100s of pages of discussions, and you might not have the context.

I'm going back and forth on posting old MOCs, as the big issue I see with that is low-effort comments like "Cool!" being posted and nothing else. While it would be awesome to see some older MOCs that can serve as inspiration, that's just my thoughts.

[Digger of Bricks]

3 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

Do people want to see MOCs that may be a little older posted on the front page? How about drawing attention to popular Discussions? Some sort of "Spotlight on" for subforums or a retrospective on certain themes or topics? 

It would be great if topics like @danth's Favorite/Inspirational Sci-Fi MOCs, @LegoModularFan's Inspirational Modular and Castle MOCs, or @LegoMonorailFan's Best Lego Ideas projects could have a chance to be frontpaged. 

Edited November 25, 2018 by Digger of Bricks

[leafan]

9 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

Okay, supplementary question:

What do people want to see on the frontpage? 

At the moment there is a little news, a little new MOC posting and contests.

Do people want to see MOCs that may be a little older posted on the front page? How about drawing attention to popular Discussions? Some sort of "Spotlight on" for subforums or a retrospective on certain themes or topics? 

More news for sure. If there's one thing a new Lego enthusiast is going to look for it's the latest news, in my opinion.

Also, I personally would like to see an article on the member statistics. For example, I pay attention to the new member forum and noticed that there's been a few Australian members lately - well is that common or a new occurance? I'd like to see in graph and statistic form, where members are in the world and any other interesting information like that (such as the favourite Lego theme that everyone is asked when signing up - How many Castle fans are there???).

Edited November 25, 2018 by leafan

[BrickJagger]

I'd also like to see the "Leaderboard" section at the top of the home page get fleshed out. We could have a list of all-time most posts, members of the week, etc.

[Tariq j]

Maybe there can be some kind of “spotlight button” so if you see a particular MOC/Review you like you could click it, and maybe the person with the most “spotlight clicks” gets a spot on the font page or this leaderboard.

[Kristel]

9 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

Okay, supplementary question:

What do people want to see on the frontpage? 

At the moment there is a little news, a little new MOC posting and contests.

Do people want to see MOCs that may be a little older posted on the front page? How about drawing attention to popular Discussions? Some sort of "Spotlight on" for subforums or a retrospective on certain themes or topics? 

I'd like to see more MOCs being showcased on the front page.  I think I probably miss out on seeing some great MOCs just because they are in forums that I don't visit that often.

[mocbuild101]

14 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

1. Do people want to see MOCs that may be a little older posted on the front page?
2. How about drawing attention to popular Discussions?
3. Some sort of "Spotlight on" for subforums or a retrospective on certain themes or topics? 

All of the above really, but more so 1 and 3, because if topics are already popular, there must already be plenty of members that know about it.

[Jim]

13 hours ago, Kristel said:

I'd like to see more MOCs being showcased on the front page.  I think I probably miss out on seeing some great MOCs just because they are in forums that I don't visit that often.

I'm definitely with you on this one. I have started making a frontpage tool. This makes it more easy for us to frontpage a MOC. This is in the Proof of Concept phase. What I would like to do is make something that automatically frontpages a topic which is featured. Featuring a topic can be done by more people than just staff (if I am not mistaken. If so, we can create roles for that), making the frontpage much more active.

[Kai NRG]

21 hours ago, Kristel said:

I'd like to see more MOCs being showcased on the front page.  I think I probably miss out on seeing some great MOCs just because they are in forums that I don't visit that often.

I second this!  (Edit: maybe it's a third by now  )

Edited November 26, 2018 by Kai NRG

[LegoModularFan]

I’m more into MOCs than official sets but I was interested in official sets when I came out of my dark ages and slowly started to see some mind-blowing MOCs so became more interested in MOCs and perhaps a bit less interested in official sets that aren’t enough advanced. I think this is the case of almost every AFOL who became a MOCer. So I think there should be an equilibrium between MOCs and official sets. The spotlight on for subforums would be nice as there are a few of them seeming to become less active than before... I think it would be great to make the Embassy forum more active for example...

On 11/25/2018 at 4:28 PM, Digger of Bricks said:

It would be great if topics like @danth's Favorite/Inspirational Sci-Fi MOCs, @LegoModularFan's Inspirational Modular and Castle MOCs, or @LegoMonorailFan's Best Lego Ideas projects could have a chance to be frontpaged. 

Thanks, that’s really kind! I’d rather prefer this topic to be frontpaged though if I needed to choose one topic of mine to be frontpaged (this was featured but not frontpaged)...

Keep up the great work everybody! 

 

By the way, without having any intentions to offend anybody especially the great staff of Eurobricks, I was wondering if it would be better to have add some new staff members as some staff members don’t seem to have time to be active anymore... Not replacing staff members, just adding new ones... No bad intentions, just a personal opinion... 

Edited November 26, 2018 by LegoModularFan

[Peppermint_M]

The problem there is finding people who want to do the work! Being a regulator or moderator takes time, hence the inactivity from some. Then we need to be able to "gel" well and trust the nominee. Once it was a case of finding people who were active in a particular section of the forum and offering them a role. But the reason for this thread, the inactivity, makes it hard.

[pombe]

From what I've read, it seems that AFOLs tend to visit EB for four things:

1) news (official stuff like images of upcoming releases, movie trailers, reviews and community stuff like contests)
2) discussions (includes speculation and wishlists, as well as non-LEGO related stuff)
3) MOCs (includes comics and brickfilms)
4) games (mafia, rpgs, etc.) yay! games! go play one now!

Forgive me if I've missed a category.

I don't think games need to be front paged, unless one is about to start where it can be treated like community news to inform members.  Also, MOCs from games would fall under...MOCs...

So I think a front page that balances news, discussions, and MOCs could help keep EB diverse and maintain all interests equally.

[Peppermint_M]

So here is a supplementary question for people:

How old/long ago should a MOC be before it is not valid for the front page? Days? Weeks? A month?

As everyone mentions, they miss some amazing builds because they are in areas that they do not frequent or they simply don't have the time to browse all the subforum. Something I am guilty of, even when trying to post a comment on three MOCs each day. However I want to share these excellent MOCs. 

What are your opinions?