The History Behind Eurobricks?

[SpacePolice89]

What is the story behind Eurobricks? Who founded it and when? For many years before joining I was reading stuff as a guest and found the discussions very interesting. I joined LUGNET in 2002 but in later years it seems to have gone very quiet. Fortunately Eurobricks seems to have many active users. When I search for MOCs online I find a lot of pictures on social media sites, I like to look at those MOCs but I find the Eurobricks discussion forum far superior to social media sites. I'm not a member of any social media site (except Youtube) because I don't like the way they operate. Eurobricks is perfect for me because here we can have interesting discussions and share pictures of MOCs.  

[JopieK]

@Bonaparte can help you with that!

[Toastie]

16 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

I'm not a member of any social media site (except Youtube) because I don't like the way they operate. Eurobricks is perfect for me because here we can have interesting discussions and share pictures of MOCs.

100% my take.

I am nowhere but YT (videos) and EB - and for picture and "stuff" storage on Brickset.

I like to add that we have >educated< discussions here on EB. This forum is as well a repository for so many LEGO related things, from today to going way back. The search function on EB usually results in a mess of hits, but Google has it very well indexed.

Nice to read that there are some folks not going nuts on "social media" when it comes to LEGO. There is nothing wrong with sharing ideas, projects and results on these platforms (!), nothing at all!

But for me, it is EB.

Best,
Thorsten 

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

8 hours ago, Toastie said:

100% my take.

I totally agree.

I'm not on any social media (except Youtube and Brickshelf), maybe because I'm too old for these things or maybe because I don't believe in social media and I don't have time for them.

I like EB and I love this community, where the focus is not on snooping around users' private facts but on sharing experiences and technical solutions related to the brick hobby.

However, even here friendships are born and consolidated over time, thanks to an increase in mutual respect and teamwork ...so this is perfect for me!

I believe that the original intention (which has been maintained) was exactly this: to share ingenious constructions and solutions with other users with equal interests.

Emanuele a.k.a. LT12V

[Black Falcon]

I think a Forum is a way better place to discuss things than social media anyways. Way better structure and it is easier to spot when someone replies to you than other more traditional sources like blogs. 

[SpacePolice89]

On 4/30/2024 at 10:29 AM, JopieK said:

@Bonaparte can help you with that!

Is he the founder of Eurobricks?

[Peppermint_M]

Bonaparte was one of the early members and took on the site after the creator retired from running it. I know he has also created several presentations about the site; he presented them at both the Eurobricks event and once or twice when some of us staff were invited to talk with TLG staff about the forum. I will drop him a message and see if he still has his most recent (but still slightly dated now!) presentations to turn into something of a history of the forum. 

I think real life responsibility has drawn him away of late, as happens to a lot of members over time.

A sort of short version of the history:

Eurobricks was created by @Jipay as a college/university project. At first it was mostly his friends chatting about LEGO but the forum gradually gained traction with a global membershipd as people moved from Usenet groups to forums, becoming one of the larger LEGO fan sites and possibly the largest non-focused site. Other forums for LEGO had the specific focus of Star Wars or Bionicle etc but EB encompassed all themes. 

A Classic Castle forum had a big problem that took it offline and EB stepped in to fill the gap for members while it was repaired (I think it was repaired, this was a bit before my time) also, you may have noticed that the Pirates forum is something of its own entity. This is because it was a separate site that EB agreed to host when they hit difficulties, a safe port for the seafarers as it were 

In the early years, Eurobricks was known as a source of all kinds of Leaks, which actually caused a little trouble for members visiting Billund once! The site had a reputation as the place to find preliminary images and set/theme descriptions. I joined a long while ago now (...16 years. Oof) and have been staff for 13 years now (double oof). That was around when Leaks were getting cracked down on to stop legal problems . So we sort of stopped that, a lot of times I know EB would be cited as a source when it was actually someone just posting here, so it was a process. Then Disney got big in LEGO products; I think everyone can agree, no one wants to contend with the Big Mouse Company lawyers!

As for the forum on a whole, the structure has changed to account for new directions in themes, changes in the way LEGO markets itself that changes fan perception of themes etc. I came on to staff when Ninjago was introduced, it was not like the Castle Era Ninja sets, so Action Themes was created to house the random things.

There have been Blogs attached to the site, big contests that got notice from all the fans and even a newspaper journalist trawling through for quotes on LEGO things. Forum use has tailed off, but I know that Eurobricks has outlasted some formerly popular spots. We endure as best we can (Please allow ads, please, the site needs them to keep running....) 

Anyway, that was a potted history. If I do get access to the old presentations, I will give them a bit of a re-format and update to post. 

[Lego Tom]

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away....

[SpacePolice89]

7 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

Anyway, that was a potted history. If I do get access to the old presentations, I will give them a bit of a re-format and update to post. 

Thanks for posting this information about the history. It's always nice to have some background information and that presentation sounds very interesting.

[Toastie]

@Peppermint_M

Thank you very much for that post. I believe this really makes a difference - knowing where it came from and what the initial impetus was, puts many things into perspective.

I really enjoyed reading about the history of EB!

All the best,
Thorsten

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

I finally understood why the pirate section seems to have a life of its own!

[Peppermint_M]

I have to remind myself I have been around a long time now, especially as a lot of active members these days were not here back in 2008, not to mention the memory I have for stuff, which means I can recall it for a post 

So, with four years to go, what kind of build should I make to celebrate 20 years? 

[icm]

I didn't make an account until 2017(?), but I was reading Eurobricks as far back as 2004. I clearly remember reading a Eurobricks review of the 7256 Jedi Starfighter and Vulture Droid from the 2005 RotS wave on a school computer during tech class and getting a snide remark from the teacher!

Edit - that's funny, I pretty clearly remember it being a Eurobricks review but I can't find it in the review archive.

Edited May 3 by icm

[Peppermint_M]

26 minutes ago, icm said:

Edit - that's funny, I pretty clearly remember it being a Eurobricks review but I can't find it in the review archive.

If the photos went missing then it might not have been archived on any of the posted lists. I know so many sites going away over the years have hit both MOC threads and reviews.

[Ropefish]

Well that was a nice little history read, I think I’m in the far more younger crowd as far as AFOLs go but I like eurobricks as a place and I honestly kinda dislike the trend of a lot of ego content being in instagram now with the whole of Facebook having a slew of issues as a company and as a corporation… so I relegate myself to discord and forums and sometimes Reddit…. Forums have their own nuances that call back to my youth on a dell laptop as it screams and a website takes ten minutes to load…. And now I can just get on it with a phone anywhere! Yet this place remains like a branching tree full of history :>

[Alexandrina]

What a fascinating summary, @Peppermint_M! I remember lurking on here in late 2007/early 2008, when you would occasionally get really blurry leaked images posted right in the forums. As I remember it, even back then the moderators were trying to encourage people not to post directly into the forums, but were perfectly fine with directly linking to leaked images - something which is clearly a no-no now!

[JesseNight]

Interesting to read this history, and very nice that it still exists in a time where most people lean more to modern social media. Personally I find forums so much better structured to find exactly what we want to see (rather than to be spoonfed what others want us to see).