LEGO Ideas Discussion

[ummester]

Yes, that is what I meant - would the birds set amass 10,000 votes within the yearly deadlines.

What projects have made it to 10k in under a year and passed the review? Ecto, I guess. Any others?

[Blondie-Wan]

Yes, that is what I meant - would the birds set amass 10,000 votes within the yearly deadlines.

What projects have made it to 10k in under a year and passed the review? Ecto, I guess. Any others?

Most of them have. Hayabusa hit its vote target in just 57 days, although like Shinkai 6500 it needed only 1000 votes; everything that came after those two needed 10,000.

Minecraft is the record holder, getting from 0 to 10,000 in just 48 hours (causing the then-CUUSOO site to have three server outages in the process). That one was directly supported by the game's publisher, who campaigned for it on social media to all its fans. No other project has done it so quickly.

The two projects that came closest, as far as I can determine, were both of the two Doctor Who projects that got reviewed together. The one that got approved, Doctor Who and Companions, was posted first (on February 27 of last year) but hit its target second, about four weeks after being posted. The other one, just called Doctor Who, was posted a day after Doctor Who and Companions, but actually hit the target almost twice as quickly, in just two weeks, yet ultimately lost out to a version of the same concept that took about twice as long (though both were quite speedy, of course).

(I find it interesting that, unlike with Ghostbusters, the chosen entry was not the one that hit 10,000 votes first. I think it has to do with the quality of presentation - both projects are well-done, but Doctor Who and Companions is particularly well thought-out, with great care and cleverness used in devising character likenesses that are detailed and accurate yet entirely "purist", made with existing elements in legal builds, and also a surprisingly sophisticated build with fold-out features for the TARDIS - it's really good, and remarkable considering it was posted almost immediately upon LEGO announcing they would now accept Doctor Who submissions.)

The other approved projects all took several months, at least. I don't know about all the projects that got to 10,000 but weren't approved, though some can be looked up. There have also been various projects that started collecting votes at good rates and were clearly likely to get to 10,000 soon, but which were discovered by LEGO to be undoable at some point before they finished, and were archived before they could achieve their vote goals.

Edited February 9, 2015 by Blondie-Wan

[Blondie-Wan]

The Ideas site will be down for maintenance for approximately half an hour starting tomorrow at 20:30 GMT, it says.

[Robert8]

I don't know what's going to happen to LEGO Ideas in the review after the next one: I was checking the projects reaching 10000 supporters soon, and all of them are either pretty big, like RMS Titanic, or pretty bad, like the Warsaw City Bus. (or already done like Elsa's Ice Palace)

Edited February 11, 2015 by Robert8

[ummester]

I don't know what's going to happen to LEGO Ideas in the review after the next one: I was checking the projects reaching 10000 supporters soon, and all of them are either pretty big, like RMS Titanic, or pretty bad, like the Warsaw City Bus. (or already done like Elsa's Ice Palace)

Ideas needs some new ideas :D Trouble is, voters tend to favour popular culture over new ideas.

[MAB]

I cannot see the piano making it past the review panel.

The creator of that project has also submitted it to cuusoo-brick, where he is the creator. A number of his designs are already in BL's MOC-shop.

https://cuusoo.com/b...tor-picks-today

So either he knows that he did not pass review and he has put the piano (plus a few other bits added to it) on cuusoo-brick, or LEGO will not pass the set when they find out he is commercialising it through another (rival) ideas site. Or a third possibility is that LEGO do not find out about it, pass the set, and then look fools when the same design is for sale by another company.

Edited February 11, 2015 by MAB

[BirdOPrey5]

I have high hopes for the 1969 Chevrolet Corvette.

[Blondie-Wan]

I cannot see the piano making it past the review panel.

The creator of that project has also submitted it to cuusoo-brick, where he is the creator. A number of his designs are already in BL's MOC-shop.

https://cuusoo.com/b...tor-picks-today

So either he knows that he did not pass review and he has put the piano (plus a few other bits added to it) on cuusoo-brick, or LEGO will not pass the set when they find out he is commercialising it through another (rival) ideas site. Or a third possibility is that LEGO do not find out about it, pass the set, and then look fools when the same design is for sale by another company.

Oh, that's unfortunate. I was pulling for that piano, myself, and I'd like to think he probably just honestly didn't realize this was violating the Ideas Terms of Service (was that rule even in place when the Piano was first posted? Even if not, it's been so long since it was first posted that it's entirely reasonable to think he just plain forgot), but I have to assume even an unintentional rules violation won't help his project get through review.

I wonder whether it might be allowed to slide, though, since technically it's not the same model as he has on Ideas (the color is literally the exact opposite, for one thing), even though they're clearly drawn from the same core concept.

[Faefrost]

I cannot see the piano making it past the review panel.

The creator of that project has also submitted it to cuusoo-brick, where he is the creator. A number of his designs are already in BL's MOC-shop.

https://cuusoo.com/b...tor-picks-today

So either he knows that he did not pass review and he has put the piano (plus a few other bits added to it) on cuusoo-brick, or LEGO will not pass the set when they find out he is commercialising it through another (rival) ideas site. Or a third possibility is that LEGO do not find out about it, pass the set, and then look fools when the same design is for sale by another company.

While similar the projects are distinctly differing. They are both not yet commercialized and are still in crowdsourcing mode. I don't see that any conflict has yet occured.

[MAB]

While similar the projects are distinctly differing. They are both not yet commercialized and are still in crowdsourcing mode. I don't see that any conflict has yet occured.

This is one of the rules ...

You MAY NOT SELL ANYTHING related to your project.

You may share photos and building instructions free of charge on your own website and online profiles. However you may not sell building instructions, custom kits, or anything related to your project. We will remove projects without notice if we learn you are commercializing content submitted to LEGO Ideas.

Submitting it to get it produced (for a fee) by a different company is commercializing content, at least to me.

Is changing the colour of something really changing the model? Again, to me, I'd say no. The design is the same.

[Blondie-Wan]

It'll be up to LEGO's Ideas team to make the final determination of whether this is a rule violation. Personally, I like the piano and would like to see it produced, but I do have to say this certainly seems questionable to me, at the very least, and I really can't fault LEGO if they decide it violates the Ideas terms. I honestly can see how someone might argue the other way, and I can even believe they mean it, but to me it's not nearly clear-cut enough to be able to definitively say it doesn't break the rules.

Anyone who wants to put projects on Ideas would be well-advised to just steer entirely clear of getting anywhere close to a violation, so there's no question about it.

[MAB]

Anyone who wants to put projects on Ideas would be well-advised to just steer entirely clear of getting anywhere close to a violation, so there's no question about it.

Especially when they've (i) already reached the review stage and (ii) the other sets in that review are relatively weak compared to other reviews - in that the other submissions (possibly) rule themselves out due to size, overlap with existing models, etc. Possibly of course, as lego can change direction as and when they like.

[Blondie-Wan]

There's a new update to the LEGO Ideas Guidelines and House Rules today. Most of the changes appear to be minor tweaks and revisions for clarification.

The most substantial one (in theory, albeit not so much in practice), to me, appears to be the new stipulation that project images must show a construction of LEGO bricks (albeit either real, physical bricks, or virtual ones in LDD). Before now, it was acceptable to simply show any image of the thing you wanted a set of, be it a drawing, a photo of a real-world object, whatever; even though it would be a proposal for a LEGO model set, the proposal image wouldn't have to show any LEGO bricks at all. Now it does. Of course, the overwhelming majority of projects there do actually show LEGO constructions anyway, and the few that don't appear to have little success at gathering votes, but now actual LEGO construction is an official requirement, not just a de facto one.

Edited February 12, 2015 by Blondie-Wan

[Faefrost]

There's a new update to the LEGO Ideas Guidelines and House Rules today. Most of the changes appear to be minor tweaks and revisions for clarification.

The most substantial one (in theory, albeit not so much in practice), to me, appears to be the new stipulation that project images must show a construction of LEGO bricks (albeit either real, physical bricks, or virtual ones in LDD). Before now, it was acceptable to simply show any image of the thing you wanted a set of, be it a drawing, a photo of a real-world object, whatever; even though it would be a proposal for a LEGO model set, the proposal image wouldn't have to show any LEGO bricks at all. Now it does. Of course, the overwhelming majority of projects there do actually show LEGO constructions anyway, and the few that don't appear to have little success at gathering votes, but now actual LEGO construction is an official requirement, not just a de facto one.

I could have sworn that they added that policy awhile back? Oh well if it hasn't been official before better that they do so now.

[Blondie-Wan]

Oh, they do also clarify that bricks have to be unmodified - they can't be cut or anything like that. I wonder whether that would mean something like the bent lever in this creation wouldn't be allowed now.

[ummester]

They do seem to have allowed projects previously that they don't allow now.

There are a couple of old Terminator projects up and I tried to submit this one:

I kept getting 'awaiting re-submission' without it being outright refused and with the reason changing. I changed the color of the human resistance vehicle so it was less warlike, removed the humans all together and even took the gun off the T800 but it never got approved, nor outright refused. I don't know why they couldn't just write - 'certain projects that were accepted in the early days of cuusoo represent franchises that TLG feels no longer fit with LEGO brand' or something - I wouldn't have been offended, in fact, I would have preferred a direct explanation.

Edited February 13, 2015 by ummester

[Sven F]

The whole "democracy" system of amassing a certain amount of votes to attain something is very open to abuse in general, and when this system is implemented to the internet and served to a very superficial general (non-lego fan) public that clicks their days away to pretty things on the screen, you get inadequate results.

Today its all about going "viral" you need to get your message heard, and in order to achieve this, it either has to hit you on an emotional basis (wheelchair ramp? really?? why? ) Or it has to be licensed by something else that is already popular (big bang theory, dr. who, etc..) I think a lot of sets are getting a lot of attention for the wrong reasons, and a lot of votes from people who would never actually buy the set anyway, they just have a habit of throwing buckets of likes at everything that sparks their brain butterflies.

You can sense that every Ideas set has a very cautious first production run. Somewhere someone in LEGO knows that generic votes are hardly a reliable sign of popularity.

[Blondie-Wan]

Today its all about going "viral" you need to get your message heard, and in order to achieve this, it either has to hit you on an emotional basis (wheelchair ramp? really?? why? )

That one actually makes perfect sense to me. It's about people wanting representation, that's all. People like to see people like themselves in movies, TV shows, comics, books, etc., including toys, and there just haven't been a lot of representations of differently-abled individuals in official LEGO sets. I think that project I linked to is a good one, and voted for it myself.

Or it has to be licensed by something else that is already popular (big bang theory, dr. who, etc..) I think a lot of sets are getting a lot of attention for the wrong reasons, and a lot of votes from people who would never actually buy the set anyway, they just have a habit of throwing buckets of likes at everything that sparks their brain butterflies.

You can sense that every Ideas set has a very cautious first production run. Somewhere someone in LEGO knows that generic votes are hardly a reliable sign of popularity.

Possibly, but then LEGO does cap the votes at 10,000 per project, so it's not as though any of them can rack up truly ridiculous numbers anyway.

They do look at other criteria, such as the speed at which votes are accrued; I think they certainly have some idea that something like Minecraft, which got all its votes in two days, is going to be a bigger seller than something like Birds, which took over a year.

They do also put a few elements into the voting process that make it a little more involved than just following a link from elsewhere to an Ideas page and clicking a single button, so they do indicate a little more interest than just "liking" something on Facebook or whatever. I think they have a pretty good balance now.

[Cloveapple]

Today its all about going "viral" you need to get your message heard, and in order to achieve this, it either has to hit you on an emotional basis (wheelchair ramp? really?? why? ) Or it has to be licensed by something else that is already popular (big bang theory, dr. who, etc..) I think a lot of sets are getting a lot of attention for the wrong reasons, and a lot of votes from people who would never actually buy the set anyway, they just have a habit of throwing buckets of likes at everything that sparks their brain butterflies.

That same emotional impact that gets people to click, can also be part of why people buy. I'm certainly more likely to buy a product that hooks me emotionally, than one that doesn't. I'm never going to truly need a Lego set the way I need groceries or clothes, so that leaves pleasure and other emotional reasons to motivate my Lego purchases.

[Faefrost]

They do seem to have allowed projects previously that they don't allow now.

There are a couple of old Terminator projects up and I tried to submit this one:

I kept getting 'awaiting re-submission' without it being outright refused and with the reason changing. I changed the color of the human resistance vehicle so it was less warlike, removed the humans all together and even took the gun off the T800 but it never got approved, nor outright refused. I don't know why they couldn't just write - 'certain projects that were accepted in the early days of cuusoo represent franchises that TLG feels no longer fit with LEGO brand' or something - I wouldn't have been offended, in fact, I would have preferred a direct explanation.

Megabloks just announced they have the Terminator license last week, so it probably just got officially entered into the list of verboten licenses. The Ideas reviewers may have known it was coming, but could not officially leak news about MEgabloks licensing.

Edited February 14, 2015 by Faefrost

[Sven F]

That one actually makes perfect sense to me. It's about people wanting representation, that's all. People like to see people like themselves in movies, TV shows, comics, books, etc., including toys, and there just haven't been a lot of representations of differently-abled individuals in official LEGO sets. I think that project I linked to is a good one, and voted for it myself.

That is a quite innocent way of looking at it, but I see it as a statement. Just like research institute was a bit of a feminist job equality statement.

We can then have a lego melting iceberg with a polar bear set, or a gay couple getting married, or whatever moral correctness issues we want to advertise to the world, and I have nothing against any of it, except that LEGO isn't a medium I see fit for such things, in fact I see it as abusing the market.

I want to see sets sold because they are good, fun, unique sets, not because they carry a message.

[ummester]

I agree with Sven F on this - LEGO isn't the right kind of medium for expressing political or moral ideas.

Further, it's like an old discussion regarding the representation of women in LEGO. I remember one father mentioned his daughters just pluck the female minifig head off and put it on the construction worker if they want a lady construction worker - that's the power of LEGO as a product, the child can tailor the toy to their own play desires. If a child has a disabled relative or something and wants to make a LEGO minifg to represent that, I'm sure the child can arrange the pieces themselves to do so.

[tafkatb]

It's pretty easy to think representation doesn't matter when you've never been underrepresented.

[BirdOPrey5]

It's pretty easy to think representation doesn't matter when you've never been underrepresented.

"Never" is a long time- what group has never been underrepresented in history?

[Artanis I]

"Never" is a long time- what group has never been underrepresented in history?

The average able-bodied heterosexual male would be my guess. But why are we talking about this?

I agree with others who suggest that pushing moral causes (whether noble or not) shouldn't be done through TLG or Ideas. That is not to say that people shouldn't petition TLG to include certain things that they currently don't include, or that they under-represent. But public ambush or shame is not a nice thing to do.

Edited February 15, 2015 by Artanis I