LEGO Ideas Discussion

[ShaydDeGrai]

I decided a while back that,other than buying the end products, I was pretty much done with Ideas. I'd been with it since the early days of Cuusoo and watched the rules and expectations change, watched a lot of good projects get lost in the noise and clutter of "non-starters" and, in general, gotten very disillusioned with the whole thing. There have been a number of good kits to come out of the pipeline, but the cynical side of me thinks that Ideas has becomes more about guerilla marketing than about genuine crowd-sourcing. It wasn't so much about, "share your great idea" as much as it was about "go on social media and talk about Lego." Granted the nominal reason why you'd be burning social capital on Twitter, Facebook, Pintrest, etc. is to gain support for _your_ project, but at the end of the day its the Lego brand that gets the most exposure and free press.

Of course, no sooner had I decided to swear off Ideas, than people started nagging me about submitting stuff (and resubmitting projects that had expired). After a year of turing people down and seeing the Ideas people pushing for non-IP proposals, I've decided to try a little experiment. This evening, I submitted a little non-IP-related kit (that's of sufficient quality to have won an award already), has a comparable part count to existing/successful Ideas sets with crossover audience appeal ( in this case, model trains). I plan on advertising none of this personally. I won't be pandering for votes in any of my usual internet haunts, I won't be posting links to it all over the web and, to be honest, if the whole thing ends up stillborn, I'm okay with that. I'm just going to track its support (or lack thereof) and compare it to the data I have from the days when I _was_ actively pushing some IP-related, quasi-popular stuff. I wonder how the curves will compare.

Can a generic idea with no cult following and no active backing from its creator get noticed and sustain itself amid all the noise of weak projects and hub-bub of IP-related, 15,000 piece MOCs, or will it slip quietly off the end of "Most Recents" page 1, never to be seen or heard from again? I guess only time will tell.

[LEGODalekbuster523]

I decided a while back that,other than buying the end products, I was pretty much done with Ideas. I'd been with it since the early days of Cuusoo and watched the rules and expectations change, watched a lot of good projects get lost in the noise and clutter of "non-starters" and, in general, gotten very disillusioned with the whole thing. There have been a number of good kits to come out of the pipeline, but the cynical side of me thinks that Ideas has becomes more about guerilla marketing than about genuine crowd-sourcing. It wasn't so much about, "share your great idea" as much as it was about "go on social media and talk about Lego." Granted the nominal reason why you'd be burning social capital on Twitter, Facebook, Pintrest, etc. is to gain support for _your_ project, but at the end of the day its the Lego brand that gets the most exposure and free press.

Of course, no sooner had I decided to swear off Ideas, than people started nagging me about submitting stuff (and resubmitting projects that had expired). After a year of turing people down and seeing the Ideas people pushing for non-IP proposals, I've decided to try a little experiment. This evening, I submitted a little non-IP-related kit (that's of sufficient quality to have won an award already), has a comparable part count to existing/successful Ideas sets with crossover audience appeal ( in this case, model trains). I plan on advertising none of this personally. I won't be pandering for votes in any of my usual internet haunts, I won't be posting links to it all over the web and, to be honest, if the whole thing ends up stillborn, I'm okay with that. I'm just going to track its support (or lack thereof) and compare it to the data I have from the days when I _was_ actively pushing some IP-related, quasi-popular stuff. I wonder how the curves will compare.

Can a generic idea with no cult following and no active backing from its creator get noticed and sustain itself amid all the noise of weak projects and hub-bub of IP-related, 15,000 piece MOCs, or will it slip quietly off the end of "Most Recents" page 1, never to be seen or heard from again? I guess only time will tell.

Is this your set:

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/126000

[jonwil]

Of that list I would potentially be interested in the Saturn 5 Rocket, the Concorde and maybe the National Park Service.

[BirdOPrey5]

I decided a while back that,other than buying the end products, I was pretty much done with Ideas. I'd been with it since the early days of Cuusoo and watched the rules and expectations change, watched a lot of good projects get lost in the noise and clutter of "non-starters" and, in general, gotten very disillusioned with the whole thing. There have been a number of good kits to come out of the pipeline, but the cynical side of me thinks that Ideas has becomes more about guerilla marketing than about genuine crowd-sourcing. It wasn't so much about, "share your great idea" as much as it was about "go on social media and talk about Lego." Granted the nominal reason why you'd be burning social capital on Twitter, Facebook, Pintrest, etc. is to gain support for _your_ project, but at the end of the day its the Lego brand that gets the most exposure and free press.

Of course, no sooner had I decided to swear off Ideas, than people started nagging me about submitting stuff (and resubmitting projects that had expired). After a year of turing people down and seeing the Ideas people pushing for non-IP proposals, I've decided to try a little experiment. This evening, I submitted a little non-IP-related kit (that's of sufficient quality to have won an award already), has a comparable part count to existing/successful Ideas sets with crossover audience appeal ( in this case, model trains). I plan on advertising none of this personally. I won't be pandering for votes in any of my usual internet haunts, I won't be posting links to it all over the web and, to be honest, if the whole thing ends up stillborn, I'm okay with that. I'm just going to track its support (or lack thereof) and compare it to the data I have from the days when I _was_ actively pushing some IP-related, quasi-popular stuff. I wonder how the curves will compare.

Can a generic idea with no cult following and no active backing from its creator get noticed and sustain itself amid all the noise of weak projects and hub-bub of IP-related, 15,000 piece MOCs, or will it slip quietly off the end of "Most Recents" page 1, never to be seen or heard from again? I guess only time will tell.

You might become a "staff pick" but that isn't enough to get a quality project 1,000 votes let alone 10k. More than likely without your own push it will get a couple hundred votes, maybe 500 if really good, and be archived in a year.

[x105Black]

Is this your set:

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/126000

If so, I'll say this much:

It's a great looking train. One of the best I've seen. But I find it to be boring. No offense, and maybe I'm not the type to get excited about trains anyways, but there's nothing that speaks to me and says that this should definitely be made into a set.

If it gets the votes, congratulations. I sincerely hope that it is successful.

[LEGODalekbuster523]

Here's my set, although I did it more as a joke really:

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/106366/comments

[ShaydDeGrai]

Is this your set:

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/126000

Nope, but that's a nice looking engine and I'd probably buy one if it ever made it through the gauntlet.

Mine has a more festive color scheme ( I wasn't even trying for realism ) and is done with actual bricks and photography rather than a digital model.

You might become a "staff pick" but that isn't enough to get a quality project 1,000 votes let alone 10k. More than likely without your own push it will get a couple hundred votes, maybe 500 if really good, and be archived in a year.

Honestly, I'd be surprised if it made it that far. I'm really more interested in the rate at which it fades away, not the outcome. I kept data on all my other projects. My most successful proposal was archived a bit shy of 5k votes and was picking up support at a rate of about 50 a day - I lobbied heavily for that one (even posting to non-lego forums in three languages ). It stared strong (over 100 votes in the first six hours) tapered off and then resurged once I started pushing it outside of the AFOL community. My least successful project took three months to get to 100 votes and barely saw any action at all after that. Of the projects I had that _didn't_ make it to the 1K mark, all but one of them saw 2/3 of their eventual support in the first week on the site.

As I said, I don't expect this project to "succeed" nor do I expect it to be particularly popular. I'm just curious to see how a non-IP based proposal fares on its own merits and, to a lesser extent, how the site's search engine does with putting it in front of people's eyes without me pushing people directly at it. If I'm a user who supports one train, does it offer me this one as a consideration? Etc.

Sure it would be nice if it actually succeeded and found an audience, but I don't expect that to happen. It's just a disposable Idea proposed in order to get some data.

[rodiziorobs]

I decided a while back that,other than buying the end products, I was pretty much done with Ideas. I'd been with it since the early days of Cuusoo and watched the rules and expectations change, watched a lot of good projects get lost in the noise and clutter of "non-starters" and, in general, gotten very disillusioned with the whole thing. There have been a number of good kits to come out of the pipeline, but the cynical side of me thinks that Ideas has becomes more about guerilla marketing than about genuine crowd-sourcing. It wasn't so much about, "share your great idea" as much as it was about "go on social media and talk about Lego." Granted the nominal reason why you'd be burning social capital on Twitter, Facebook, Pintrest, etc. is to gain support for _your_ project, but at the end of the day its the Lego brand that gets the most exposure and free press.

To a large extent, this was my experience with CUUSOO/Ideas as well. I submitted a handful of things, but none went very far (I don't really participate on social media--EB and an occasional fave on Flickr is about as far as I go). But I found the whole process tiresome and that it was changing the way I MOCced--I no longer made things because I wanted to or for aesthetics, but because I was trying to create a "project". Not that that's a bad thing, but it didn't fit me personally and made me a lot more cynical. I voluntarily deleted my projects from CUUSOO months before the transition, and never really have come around to Ideas much, although I do keep up with this thread because I find it interesting.

I am curious as to what happens with your experiment,so please come back and post it.

[Blondie-Wan]

Shayd's project isn't up yet (this is you, right?). It should show up soon, though.

Edited January 6, 2016 by Blondie-Wan

[MAB]

Here's my set, although I did it more as a joke really:

https://ideas.lego.c...106366/comments

"The LEGO Group have never done sets based on food before." Yes they have.

It's jokes and rubbish ideas like this that need culling. Anything that doesn't get 100 in the first month should be removed to declutter the site.

As I said, I don't expect this project to "succeed" nor do I expect it to be particularly popular. I'm just curious to see how a non-IP based proposal fares on its own merits and, to a lesser extent, how the site's search engine does with putting it in front of people's eyes without me pushing people directly at it. If I'm a user who supports one train, does it offer me this one as a consideration? Etc.

I guess the problem here is, if you don't believe in the project enough to (or cannot be bothered to) promote it, then why should it get any more passive attention than any other project submitted to the site? How would the website know of the projects merits more than any other project? They can highlight fast risers (but for this you need to get initial votes), staff picks (but this needs knowledgable staff intervention, etc), but if the submitter is not going to do any work to promote the project, which is part of the process, then why should they get rewarded?

[BirdOPrey5]

I guess the problem here is, if you don't believe in the project enough to (or cannot be bothered to) promote it, then why should it get any more passive attention than any other project submitted to the site? How would the website know of the projects merits more than any other project? They can highlight fast risers (but for this you need to get initial votes), staff picks (but this needs knowledgable staff intervention, etc), but if the submitter is not going to do any work to promote the project, which is part of the process, then why should they get rewarded?

Because Lego Ideas is promoted as a place to share Lego Ideas in hopes of one of yours becoming a real set, it is not promoted as a place where you can (nay, need to) engage social media spamming.

[Fritzy]

Confirmation that there are more Ghostbusters sets on the way: https://twitter.com/...21637074911232 Could this be a sign that the Marshmallow Man got approved?

Edited January 8, 2016 by Fritzy

[just2good]

Confirmation that there are more Ghostbusters sets on the way: https://twitter.com/...21637074911232. Could this be a sign that the Marshmallow Man got approved?

Already confirmed that we're getting one based on the new film.

[MAB]

Because Lego Ideas is promoted as a place to share Lego Ideas in hopes of one of yours becoming a real set, it is not promoted as a place where you can (nay, need to) engage social media spamming.

Really? This is on the how it works page.

Gather Support—10,000 supporters qualifies your project for review.

Tell everyone you know (and even those you don’t know) to support your project. 10,000 is a big number, but it’s doable if you have a great project and some old-fashioned persistence. The best results come from knowing how to ask for support from the right fan sites, blogs, and online communities.

It is fairly obvious that they want YOU to get the support. Just uploading an idea is not enough.

[LEGODalekbuster523]

"The LEGO Group have never done sets based on food before." Yes they have.

It's a joke. It's not supposed to be accurate to the history of LEGO sets!

[Blondie-Wan]

It's jokes and rubbish ideas like this that need culling. Anything that doesn't get 100 in the first month should be removed to declutter the site.

That would have eliminated various projects that languished in obscurity for a while before being "discovered" and suddenly getting the votes they need, or at least a lot more in a short time.

We already have a time limit now for accruing the necessary supporters - a triple limit, actually, since there are three deadlines to hit. I really don't think we need monthly quotas (or weekly, daily, hourly, etc.) on top of that.

I guess the problem here is, if you don't believe in the project enough to (or cannot be bothered to) promote it, then why should it get any more passive attention than any other project submitted to the site? How would the website know of the projects merits more than any other project? They can highlight fast risers (but for this you need to get initial votes), staff picks (but this needs knowledgable staff intervention, etc), but if the submitter is not going to do any work to promote the project, which is part of the process, then why should they get rewarded?

Shayd specifically indicated that project is an experiment to see how such projects perform. (S)he isn't saying that it should be rewarded; they're trying to determine how rewarded it will be under those conditions.

Confirmation that there are more Ghostbusters sets on the way: https://twitter.com/paulfeig/status/684921637074911232. Could this be a sign that the Marshmallow Man got approved?

"Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!" What was originally there?

[LEGODalekbuster523]

"Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!" What was originally there?

I have a feeling Mr Feige has said something he wasn't supposed to say...

Basically, he referred to unannounced LEGO sets in a reply to a tweeter joking about how much he was going to spend on Ghostbusters merchandise this year. Along the lines of 'You're wallet's going to weep even more once you see the LEGO'.

[dulsi]

Here's my set, although I did it more as a joke really:

https://ideas.lego.c...106366/comments

The cheese has as many supporters as my project. Should have made a rat vehicle using Splinter instead of the raccoon car. Then I could have gotten Chima fans, Turtle fans, and fans of the cheese project. :)

[LEGODalekbuster523]

The cheese has as many supporters as my project. Should have made a rat vehicle using Splinter instead of the raccoon car. Then I could have gotten Chima fans, Turtle fans, and fans of the cheese project. :)

I think the cheese project is a little niche currently.

Edited January 7, 2016 by LEGODalekbuster523

[Fritzy]

"Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!" What was originally there?

Yikes! The comment was about there being more from LEGO on the way. "Just an FYI." And then something about saying sorry to their wallet.

edit: Problem solved.

Edited January 8, 2016 by Fritzy

[MAB]

Shayd specifically indicated that project is an experiment to see how such projects perform. (S)he isn't saying that it should be rewarded; they're trying to determine how rewarded it will be under those conditions.

There are many current projects doing the same thing. Uploaded then essentially left to make their own way (to nowhere).

I guess the problem here is the definition of rewarded. To me, it is getting to 10000 and getting selected. An alternative is gettnig to 10000 and getting some recognition (but maybe not getting accepted). Another still is just the vote count.

To me, getting to 5000 is just as useless as getting to 50. Ultimately both are a fail, even though one is clearly better supported than the other.

Edited January 8, 2016 by MAB

[Blondie-Wan]

There are many current projects doing the same thing. Uploaded then essentially left to make their own way (to nowhere).

I guess the problem here is the definition of rewarded. To me, it is getting to 10000 and getting selected. An alternative is gettnig to 10000 and getting some recognition (but maybe not getting accepted). Another still is just the vote count.

To me, getting to 5000 is just as useless as getting to 50. Ultimately both are a fail, even though one is clearly better supported than the other.

Even a project that doesn't get accepted can have an effect on the ones that do, though, but it's hard to measure that. A project that gets a lot of votes but not all the ones it needs can offer valuable clues about what it might take to get all the way to 10000. Or a project that gets all those votes but doesn't get selected might still have an effect on what does (look at Ghostbusters and Doctor Who, where on two different occasions two different projects covering the same subject matter wound up in the same review batches; in each case one was picked, presumably at least partly because having not just one but two versions of those subjects make it to 10k at the same time demonstrated great interest - conceivably, if either subject had gotten a single project instead of two, TLG might not selected it, having less evidence of its market appeal).

[Blondie-Wan]

Incidentally, Shayd's project isn't up yet, despite having been submitted on the 6th; the last group of projects posted went up two days later, on the 8th (yesterday). For all those who have submitted projects (especially multiple projects), hoe long does it normally take for them to get posted? I see there were an awful lot of projects for one day yesterday - 47, unless I've miscounted. I wonder if the Ideas staff is working through a backlog...

[AFOLguy1970]

I saw an article yesterday about the National Park Service submission on Ideas. Being an avid hiker and often going to the parks, I was interested in finding out more about it. After seeing the photos of it, I really was not "wowed" by it. Arguably, two of the three parks depicted are rather obscure for most people. I know the designer has in mind the park anniversary this year to help promote it, but perhaps they should have gone with more familiar features like Old Faithful, Half Dome, or a redwood tree.

It also makes me wonder if Lego will always consider Ideas sets to be somewhat exclusive and largely limit their presence to a few stores like Toys R US and Lego stores? If the NPS set was to be approved, it would seem like these would be best sold at the park gift shops in addition to the usual places. I would think in this case especially, excluding actual parks from being able to sell them would hurt sales. Just my opinion of course.

[Blondie-Wan]

Quite possible. I've said before that I thought they could do well offering things like the Curiosity Rover in science museum gift shops and the like.