Creating empty, useless topics

[Jim]

My yet another favorite are topics titled like "idea for a 6-speed gearbox" that consist of "I need one, can anyone share?". Nothing wrong with it per se, but it wouldn't kill somebody to start the title with "Looking for".

Indeed!

Or [HELP]

So according to the "Mahjqa Convention of June 2015" I will keep a close eye out for these kind of topics. And please use the Report button if you see one.

[Saberwing40k]

Oh yes, I hate it when people ask pointless questions, or make WIP threads with not a single picture, or physical brick. I also hate in when people post a thread like "Mcpherson Suspension", and then just post a question about good ways to create it. I have not been here that long, but looking at other forums, there are surprisingly few threads about MOCs, or ideas, and a lot of dumb questions that could be answered by either searching the site, or using Google. In this day and age, an answer to most any question is a Google search away, unless the subject is really megabluckin' obscure. The only time I have ever asked questions on this forum is when my Google-fu failed me, or I needed to pick the brain of someone with more experience. Asking questions is fine, but please don't ask simple questions, when you can find the answer yourself.

We've got a thread on what's a good set to buy, maybe we also need a request thread, where people can ask about various mechanisms, and discuss technical problems. We could also have a "new to the Technic forum" guide or some such, with frequently asked questions, and links to large threads where questions like "What set should I buy?" or "My set does not work correctly/ I have a broken part" can be answered without creating extra threads. I think some guidelines on how to make good WIP/Teaser threads would be good as well.

[darksheep]

@Jim could the forum not have some sort of voting thing that if x many people vote this is a pointless topic the poster is notified and the topic is deleted or archived or some thing ?

[efferman]

For single questions like this i have made in my german forum a topic called "Ambulante technische Sprechstunde" ,in english something like ambulance technical talking hour. So we have nearly zero of these single question threads. Maybe a pinned thread like this could help to avoid some useless thread.

[MaxSupercars]

I have no problem with Topics with 1 question... It's better for searching in future... The person who ask has to know what he is looking for and search internet or Forum for possible simmilar questions before...

The other group are users of type: I'm going to build "something"... A lot of users are building something and do not make a new topic about it... I think topic has to be created when someone has finished product or has direct question when he needs help...

But we live in free world so everyone has to decide on his own... He is then classified by others...

MaxSupercars

Edited June 16, 2015 by MaxSupercars

[DrJB]

... I also hate in when people post a thread like "Mcpherson Suspension", and then just post a question about good ways to create it ...

I have posted my 'share' of questions, that may seem 'similar' to the McPherson you're referring to. Before we blanket 'kill' all questions, let's keep in mind that not all of us have the same interests in Technic. Some are after building !MOCs, others about sharing their creations. My personal interest (and I'm sure many would tag along) is to reproduce realistic mechanisms with Lego. Be it the McPherson suspension, or the transverse engine, I'm sure you'd agree those triggered interesting discussions.

Edited June 16, 2015 by DrJB

[Appie]

I hate to be the devil's advocate, but, I feel like well executed teaser threads ( like Omikron's thread for TC6) should have their place on this board.

In my opinion, the only saving grace of that topic was that the MOC was awesome, the first 4 pages of that topic were complete and utterly useless imo (no, I didn't consider the comics funny). I hope to never see something like that again. Teaser topics are kind of lame in general imo: show it or not. If it isn't finished, make it a WIP topic or hold off on posting it. The only exception I think to this would be showing a quick picture the day before you planned to make alot of photos of your MOC, but teasing for a week or more is just lame imo.

For single questions like this i have made in my german forum a topic called "Ambulante technische Sprechstunde" ,in english something like ambulance technical talking hour. So we have nearly zero of these single question threads. Maybe a pinned thread like this could help to avoid some useless thread.

Sounds like a good idea, "Random Technic question" thread or something. Though I remember seeing a topic for general discussion about Technic (or was that just parts? Can't seem to find it now).

[nerdsforprez]

......Every cell phone, watch and tablespoon takes a picture these days.

Tablespoon? Wow, we really are in exciting times. I guess with everyone taking pictures of their meals and placing them on twitter, etc. this would make sense......lol

[jodawill]

It's not a huge deal, but I find it annoying as well. So many times, I've clicked on some thread titled, "My first MOC: Uber-awesome clickbait thing," and then it's just someone saying, "Hi, I'm going to make the most awesome thing ever. Check back soon. Surely, OP will deliver."

[miguev]

While I agree there's been a trend of these low-value topics lately, I have to voice disagreement with specific criticism: not everybody likes everything, so please don't jump to the conclusion that something is generally inappropriate for this forum just because you and a few others don't like it.

Omikron's thread for TC6 was actually a breeze of fresh air to me and likely many others. It brought in an unusual sense of humor that I found enjoyable, and you can see it got quite some positive feedback. I do hope to see more of his comics, either embedded here or just linked from here, and I really hope I don't have to go somewhere else to get his updates. These days, whenever I have time to kill (which is rare) I open a tab in my browser, press "e", hit Enter and boom! I'm here. I know I will not remember to check any other site, no matter how well aware am I of them (sariel.pl, nico71.fr, etc.) so I love it that they post their stuff here too. I wouldn't like to see Omikron's comics or other enjoyable-although-not-all-tech content be left out.

Teasers are another good example: some like them some don't. Just make sure your model is finished (otherwise it's a WIP), mark the topic as such and those who don't like them can ignore them. There's not that many anyway

For TC7 threads, I agree there're a few threads that tell too little, what's the rush in posting? Do you really need to be the first one to post the Galaxy Killer name? Nothing in the rules say two models can't have the same name, right?

[Jim]

@Jim could the forum not have some sort of voting thing that if x many people vote this is a pointless topic the poster is notified and the topic is deleted or archived or some thing ?

It's called the report button

(I know it's not the exactly the same, but please use the report button for this purpose)

[Seasider]

<says sorry to everyone for posting an "empty topic" declaring my intention for TC7 and then also in that topic changing my mind as someone's done an amazing job of creating the same thing as an MOC>

Personally I have no issue with the "place holder" topics for WIP entries to competitions. Some users like me like to declare what we're working on when we get the ideas. But the "I want to build x" or the "will this work" posts could surely be grouped into a "technic help" thread.

But that's just my opinion

Pictures to follow next week for my TC7 once I'm back in the UK and I've fixed a few things on my new weekend toy

[D3K]

I wholeheartedly agree that there are way too many useless topics popping up, but many are created as a first topic by new members, with very specific questions, that they probably don't know have been answered many times before. Also, they are probably not aware of the index topic. They have probably come across Eurobricks googling for the very solution they are looking for! But putting a "site:eurobricks.com" behind your search for for example "8041 vs 42041" will probably give you the answers you are looking for.

But yes, I have been vocal about my annoyances regarding uselesss topics before, and I still feel the same way in general

Regarding Contest specific WIP topics, I see how people can get a whole lot of ideas, and quickly want to "patent" their idea (model type, and perhaps especially in the case of TC7: name of the MOC. There is only a finite number of badass enough words you know ). But if people absolutely have to throw their idea out there asap, then I'd really like to see at the very least some useful info, perhaps a sketch, or an early draft of the MOC.

[Paul Boratko]

I am not a big fan of teaser threads... Especially if the final model doesn't live up to the hype..

And I know someone else brought this up before, but I also don't like the way the contest rules work here with thread use mainly because it is easy to start a thread on day one and have it bumped up to 6 or 7 pages by the time the contest ends and your model gets more recognition because it is more memorable even though other models may be better designed and more deserving, but their threads were not created until closer to the deadline.. I don't think any contest threads should be created until an actual model is at least designed or well into the design..

In the last contest there were really well designed models that barely got any votes because their designer didn't "promote" them the same way that other people "promoted" theirs..

Edited June 16, 2015 by Paul Boratko

[Bricktrain]

For competitions insnt there a discussion thread, isnt that where you should post your intentions if you need to.

Other threads which I see are builders threads which they post all their builds in a collective thread, many times these threads get filled with drivel and so dont bother viewing them any more, if it is a build worth posting then give it its own thread so everyone can see it.

Perhaps we can have a new member thread like for instance the train forum, where new members can say hello and show any builds and be welcomed.

[Foggy]

I gree with most you wrote about topics "i'm gonna bild this..that.." but i hate even topics about"what set should i get between...or you suggest..." because i think some people it too lazy to use the SEARCH buttom or just to see some pages of this forum where maybe they could find an already existing topic...

I was attending a photography web group where there was the same problem, a lot of topics with almost the same subject about lenses comparison or body cameras... and was a s#@% because the result was that there were a lot of pages with same topics and obviously same answers.....

Same here...can't decide between 8110 and 8043..42009 and 42030..42000 and 42039 or others like that...

Just read some pages and you'll get the answers without open a new topic, PLEASE.

Appreciated

[Phoxtane]

The activity to thread count ratio in this forum is astonishing, quite frankly. As far as I can tell, of the five or six subforums I check regularly, the Technic subforum has the same amount of new threads made as with all five others combined (those other five being General, The Embassy, Town, Trains, and LDD + Other Digital Stuff).

I'll agree with the request for a reduction in the amount of threads posted, and for those already posting, PLEASE put more in than 'this is cool' or 'I like this', because it's quite tiring to check ten threads where the latest post is some three-word variation of the above.

To be honest, at this point for me it's intimidating to post in the Technic subforum, because whenever I look it's the same ten or fifteen people who are famous (famous on this forum for Technic, at least) posting stuff that stays at the top for a week and a load of tiny little threads that disappear within five hours because there's always ten new threads that retread the same question or idea. In order for your stuff to get any sort of attention, you have to compete with those top builders because otherwise it disappears onto the dreaded second page and beyond, never to be seen again until someone asks you for the .lxf two years later.

The cycle of mediocrity is something that I mentally struggle to deal with, sadly, so I don't even bother with Technic much nowadays. Just over these last two weeks I've seen three trial trucks in lime green, white, and black color schemes, all of which are so amazing that they take my aspirations and grind them into the dust (metaphorically).

I'm not saying to build less, but maybe, to make your posts count? A new trend I've been noticing lately - across the entire forum, not just this one! - is for a lot of posts to be something along the lines of 'cool build' or something similar in terms of content and length, which just cements whatever thread happens to be popular at the time at the top of the board and pushes everything else down.

[Lipko]

I agree with D3K that these threads are about "patenting" of some sort (at least to prove you were the first in something), which is perfectly understandable (I tend to do that too, I just don't have ideas). Technic and Lego in general seems to be pushing, I see Lego ads everywhere+internet results in exponential growth of AFOLs and MOCers, which means quite a competition. No one wants to be seen as copying others ideas, I too have the urge continuously that I have to ship faster, I have to rush with prototyping or else someone else will accidentally overtake me, and my novel-at-the-start MOC will be just another MOC, probably copying ideas/concepts/themes.

So yes, we will see growth of WIP, idea and placeholder threads, unless we figure out something to solve it. I don't know what, another general "ideas" thread, or just removing individual idea threads and encourage people just to upload images/videos on the net somewhere to cover their butts that the idea was theirs first.

Edited June 17, 2015 by Lipko

[TheNextLegoDesinger]

I am not a big fan of teaser threads... Especially if the final model doesn't live up to the hype..

And I know someone else brought this up before, but I also don't like the way the contest rules work here with thread use mainly because it is easy to start a thread on day one and have it bumped up to 6 or 7 pages by the time the contest ends and your model gets more recognition because it is more memorable even though other models may be better designed and more deserving, but their threads were not created until closer to the deadline.. I don't think any contest threads should be created until an actual model is at least designed or well into the design..

In the last contest there were really well designed models that barely got any votes because their designer didn't "promote" them the same way that other people "promoted" theirs..

Mine wasn't promoted and i didn't got any vote in the TC6 contest

The activity to thread count ratio in this forum is astonishing, quite frankly. As far as I can tell, of the five or six subforums I check regularly, the Technic subforum has the same amount of new threads made as with all five others combined (those other five being General, The Embassy, Town, Trains, and LDD + Other Digital Stuff).

I'll agree with the request for a reduction in the amount of threads posted, and for those already posting, PLEASE put more in than 'this is cool' or 'I like this', because it's quite tiring to check ten threads where the latest post is some three-word variation of the above.

To be honest, at this point for me it's intimidating to post in the Technic subforum, because whenever I look it's the same ten or fifteen people who are famous (famous on this forum for Technic, at least) posting stuff that stays at the top for a week and a load of tiny little threads that disappear within five hours because there's always ten new threads that retread the same question or idea. In order for your stuff to get any sort of attention, you have to compete with those top builders because otherwise it disappears onto the dreaded second page and beyond, never to be seen again until someone asks you for the .lxf two years later.

The cycle of mediocrity is something that I mentally struggle to deal with, sadly, so I don't even bother with Technic much nowadays. Just over these last two weeks I've seen three trial trucks in lime green, white, and black color schemes, all of which are so amazing that they take my aspirations and grind them into the dust (metaphorically).

I'm not saying to build less, but maybe, to make your posts count? A new trend I've been noticing lately - across the entire forum, not just this one! - is for a lot of posts to be something along the lines of 'cool build' or something similar in terms of content and length, which just cements whatever thread happens to be popular at the time at the top of the board and pushes everything else down.

the reason that technic has more post than other forums is that technic is someting totally different. You can make a car, truck, crawler, trail truck, baja truck, bus, robot in this forum but in the train forum you can only make a Train, train station, or something that has to do with a train. you can't post a house in the Train forum, that has to be in the Town Forum

[Jim]

And I know someone else brought this up before, but I also don't like the way the contest rules work here with thread use mainly because it is easy to start a thread on day one and have it bumped up to 6 or 7 pages by the time the contest ends and your model gets more recognition because it is more memorable even though other models may be better designed and more deserving, but their threads were not created until closer to the deadline.. I don't think any contest threads should be created until an actual model is at least designed or well into the design..

In the last contest there were really well designed models that barely got any votes because their designer didn't "promote" them the same way that other people "promoted" theirs..

I have answered your question in the Contest Topic:

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=87063&st=325

[Anio]

In the last contest there were really well designed models that barely got any votes because their designer didn't "promote" them the same way that other people "promoted" theirs..

Yes. Nowadays, good promotion can surpass talent. And it sucks.

[Kiwi_Builder]

I'll agree with the request for a reduction in the amount of threads posted, and for those already posting, PLEASE put more in than 'this is cool' or 'I like this', because it's quite tiring to check ten threads where the latest post is some three-word variation of the above.

To be honest, at this point for me it's intimidating to post in the Technic subforum, because whenever I look it's the same ten or fifteen people who are famous (famous on this forum for Technic, at least) posting stuff that stays at the top for a week and a load of tiny little threads that disappear within five hours because there's always ten new threads that retread the same question or idea. In order for your stuff to get any sort of attention, you have to compete with those top builders because otherwise it disappears onto the dreaded second page and beyond, never to be seen again until someone asks you for the .lxf two years later.

The cycle of mediocrity is something that I mentally struggle to deal with, sadly, so I don't even bother with Technic much nowadays. Just over these last two weeks I've seen three trial trucks in lime green, white, and black color schemes, all of which are so amazing that they take my aspirations and grind them into the dust (metaphorically).

I'm not saying to build less, but maybe, to make your posts count? A new trend I've been noticing lately - across the entire forum, not just this one! - is for a lot of posts to be something along the lines of 'cool build' or something similar in terms of content and length, which just cements whatever thread happens to be popular at the time at the top of the board and pushes everything else down.

I agree with you on this, I have a suggestion for the solution of the short posts like 'cool build' being repeated in varying word combinations and holding that post at the top and causing smaller builds to fall to the bottom quickly. Make it so that there is a 'thumbs up' feature for people's posts where if you agree with what they say for something like 'I like your build', you can click on the thumbs up like on other forums, with you being able to thumbs up the original post too if you don't feel like writing a long comment to tell the builder that you like it. I feel that this would at least partially solve this issue of lots of small comments.

[mahjqa]

To be honest, at this point for me it's intimidating to post in the Technic subforum, because whenever I look it's the same ten or fifteen people who are famous (famous on this forum for Technic, at least) posting stuff that stays at the top for a week and a load of tiny little threads that disappear within five hours because there's always ten new threads that retread the same question or idea. In order for your stuff to get any sort of attention, you have to compete with those top builders because otherwise it disappears onto the dreaded second page and beyond, never to be seen again until someone asks you for the .lxf two years later.

The cycle of mediocrity is something that I mentally struggle to deal with, sadly, so I don't even bother with Technic much nowadays. Just over these last two weeks I've seen three trial trucks in lime green, white, and black color schemes, all of which are so amazing that they take my aspirations and grind them into the dust (metaphorically).

This may be a bit offtopic, but please don't get discouraged by what others build. I still struggle with that myself; wanting to live up to expectations, making stuff that blows everything else out of the water, and in the end it just doesn't. The only solution I've found is not building for an audience, but just for yourself. Do you have fun building it? Then it's good. And keep in mind that all the people you look up to started in the same place you did.

Also, on comparing yourself to others:

Edited June 18, 2015 by Jim
Removed image for profanity

[Jay Psi]

Make it so that there is a 'thumbs up' feature for people's posts where if you agree with what they say for something like 'I like your build', you can click on the thumbs up like on other forums, with you being able to thumbs up the original post too if you don't feel like writing a long comment to tell the builder that you like it. I feel that this would at least partially solve this issue of lots of small comments.

Honestly, other forums I frequent that have a "like" feature still suffer from a poor signal:noise ratio. What happens in my experience is that you get a similar amount of short "I agree" posts, but a lot of lurkers or casual browsers who wouldn't have posted anyway will give likes instead. So it's good for getting some form of extra participation, but I don't think it will cut the number of agreement posts significantly if at all.

While I'm not particularly annoyed by the litany of superfluous threads and posts (Eurobricks is the least popular forum I use, I guess I'm just used to quantity) I would support any measures that arise from this discussion. Even to me it seems a bit weird on a Lego forum to not have anything to show for all the words in your post.

Edited June 17, 2015 by Jay Psi

[Erik Leppen]

interesting what happened here. I saw the exact same thing yesterday and I almost made the exact same topic that now Mahjqa has written. yes, I think there should be a rule (may be an unwritten rule) that new topics have show something. Anything. If working on a MOC, show pictures, or even digital renders. If asking a questionabout a MOC, do a picture of the MOC the question is about. If you're asking for ideas for a gearbox, show what you have tried. (if you have tried nothing, why ask for help? First try, then ask.)

I don't mind topics asking for help or even purchase advice. These are reasonable use of an internet forum. After all, helping one another is one of the forum's very purposes.

But let's please do away with the "I will build X some day and reserve a topic for it now" topics.

(By the way, on a game programming forum we have solved this by having a "sneak previews" topic. There, people can show a picture of something they're working on. Maybe Eurobricks could try a similar thing? Where things that aren't yet worth a topic can be shared there. Just, one picture and one line of text about a build-in-progress per post.

Edited June 17, 2015 by Erik Leppen