Lego.com Boards

[willy_poodle]

I don't understand why official Lego boards are so heavily moderated. I know there are kids there, but come on...

You're not allowed to write ANYTHING that's not just childish chat and especially any expectations or complaints. It's all cut out or dissaproved.

What's the purpose of the boards then?

[Big Cam]

I honestly think it's meant for young children only, whom are the primary target group of LEGO products. I think they feel responsible to keep it a very very child friendly environment, and froma legal standpoin, tjhey are probably just being over cautious. Thank God for places like EB.

[BearHeart]

I agree. I signed up there when I first came out of my dark age only to discover (very fast) that LEGO.com boards are pretty useless for AFOLs.

[davee123]

What's the purpose of the boards then?

The purpose is to get kids to buy LEGO.

Essentially, it's for kids to develop a closer association with the LEGO brand. Kids *want* to interact with other kids-- they want to talk about the latest sets and what ideas they want to see LEGO do, as well as all the things they're doing at home with their LEGO. So, the LEGO forums give them a LEGO-branded environment in which to do this. If they didn't have the LEGO.com boards, where else are they going to post? Most fan-operated boards don't allow kids under 13, thanks to COPPA regulations, so your typical 10-year-old kid is left without a place to chat up the fact that he'd like to see a LEGO Iron Man set or something.

The thinking is that the fact that they're on the LEGO website makes kids:

1) feel a closer connection to the brand

2) more likely to explore other areas of the site, increasing their desire for other LEGO products

3) more likely to share the experience with their friends, drawing a larger audience

LEGO isn't really interested in meaningful content or anything-- that's totally secondary. And as such, there's a bigger focus on stripping out or toning down anything negative, so as to avoid potential negative association with the brand. So it's not really a place for hobbyists. It's for kids.

What I think is more annoying is the fact that they even *have* a "Parents" discussion area. It's moderated MUCH more slowly (or, it was the last time I tried to use it), and if it similarly strips off many iffy-or-negative replies, it's doing a pretty big disservice to anyone that's actually using it for informational purposes (IE real parents). Plus the fact that you're limited to a pathetic 600 characters per post, which forces potentially informative replies to absurd brevity. That's in contrast to the kids' areas, where the purpose is fun, not information.

DaveE

Edited May 18, 2010 by davee123

[prateek]

The thinking is that the fact that they're on the LEGO website makes kids:

1) feel a closer connection to the brand

2) more likely to explore other areas of the site, increasing their desire for other LEGO products

3) more likely to share the experience with their friends, drawing a larger audience

4) Make kids hype up the sets so they think they has super special features even though they really don't

[davee123]

It's moderated MUCH more slowly (or, it was the last time I tried to use it), and if it similarly strips off many iffy-or-negative replies, it's doing a pretty big disservice to anyone that's actually using it for informational purposes (IE real parents).

Just as a reminder to myself how annoying the forums were, I posted yesterday, answering someone about ZNAP. Of course, my original reply was around 900 characters, which I then had to annoyingly pair down to 600 characters before it was accepted. There were no replies when I posted, but now my reply shows up, along with replies from the 16th. So, ballpark 3-day turnaround time before a message is moderated?

And FWIW, how my post's content was moderated:

There were other ZNAP sets (19 total), but the product didn't sell as well as LEGO hoped. Some ZNAP elements connected to normal LEGO, but not all of them. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to reference 3rd party sites on this forum, but yes, there are places to find more ZNAP. Primarily, BrickLink:

http://www.bricklink.com/

BrickLink, which specializes in after-market LEGO-- think of it as "Ebay, just for LEGO". Many sellers have individual LEGO sets and elements that are no longer sold in retail stores, and you can find almost any LEGO product that's ever been sold.

DaveE

Before I paired it down to under 600 from 900, I also had a quick comment about when ZNAP was active, an extra sentence about how the line was axed by LEGO, and another line about how BrickLink works.

I find it interesting that they removed the URL to BrickLink, but left in the actual word "BrickLink". I expect they probably don't want any links to outside URLs, but don't mind a textural reference to other sites (since I was allowed to say both "eBay" and "BrickLink"). I guess I shouldn't be surprised that they took out the line referring to the fact that ZNAP wasn't well received by the market, but I did try to sound at least somewhat less harsh than one might otherwise have expected.

DaveE

[_Axel]

Yes, this messageboard is very limited, basically that's why 3rd party forums exist. Because AFOLs are more free to discuss there and express their opinions. I don't like the official board because it sounds a bit too much like propaganda to me, so I rarely use it.

However, it's more annoying when it's the only place where you are allowed/able to talk about something, like the Closed Beta Forum.

[davee123]

basically that's why 3rd party forums exist.

I think that sort of makes it sound like fan sites didn't pre-date LEGO's discussion areas. There have been LEGO discussions on the internet since at least 1993 (probably earlier)-- I don't recall exactly when LEGO started hosting their own discussion groups, but certainly ATL, RTL, LUGNET, FBTB, and BZCommunity all had discussion areas before LEGO had boards. BrickLink and BZPower might also have been major sites with discussion areas that pre-dated LEGO, not sure. Classic-Castle, Classic-Space, and Eurobricks probably coincided roughly with the timeframe of LEGO's boards. Does anyone know when LEGO first starting having discussion forums?

[edit]Found it! November 12th, 2002:

http://news.lugnet.com/general/?n=39376

So, BZPower pre-dates LEGO's boards (and I forgot about 1000steine, too, also before LEGO's boards)-- still not sure about when BrickLink came out with forums on their site... And Classic-Castle, Classic-Space, and EuroBricks were all after LEGO.

[/edit]

DaveE

Edited June 22, 2010 by davee123

[Big Cam]

Believe me I'm on board with all the complaints, but I can also throw on the corporate hat, and say that as bad Asiatic kinds to us,TLG is doing what they feel necessary to protect their brand and image. Keeping direct links to what could beconsidered competitors off their forum is probably in theirbest interest. According to them.

I say let it go. We have Eurobricks.

[-JaMMiT-]

Yeh TLC doesnt care about us AFOLs!

[KimT]

Yeh TLC doesnt care about us AFOLs!

Oh, but they do care.

But we're AFOLs, we can easily whip up our own forums - kids can't.

I assure you that LEGO is taking more and more interest in the AFOL communities each year.

Why do you think they have people like Jan and Steve?

"Community Managers" - does that sound like they don't care?

Why would they visit AFOL planned Events and CON's if they didn't care about us?

TLG has their own events (LEGOWorld) and if your claim is right, then that should be enough for them.

If they didn't care about us, then why are they beginning to give us pics and press releases - 10212 UCS Lambda Shuttle and others (inferior to me since they're not SW )

If anything, I'd say your statement is "childish" and not really corresponding with the purpose of this topic nor EB.

[davee123]

Yeh TLC doesnt care about us AFOLs!

They care about us quite a bit-- they just don't care enough about us to provide us forums that we'd be satisfied with. Any forums they could give us to make us happy would either be stupidly extra work on their part, or would scare the pants off their lawyers. Probably both.

It's probably already risky enough that they have any boards at all. But it's pretty clear from perusing them that their boards just aren't intended for in-depth conversation.

DaveE

[Nikola Bathory]

I agree. I signed up there when I first came out of my dark age only to discover (very fast) that LEGO.com boards are pretty useless for AFOLs.

Same here! LEGO.com boards are not for us, AFOLs. They are for little kids.

[MetroiD]

I must agree with davee123 here. I for one actually applaud TLG's decision to provide kids with a dedicated board and all other kinds of tools they might find interesting in order to bring them even closer to the brand. Besides, would you rather have those children flooding EB and other AFOL-oriented forums? Didn't think so!

Plus, I'm convinced that any AFOL or generally person who's recently come out of their dark age is one search away from finding sites which are central to all AFOL activities, such as BrickLink, Brickshelf, even MOCpages to some extent, and - naturally - Eurobricks. AFOL-run blogs are also a big hit and would definitely be hard to miss if you search for anything LEGO these days. The step from those to flickr, EB and the likes is really a very small one :)

[The Legonater]

IMO, LMB= A place for little kids to post their unrealistic dreams, lie about 'real' sets, shoot each other up in roleplays and post as many Cafes as possible.

[blueandwhite]

I don't think that this has anything to do with how much LEGO actually cares for the AFOL community. I'm having a hard time imagining any company opening a forum where the consumer base is free to completely rip the product. TLG certainly is aware of our complaints (we do have ambassadors who act as liasons for the AFOL community afterall) when it comes to their products. Still, I'm not sure if it's good business to allow a few disgruntled adults to point out product flaws that would otherwise go largely unnoticed by the majority of children. The LEGO boards are really nothing more than a marketing tool so it seems silly to open them up to a few rabble rousers.