The Brick Show

[-Tilius-]

Opinions?

They recently launched their new site 'BrickQ.com', a site that is solely for asking inane questions on, and whilst it rewards you for answering them (regardless of whether your answer is right or wrong) it also punishes you for asking them. Hardly a friendly community. It's essentially are more linear and less friendly version of a forum, the discussion method that the whole internet has used for years, because it works. BrickQ seems to only exist so that TBS can act as if they have something amazing and unique, when in reality it's a massively flawed premise.

I only bring this discussion here because I was blocked on Youtube for pointing out these gaping flaws. And was then accused of acting like a 'little child'. The people of The Brick Show seem to have no understanding of how to construct a friendly community, nor are they able to cope with criticism, even if its constructive. This 'block if someone disagrees with me' system seems to have plagued many sites now, and caters for the minority of people who aren't strong or clever enough to cope with criticism, which is a huge personal flaw to have when you're putting your videos and reviews online for people to comment on.

I just wondered what other peoples views on The Brick Show were, and whether anyone else has had bad experiences? The show is not limited to Lego sets, however, as they often review second-rate products that manufacturers send to them to promote, which rather demonstrates how keen to make money TBS is. They'll review just about any old tat if they get paid for it. Noble.

Anyway, OPINIONS?

Edited January 14, 2011 by -Tilius-

[Ralph_S]

I don't know the site in question, but I have a question for you. If it's all that terrible, why do you care? Just don't bother with it and be a member of a forum that you do like. Seems perfectly straightforward to me.

Cheers,

Ralph

[-Tilius-]

Because I'm allowed to talk about what I want to.

Edited January 14, 2011 by -Tilius-

[davee123]

They recently launched their new site 'BrickQ.com', a site that is solely for asking inane questions on, and whilst it rewards you for answering them (regardless of whether your answer is right or wrong) it also punishes you for asking them. Hardly a friendly community.

It's the same as Yahoo! Answers, just LEGO-centric. They want to encourage you to answer questions, otherwise there's a concern that you'll just ask a lot of questions without contributing.

Personally, I think it's not terribly useful. All your inputs, questions or answers, should be rateable by other members. Ask an inane question? Get marked down. Give a lame answer? Get marked down. Once you identify useful members, you can pay attention to their inputs and ratings and give them more sway. As is, the system is what it is-- not overly great.

As is, it rewards people for answering questions, regardless of whether or not they spend any real time answering. And further, it allows you to ASK useless questions using a separate login solely for the purpose of answering them with the login that you CARE about, selecting it as the "best answer" (that's the way Yahoo! does the "best answer" selection-- I assume this is the same).

Anyway, the reality is that the system is set up in a way that rewards ACTIVITY, not really rewarding QUALITY. I breezed through the first 4 pages of questions (40 total), and only saw 2 questions worth anything. I didn't go through all the answers, but they looked similar. I probably won't go back.

The people of The Brick Show seem to have no understanding of how to construct a friendly community, nor are they able to cope with criticism, even if its constructive.

That's pretty common-- I don't know the particulars of your comments and behavior, but if the result is that you get banned, then you should either be more careful with your critiques going forward, or you should just forget about them.

This 'block if someone disagrees with me' system seems to have plagued many sites now, and caters for the minority of people who aren't strong or clever enough to cope with criticism, which is a huge personal flaw to have when you're putting your videos and reviews online for people to comment on.

I had never watched any of The Brick Show reviews until today. Now I've watched two. I guess I wasn't terribly impressed. They seemed overly lengthy (no evidence of editing or scripting), and the target audience is unclear. I don't really see any reason for them to make the reviews be in VIDEO format-- a consistent written format would be far better. If the videos were cut down to maybe 1/4 the length, they might work, but I found myself simply waiting for the videos to be over.

how keen to make money TBS is. They'll review just about any old tat if they get paid for it. Noble.

They get paid? Do they actually have a large audience? After watching a couple reviews, I'm honestly surprised. It just seems rather... amateur to me. If they have a large following, I guess I could see that they might get sample sets to review, but actually getting PAID seems... unlikely to me. Have you seen evidence to suggest that they really ARE paid? Typically, bloggers get free samples to review to gain exposure, but it's only rarely (to my knowledge) that they receive actual MONETARY compensation.

DaveE

Edited January 14, 2011 by davee123

[Ralph_S]

Because I'm allowed to talk about what I want to.

Sure you are, but that doesn't actually answer my question. I think you have a chip on your shoulder and it doesn't suit you.

Ralph

[-Tilius-]

That's pretty common-- I don't know the particulars of your comments and behavior, but if the result is that you get banned, then you should either be more careful with your critiques going forward, or you should just forget about them.

It's just frustrating because I was being helpful.

They get paid? Do they actually have a large audience? After watching a couple reviews, I'm honestly surprised. It just seems very... amateur to me. If they have a large following, I guess I could see that they might get sample sets to review, but actually getting PAID seems... unlikely to me. Have you seen evidence to suggest that they really ARE paid?

There was one review of some magnetic-type toy that a company sent them to 'review', but it just turned into an advertisement for a shoddy product. I assume that they were paid to do this - or at the very least they got given a product for free, which they then probably sold on (since they seem to do that with everything they review).

Sure you are, but that doesn't actually answer my question. I think you have a chip on your shoulder and it doesn't suit you.

Ralph

I get frustrated by stupidity. So, when I get blocked for being critical, I get annoyed because it means that the stupid people think they have 'won'. And the irony of them calling me a 'little child' angers me as well. So I'm trying to find out if people agree with me, or if how they were to me is a 'one-off'.

Edited January 14, 2011 by -Tilius-

[davee123]

I get frustrated by stupidity. So, when I get blocked for being critical, I get annoyed because it means that the stupid people think they have 'won'. And the irony of them calling me a 'little child' angers me as well. So I'm trying to find out if people agree with me, or if how they were to me is a 'one-off'.

I hardly see how we can agree or disagree given that we don't have the particulars. You sound like you could easily have been childish, or could easily have been trying to be helpful. I can't tell.

Honestly, I think it's unlikely to expect any sort of change to the BrickQ site. It seems pretty obvious that they're using some software package that's to blame for any failings in BrickQ itself, and there's no way they can change it, short of either being developers themselves (and quality developers at that), or paying tons of money to get developers to change what they've got. And even if they WERE developers, the developers that DID the work obviously put in a LOT of effort, and probably wouldn't be willing to change the system based on your critiques.

Any way you slice it, your demands are likely infeasible, depending on what your specific critiques were. So even if you weren't banned, your comments will still likely go unimplemented.

DaveE

[davee123]

I hardly see how we can agree or disagree given that we don't have the particulars.

Ok, I took the few extra minutes necessary to see your comments on YouTube. It appears your first response was:

So this basically a more limited version of every Lego forum ever made? What a great and original idea....also, deducting points when someone asks a question is (Explitive) stupid, as is adding points whenever people answer a question, since you're probably going to automatically add points even if the answer is wrong. But yeah, this is basically a more linear and less friendly approach to the forums that the Lego community has always used, making it a completely stupid idea.

Followed by this:

@brickshowtv So you're saying people who are simply acting in a friendly way will get their account deleted? (Explitive) brilliant way of running things, mate. You can't limit people to solely a question-and-answer set up - people are always going to want to talk about other things, and this is why we have the tried-and-tested method of full-on forums. All you're trying to do here is have a gimmick by going by an outdated system, when forums are far more effective. You didn't think this through.

Then this:

@slick4ever Fantastic comeback. Top marks.You really did yourself proud.

And you followed that up with a series of short comebacks that aren't worth repeating.

I have to say your response was mostly just rude. But childish also. Basically, your response smacks of pretty stereotypical "internet rage". You had little to contribute, and were getting unnecessarily angry over something that doesn't matter. Maybe you're not REALLY that angry in real life (most aren't), but you come across online as though you're hopping mad.

As for your "suggestion" of using a forum, I disagree wholeheartedly. This site is NOT faulty in its premise of being for LEGO-related questions. I would love it if there were a place to divert all the fluffy questions about "What set should I buy?" and so forth.

For the record, RTL suffered similar problems. First, they were inundated with useless requests-- "What's the phone number for LEGO?" "Where can I find LEGO instructions online?" etc. So they released the LEGO FAQ to try and cut down on all the repeated questions. Similarly, in the 1995-1996 ballpark, people became similarly annoyed when the number of auctions and sales were flooding the forums. And when LUGNET came out with sub-groups for auctions and such, it helped TREMENDOUSLY. As did later advents like eBay and BrickLink.

Personally, if BrickQ can divert the pointless fluff questions like "What set should I buy?" and "Which Ninjago character is the best?" and so forth, I'm all for it. I'm happy to reduce the quantity of those questions on the forums, and keep the forum content a little more adult. I don't necessarily think that the Yahoo! Answers technology is the BEST tool for the job, but it's certainly welcome in my opinion.

DaveE

Edited January 14, 2011 by davee123

[-Tilius-]

And so blocking me is more/less childish??

Point is, this BrickQ idea is just doing what forums do but attempting to pass it off as original. If the problems are to do with the software or whatever, then an Invisionfree board is an easy and free alternative.

And no, I'm not that angry in real life, lol. I just get worked up when I see blatent stupidity.

[davee123]

And so blocking me is more/less childish??

I would view blocking you as a responsible administrative action. However, I would view further critiquing you after having banned you as childish. Basically, you were acting like a troll, and the best thing to do with trolls is block them.

Point is, this BrickQ idea is just doing what forums do but attempting to pass it off as original.

No, it's trying to answer LEGO questions explicitly. Going back to the RTL example I mentioned before, people on RTL had similar arguments to yours regarding LEGO auctions. They actively WANTED LEGO auctions on the forums, and believed that forums were the best place for auctions, because you could do things like ask questions, and get increased exposure. IE, they saw separating out LEGO auctions as a silly thing, because other venues weren't suited to the functionality enjoyed by having auctions in newsgroups.

BrickQ has a very specific subset of things that it's well suited to address-- IE good questions about LEGO that require a simple answer. Things like "What element is this?" and "When did LEGO start using electronics?" and "Are there any LEGO vendors in Sudan?". We don't really need those questions in forums. They take up space and don't add much. Not that I MIND them per se, but if there were another place that was explicitly for those questions, that's all the better.

If the problems are to do with the software or whatever, then an Invisionfree board is an easy and free alternative.

No, that's just using forum software, which isn't really right. Most forums where a question is asked may have a flurry of answers that you have to wade through in order to get to the best one. So it's not suited for people that are trying to look up an already-answered question.

And no, I'm not that angry in real life, lol. I just get worked up when I see blatent stupidity.

No, you get worked up when you THINK you see blatant stupidity. I don't think it's blatantly stupid. I just think it's not all that well implemented.

And neither is Yahoo! Answers, really. I used to use Yahoo! Answers for a while, but it was similarly a dizzying amount of fluff. Again, people were just trying to answer uselessly without REALLY answering, because they would get points. There were no negative deductions for answering with junk, or asking QUALITY questions. It was mostly just a reward system for being ACTIVE, not USEFUL. I eventually gave up on it when they incorrectly moderated various things I had written because their moderators didn't understand the nature of the questions/answers being given.

Anyway, I advise you to behave more maturely. We all sometimes get caught up in the anonymity of the internet sometimes, and post in a hostile manner. It's a childish reaction, and you did it. Accept that you were out of line, and try not to do it again.

DaveE

[prateek]

I've been watching their reviews for a long time now, since they are good, but BrickQ is not so good IMO. Just a bunch of kids chatting it up. Also, just to let you know, one of the presenters from Brickshow is a member here on EB.

Edited January 17, 2011 by prateek

[Niku]

I like their reviews.

The site I havent try it, but i can figure out by some comments is not 100% complete.

Well as a programmer can tell you is pretty hard to develope a place on such a short time,

therefore errors are to be expected.

If things are like prateek says with a bunch of kids (wich is normal they dont make sense at what they write sometimes) well you have still EB to share.

So relax.

[Henchmen4Hire]

What happens with the "points" you accumulate? Do you trade them in for money/prizes? Unless you get some nifty swag for posting answers/questions and stressing yourself out like this, I don't see why it even matters what happens on the site lol

Generally since I can't kick someone's face in online for being an idiot, I ignore them.

[BrickMan7]

Well I just came across this today so thought I'd at least write my 2 cents in here. I am Jason from The Brick Show.

First - Thanks DaveE for standing up for the action we took. The reason we blocked the above user from YouTube was because he used profanity on a number of occasions and that is one hard rule we have. No profanity. In our first year doing reviews, we've had 4 million views of our shows, most of which are kids. We will not allow profanity. That's why he was blocked. You can read the news about BrickQ on Brickset and how we responded to criticism there. http://www.brickset.com/news/article/?ID=1091

BrickQ - I agree it's not a perfect platform. We are limited by many things with the tools we have. The main reason we created it was to help answer the hundreds of questions we personally get on a monthly basis about which sets to get, etc... We can't possibly answer them all so we created a platform for LEGO kids to help one another.

Lastly - We just soft launched a LEGO social community that is geared more towards what we were going for with BrickQ. It's much more moderated. The tools we have are very efficient and so far it's gone very well and has been very well received. Anyone is welcome to help us Beta test that at: http://www.brickli.me

Thanks for the feedback. We are always looking to improve our reviews and appreciate the feedback.

[Churchill]

I've always enjoyed the reviews. It's nice to see the actual sets "live" and see flesh and blood adults enjoying Lego. I've never gotten the impression that Jason and Stephen are in it for the money- seems to me that they put a tremendous amount of their own free time, blood, sweat and tears, into all of their projects.

There is no call for profanity EVER when it comes to Lego. They made the right call.

Jason, keep the reviews up. My daughter and I love them (and she's only 2 and a half!)