Brickshelf vs. Flickr vs. Something else

[750ACE]

Hello,

I am sure the topic has been discussed but I cannot find to much information about it. I am trying to decide between using Brickshelf, Flickr or something else. Basically just looking for a Pro's and Con's list.

Brickshelf Pros:

-Free

-Dedicated for Lego

-Create a folder & add images to it for easy sorting.

Brickhshelf Cons:

-Waiting for images to be approved.

Flickr Pros:

-More AFOL will likely find and brows.

-No wait time for image approval.

Flickr Cons:

-200 Images free, yearly fee thereafter.

I do not know enough about either or about any other image hosting service. I also noticed the Attach File option on Eurobricks. For some reason I feel Flickr is the way to go aside from the unfortunate fee.

Any help would be great. I just want to start sharing my Mod's and Moc's!

Kevin

[Darkdragon]

Actually with Flickr it's always unlimited images but the free account only let's 200 in your photostream. You can get around that with sets and groups and galleries.

[750ACE]

Actually with Flickr it's always unlimited images but the free account only let's 200 in your photostream. You can get around that with sets and groups and galleries.

So I could upload as many images as needed without paying. If I happen to post on EB I could just link or deeplink to the image even if I am over my 200 limit in my photostream?

[Vincent Kessels]

Here is another list of pros:

- People can post comments

- People can Like your pictures, and you know about it

- You are notified when contacts upload pictures

- You can control who can see your pictures

- Better upload and management tools

I actually prefer to pay for it, because someone has to pay the electricity bill and pay for the hardware and development of new features. The business case for Flickr is very simple: you want to use it, you pay for it.

[Hrw-Amen]

I have tended to use both as at times I have found flickr to be unavailable but Brickshelf is OK, then at other times Brickshelf has been down but flickr is OK.

It is a pain waiting for the images to be given the once over for Brickshel but i guess that does ensure that what we get to see is the genuine article rather than any old rubbish which I suppose could end up on flickr.

Not only that but multiple redundancies is good for ensuring your images are always safe and available somewhere. (in case you loose them off your own PC.)

[Capt. Stabbin]

I don't care for Flickr at all. There is just too much crap and features that I just don't care about. Brickshelf is my favorite, just because of the ease of use and it dosent have a bunch of useless crap that I will never use. Just my opinion.

[dr_spock]

I use both Flickr and Brickshelf. I put the "money shot" pic on Flickr and everything else on Brickshelf. I find that Brickshelf is good for the photos I take for set reviews. There is no number of photo or bandwidth limit.

Even if your folder/image hasn't been moderated on Brickshelf, you can still deeplink the images to Eurobricks and other forums. My preference is Brickshelf. I'd rather spend my limited funds on Lego than hosting services.

[LEGO Historian]

I too use both Brickshelf and Flickr. As mentioned the both have their pros and cons.

I belong to a group of 15 worldwide historic LEGO collectors (50s,. 60s and 70s LEGO), and we use Flickr instead of EMAIL to discuss some new rare items that no one has seen before, and discuss items, such as TLG display models and old historic photos. In that regard, Flickr functions as Brickshelf cannot. We used to have our groups images private, but have found that by making them public, we get additional feedback, and some collectors of similar interest show off some of their rarities that we may not have seen yet.

The 200 limit is a drawback... but I've found that having a Google and Yahoo account doubles that figure, so that I use one for our collectors group, and the other for posting deep link images online in Eurobricks or Lugnet or elsewhere.

Periodically I go thru the Flickr images and delete ones that folks have not commented on (or added as favorites)... thus recycling part of the 200 count limit. I avoid deleting ones from the other group (online displayed images)... since that causes broken links image icons instead of the actual photos in Eurobricks and elsewhere.

Getting back to Brickshelf... a few years ago it was almost closed down by original owner Kevin Loch... and that was averted when others took over. So with Flickr the future appears more secure.

[TheRedGuy]

I use Flickr, but I can recommend MOCpages as well. The problem is that not much people use it.

[Lyichir]

I would add as a con for Brickshelf that they are VERY compliant with Lego's policy about leaked images, meaning they won't publish anything with a confidential stamp. This doesn't apply to all users, but some who intend to upload that kind of thing may prefer Flickr, which is a bit more lenient in that respect.

[750ACE]

Brickshelf seems very easy. I am uncertain how to manage folders and pictures of my Mods and Mocs. How should I title the file names for the photos? For example I have made changes to Lego set 9395 so I created a folder called 9395 with the description 9395 Mods. I may MOD the set one day then decide the next day I want to redo what I just did and update the pictures. I do not want my posts to show broken links. Would I be able to delete the file and re-upload the same file name with the updated photo?

I hope I make sense. I may come across as overly organized but I have always been a folder person when it came to organizing my files on my pc.

[dr_spock]

Yes, on brickshelf you can delete a picture and re-upload one with the same filename. Your links would not be broken. People will see the new image in the posts with the links.

[750ACE]

Yes, on brickshelf you can delete a picture and re-upload one with the same filename. Your links would not be broken. People will see the new image in the posts with the links.

Great. What resolution is acceptable when posting on EB? I have read some posts where users have complained about images being too large while using mobile data.

[Rick]

Great. What resolution is acceptable when posting on EB? I have read some posts where users have complained about images being too large while using mobile data.

According to the EB Site Guidelines, embedded pictures are allowed up to a maximum resolution of 800 x 600 pixels.

[Jargo]

I still use photobucket. I am soooooo not down wit da hip kidz.

[ShaydDeGrai]

From a user interface/ease of use standpoint, I'm rather fond of MOCPages. It really feels like it was designed from the ground up to make it easy to share and describe LEGO projects as projects, not just a collection of photos with captions. I get the feeling from the forum discussions that there is a fair number of TFOLs there, but most conduct themselves in a civil and mature manner (better than many places on the web). It's up to the individual poster to flag certain photos or discussions as "mature content" (not being a teenage boy I don't know if such a flag actually prevents anyone from viewing the page if they follow the link, but it does block out titles and photos in response to searches and newsfeeds (you get a generic link instead)). The UI is far from perfect (my biggest pet peeve is that if you take too long editing a page, the connection times out and you lose your changes) but then again no UI is, and for me it's the best of several less-than-ideal alternatives.

MOCPages' availability could be a lot better (then again a lot of the software _I_ write is used in hospitals and other mission critical operations so maybe my expectations are unrealistic) and (compared to Brickshelf and Flickr) it _feels_ like very few people use it. As an experiment once, I posted the same photo set on Flickr and MOC pages and the Flickr set got more hits in a day than MOC pages did in a month.

I also find that the MOCPages' ad server needs to be smarter about mobile devices. Most of the time the ads are sufficiently innocuous that I don't even notice they're there, but every now and then you get some stupid full screen, Flash based ad that can't play under iOS and won't let you access the page until it plays, so if you're on an iPad you just have to keep reloading the page until you randomly get an ad that doesn't block the site. I realize the ads are what's paying for this "free service" but with the tremendous rise of mobile computing in the past three years and the iPad controlling 85% of the tablet market, you'd think they'd realize they need to be more iOS friendly (especially when the Flash content could easily be replaced with HTML5/CSS3 and avoid the problem entirely).

As for the major players, I've never tried posting to Brickshelf. I don't really know why, it's just one of those bookmarks I rarely click on and I already have so many accounts I need a database just to keep track of them. Still, maybe I'll give it a shot one of these days. I know I've found great stuff on there from time to time. I really don't know why I've never posted there - probably just a case of staying inside one's comfort zone.

As for Flickr, I have posted stuff there from time to time, but I use it really more as a sort of advertising, splash screens and money shots that point people to my MOCPages account. My answer to the 200 photo stream limit is to delete stuff after a while (I make it a point not to link to my Flickr account as I know I might toast photos there and I don't want to leave broken links lying about the web).

The two things I like best about Flickr are the traffic and the ability to comment on a particular area within a photo. I think the latter is a really cool feature that I wish MOCPages supported. The audience isn't limited to just LEGO fans (which is both good and bad depending on what sort of feedback you're hoping for) but it does seem that stand-out projects get noticed faster over there (and everything else gets lost in the shuffle of baby pictures, wedding photos, cute cats, fast cars, etc., etc.

Anyway, that my two cents (which actually cost the US Mint about a nickel to produce - and we wonder why we have a debt problem when it costs us twice the face value of a coin to actually strike it and put it into circulation).

[Aanchir]

I use Flickr, Brickshelf, and deviantART for different reasons.

Flickr allows images to be automatically resized to various sizes, meaning I don't have to upload multiple differently-sized copies of an image if it turns out that the sites where I want to post the image have different rules about image size. It also allows people to post notes and comments. It has a system through which people can add images to their favorites. And it allows me to post descriptions of pictures so people browsing later can understand the image's purpose-- for instance, if a MOC is for a contest, I can provide a link to the contest in question.

Brickshelf allows me to post non-image files like spreadsheets and LXFs, and allows for nested folders. It also allows more-or-less unlimited uploads, so it's great for posting images that I'm not planning to use int he long term, or images that I don't want to get too much attention except from the people I share them with (like WIP images).

deviantART is something I mainly use for drawings and occasional MOCs. It offers most of the same functions Flickr does, except it doesn't make it as easy to view the images at a variety of sizes, and doesn't allow notes to be added directly to parts of the image. deviantART has a slightly greater social component IMO, allowing me to create a journal where I can post what I'm currently working on or interested in (I make limited use of this) and post comments to other users' profiles. Favorites on dA can be categorized, another nice feature that lets me separate my My Little Pony favorites from my LEGO favorites from my Homestar Runner favorites, if I'm so inclined. And of course being aimed at artists, the community on dA is different than that on Flickr-- but of course, any site that has any social component will have certain unique qualities to its community that you might not find elsewhere.

I've never used MOCpages. Its downtimes are obnoxious (of course, the same thing is occasionally true of Brickshelf) and I have a hard time navigating it. But I do occasionally check there to see interesting things other people have posted there-- I just never browse unless I know exactly what I'm looking for and how to find it.

[TheLegoDr]

I think the trick is, how well known are a lot of these pages for newcomers and veterans. I've only been back into LEGO for 2 years, but I've never used brickshelf or mocpages. I'm sure I've heard of them, but I never go to them. I only use flickr. A long time ago I used to use photobucket, but I don't even know if that exists anymore. I probably lost a lot of photos, oh well.

So with that said, I always prefer flickr, but that is only because that is the service I use and have used for quite a while now.

[Modulex Guy]

I've pretty much been through it all with photo hosting sites. When I first started posting MOCs online I started with Brickshelf and Photobucket, later on I got onto MOCPages, and now I only use Flickr for my MOCs. I like the formatting of Flickr with the groups and ability to comment both below and on the photos, plus I use it for more than just LEGO too. MOCPages IMO seems to be less organized and has a younger audience and it is hard to sift through silly comments about a MOC or whatever.

I just upgraded my Flickr to Pro and don't mind paying the small fee to host my photo's the quality of the site makes it worth it to me to pay.

[Grimmbeard]

I would recommend Flikr, but also if you just want to save photos and have them somewhere, imgur is very simple and easy to use.

[Phazon]

I chose Flickr as it is easy to use and I like the layout. The background isn't distracting and like some of you already said, a comment on a small area is just a great option. Brickshelf has its drawbacks, while the images don't appear immidiately and it's occasionally offline. Flickr is however lacking a proper zoom funcion for larger images, it tends to show the image in a smaller size or in the exact same size as the 'original' images.

[750ACE]

Bump... How about http://www.smugmug.com

Someone I work with is huge into photography and recommended this site. I ran through the overview and it is extremely well designed with tons of options from sharing, editing, printing, video, security settings, etc. You can even setup a domain through this site.

Anyone run into this site?

[Omicron]

Actually with Flickr it's always unlimited images but the free account only let's 200 in your photostream. You can get around that with sets and groups and galleries.

Actually once you hit beyond the 200 mark, any old images in sets and galleries will not show up.

Happened to me when my pro ran out.

It comes back though when you renew.

-Omi

[CP5670]

I use Brickshelf only. It has an archaic interface but I like the "no strings attached" nature of the site. You can put up as many images as you like, at whatever size you want. It's also focused on Lego only, which makes it easy to search for things that others have made. Flickr's commenting system is nice but I find the interface otherwise cluttered and annoying. Most of the stuff I see on there is not organized into folders either, so when you find a picture of a MOC it's hard to find any more without sifting through everything in the user's photo stream.

[Dubbadgrim]

I prefer brickshelf but might start to use Flickr for the "money shots" as Dr_spock said above