LEGO Ideas Discussion

[Fritzy]

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

Just realized this was my fault. I had a period at the end of it. Thought the tweet had to be removed for legal reasons, but when I came across it again, I realized my mistake.

[MAB]

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.

If they were going through all the contracts to sell such sets in specific locations, it wouldn't surprise me if they did it outside if Lego ideas. Those sets would have little interest outside of the US, and would do better sold over a long period of time in a specific location, rather than the shirt 3-6 months (even 12) that non-licensed ideas sets seem to get.

They could also the negotiate with the parks which they think would sell and at what price points.

But it is too late for the anniversary. If they were to have such a partnership, it would have been negotiated a couple of years ago to be in time.

[BlueberryWaffles]

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.

Or they could actually offer the Curiosity Rover for sale.

[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...

And now I see there were an amazing 51 additional projects posted today (!), I believe, and Shayd's train still isn't among them. I really wonder about that possible backlog I mentioned earlier. Granted, we just had the weekend (when stuff is submitted but not posted), but still...

Edited January 12, 2016 by Blondie-Wan

[Artanis I]

Why are we seemingly deliberately promoting a project that the creator is trying to not promote?

[Blondie-Wan]

The creator is trying to see how well it will do compared to his (?) other projects without the direct promotion (s)he gave them; it has nothing to do with whether we promote it or not.

Of course, it also will hardly prove definitive of anything, since each project is different, and appeals for different reasons; plain old luck also plays a huge role (as we saw with the Golden Girls projects, when the last of three projects inspired by the show somehow got "discovered" by mainstream media and promoted within an inch of its life, garnering more than half the votes it needed in a single day after being around just s couple months or so, while a predecessor project that was exceedingly similar somehow didn't get nearly as much notice). But I'm sure Shayd is also well aware of all this, too, and it won't diminish how interesting the results of this experiment.

Beyond that, Shayd is clearly a talented builder, so naturally some of us are keen to see the project (and, perhaps, support it) purely because of that. Certainly the train fans here are going to want to see more nice train sets in general, whether they come from Ideas or elsewhere, right?

And speaking for myself, since I gather your post was partly a response specifically to my previous one, I'm also interested in not just Shayd's project, but also Ideas in general, including the submission process. As I haven't yet submitted any of my own projects yet (though I've finally begun building my first, after years of getting distracted by the rest of day-to-day life), I'm naturally curious about the actual process itself. One of the facets of the process in which I'm interested is how long it takes something to get posted, particularly given that Shayd reported submitting six days ago and the project isn't there yet (though perhaps it will be later today). I noted how many projects were posted Friday and Monday, and speculated about the Ideas team working through a backlog. That's discussion not just of Shayd's project itself specifically, but about LEGO Ideas in general.

I'm curious about how long my own projects, when I finally get them done and submitted, will languish unseen on LEGO's servers before finally appearing. I'm curious about the large number of projects appearing the last couple days they were posted (was there a spike in submissions around / because of the holidays? Of because of the new LEGO Ideas campaign push?). I'm curious about how many additional projects there might be that aren't getting posted because they don't meet the various standards. I'm curious about pretty much anything and everything having to do with LEGO Ideas (and of course this is the principal thread in which we discuss such matters). None of this has anything to do with Shayd's project, but that project's journey through the submission process might offer some clues about at least one or two of these questions, since we'll be able to see how many days passed between Shayd submitting it and the Ideas team finally posting it.

Edited January 12, 2016 by Blondie-Wan

[dulsi]

I've only submitted one project. It was approved 3 days later. It was submitted on a Sunday but it was Christmas weekend. So it was a long weekend which could have meant more submitters. Or it could have meant less submitters due to the holiday. I too am curious about how long things take to get approved and how many are required to resubmit. You can look at the project numbers to see how many numbers are missing. I looked a little to see how close they were to rejecting or approving mine before it was finally approved.

[dr_spock]

Why are we seemingly deliberately promoting a project that the creator is trying to not promote?

This could be a case of un-intended reverse psychology. Tell people you don't want something done and they do the opposite.

Like running for election, you get or convince people to do the promo work for you. It is a lot of work for one person to hit every place where there might be voters for your project.

[Blondie-Wan]

A bunch more projects were posted today, and I still don't see Shayd's train. Shayd, have you gotten any communication from TLG about your project yet?

[dulsi]

Can you post a link to your ideas project in your signature or is that not encouraged?

[Blondie-Wan]

Can you post a link to your ideas project in your signature or is that not encouraged?

I don't know that it's "encouraged", but it does at least seem to be tolerated. Plenty of people have them in their sigs, IIRC.

We've gotten conflicting information from mods about how we can otherwise share our CUUSOO/ Ideas projects here. We were told a while back that it would actually be okay to post our own projects as long as we didn't spam them repeatedly, and if you go back to the earlier posts in this thread (or its CUUSOO predecessor), you see a lot of people posting links to their own projects, but lately you get things like this shortly after anyone does:

Posted 29 December 2015 - 07:33 AM

Hi, I hope everyone has had a nice Christmas.

I have submitted my Lego Ideas project, and was hoping to gather some support and/or comments on the project.

Edited by Rick, 02 January 2016 - 10:20 AM.

Please read our Site Guidelines regarding LEGO Ideas projects

(bolding added for emphasis)

If you go look at those site guidelines it says this:

LEGO Ideas: If you have a great MOC, that is also a LEGO Ideas project, you may present it on EB as you would any MOC, with a single link to the Ideas entry. Make the title about the MOC, not the Ideas business; don't be too shouty, and it is likely to be tolerated. You need to be thinking: 'I want people on EB to see my MOC and comment on it. If they like it, perhaps they'll support it on LEGO Ideas', rather than: 'I want Ideas support! If I post it on EB, perhaps more people will vote!.

I always took this to mean one could post a topic about one's project/MOC, in addition to posting about it in the CUUSOO / Ideas thread - i.e., here (where it's both relevant to the discussion and was also previously stated to be okay, IIRC) - but the mods now usually seem to disagree, and they generally (though not always) edit others' posts if they contain links to the authors' projects, and remove said links. Oh, well. :/

[Blondie-Wan]

It's now fully a week after Shayd submitted the project, and it still hasn't been posted. Hmm.

[dulsi]

Do you follow people and/or support projects? I'm confused by the fact that I have more followers than supporters. Would you follow someone but not support their project? Why? Are people just hoping to find mutual followers? Do they decide they like my lego design skill but not the current project and hope I will post another?

[Artanis I]

Do you follow people and/or support projects? I'm confused by the fact that I have more followers than supporters. Would you follow someone but not support their project? Why? Are people just hoping to find mutual followers? Do they decide they like my lego design skill but not the current project and hope I will post another?

Probably, and hoping for you to see their incredibly amazing project

[Actor Builder]

I've been getting emails that ______ on LEGO Ideas followed me. I have a lot of random followers, but I'm not following anyone else, and I have zero projects.

They're basically just hoping that you'll follow them back. It's a dumb game they play.

[BirdOPrey5]

I think these followers for no reason are future spammers.

[dr_spock]

They could be hoping you would follow them in return so that they can get a bigger follower number.

[Blondie-Wan]

I've wondered about them for a while. I have over 120 followers, despite having yet to actually submit my first project. One of my followers is my wife, but I've never understood what those others are doing following me.

[dulsi]

I've been getting emails that ______ on LEGO Ideas followed me. I have a lot of random followers, but I'm not following anyone else, and I have zero projects.

They're basically just hoping that you'll follow them back. It's a dumb game they play.

This is why I don't use the social network sites. Such a waste of time. If you can't be happy in your own skin having thousands of unknown people friend/follow you, will not help.

[Faefrost]

Good point, although if Ideas sets based on existing licenses won't ever be made you'd think they would specify it themselves.

They have said that Ideas or CuuSoo (back at that time) sets based on existing licences have a far far harder time at review. They have many more hurdles to overcome. They don't outright deny them because every license contract is different. And ultimately the decision on whether to permit an Ideas set goes to the license owner, not necesarily Lego. The licensor may absolutely fall in love with the Idea, as clearly happened with Dr. Who. They more commonly may find conflicting issues with the existing contracts. The third party design and royalty can be a huge issue for some contracts. But each is different.

[MAB]

Why are we seemingly deliberately promoting a project that the creator is trying to not promote?

The creator is trying to see how well it will do compared to his (?) other projects without the direct promotion (s)he gave them; it has nothing to do with whether we promote it or not.

This could be a case of un-intended reverse psychology. Tell people you don't want something done and they do the opposite.

Like running for election, you get or convince people to do the promo work for you. It is a lot of work for one person to hit every place where there might be voters for your project.

A bunch more projects were posted today, and I still don't see Shayd's train. Shayd, have you gotten any communication from TLG about your project yet?

Maybe they are now going to wait to list it, so that it truly has no promotion. Although even then if people are looking for it, it is a false test. As if they say that they are putting up a project and are not going to promote it, they have already promoted it as noted above.

To really test whether projects get anywhere without any promotion, they'll have to post something under an anonymous name and not say that they have done it until the test is done.

[Blondie-Wan]

Maybe they are now going to wait to list it, so that it truly has no promotion.

I'm not sure I understand - who is "they" in this sentence, the Ideas team or Shayd? If the latter, Shayd said (s)he'd already submitted it; it just hasn't appeared yet. If the former, why would they single out this one project?

Just talking about it here isn't much in the way of promotion, but it's true it's far from a controlled scientific experiment. Still potentially interesting, though.

[LEGODalekbuster523]

They have said that Ideas or CuuSoo (back at that time) sets based on existing licences have a far far harder time at review. They have many more hurdles to overcome. They don't outright deny them because every license contract is different. And ultimately the decision on whether to permit an Ideas set goes to the license owner, not necesarily Lego. The licensor may absolutely fall in love with the Idea, as clearly happened with Dr. Who. They more commonly may find conflicting issues with the existing contracts. The third party design and royalty can be a huge issue for some contracts. But each is different.

Good point about Doctor Who. LEGO would have already had the license at the time the Ideas set was up for review as LEGO Dimensions' Doctor Who stuff was being worked on simultaneously to the decision regarding the Ideas set.

[MAB]

I'm not sure I understand - who is "they" in this sentence, the Ideas team or Shayd? If the latter, Shayd said (s)he'd already submitted it; it just hasn't appeared yet. If the former, why would they single out this one project?

Just talking about it here isn't much in the way of promotion, but it's true it's far from a controlled scientific experiment. Still potentially interesting, though.

They =Shayd.

I didn't realise it was already submitted.

Talking about it on a lego forum is promoting it, just as much as talking about it anywhere else.

Edited January 15, 2016 by MAB

[Robert8]

So, what happened with the results? They should be out now, right? It's been almost a month since the last deadline

A what happened with that Labyrinth Marble Maze set?