Eurobricks structure, moderating, member involvement and more

[Yzalirk]

If you feel targeted by a member of the staff, then there may be a good reason. Maybe some of your more than 16 posts per day, every day, since you joined might have annoyed other people... You should think a bit about that before complaining here...

I don't think anyone else has a problem with it but I was given some advice, which I'll currently be following, that way I don't really post too much in a single thread. Other than that, I don't think anyone else has a problem with my posts outside of GoH.

[BEAVeR]

I don't have any experience with other forums, but I think Eurobricks is really one of the best out here on the net. So congratulations to the staff, and that things may continue to improve for many years to come.

The moderators do a good job in my opinion, and sometimes I wish they'd be even more active. I've pretty much given up reading the rumor threads, as there is so much rubble in it a lot of the time. It would be nice if the mods would be more present to clearly state what that topic is for. I'd like to see people argue less about unimportant subjects too, and spend more time on writing thoughtful comments, about news or about MOCs. On that matter, I think there might be a slight decrease in the interest in MOCs. They often don't get all that much comments (although that's not the point), and the ones they get tend to be short and without much content. If people want to say a MOC is awesome, then that's just the same as liking something. I'd like more feedback from the members. If they like it, why they like it, so you know what's important. And better, if they don't like it, what they don't like and how you could improve that. The real point of posting your creations is not to get as much comments as possible, but as much advise as possible, to become a better builder. I'd like this form of commenting more encouraged. I try to give a good example myself, but I have no real idea how to achieve that goal in a bigger way (maybe we should have a Comments Academy?). Maybe that's something we all should think about... Anyhow, if people would spend less time on arguing, they might have more time to really comment, and Eurobricks would grow as a bastion of support, having additional value to sites like Flickr and MOCPages. I might have gone a bit off topic here myself, but I do think that we should strive to keep that to a minimum.

It's a hard task for mods to keep that up, I imagine. So maybe the staff should grow, or other members should be able to help them. Maybe by bringing certain subjects to their attention, or by taking small tasks. Anyway, I think contacting the staff should be more easy. Now you have to PM, and you quickly have the idea your idea is not important enough to bother them with. Maybe a suggestion-topic in every forum would prove to be useful. Members who don't have the inclination to start something themselves, but do have great ideas, could show them there. It would be a great place for the mods of the forum to see what the users want, and make the forum more attractive and lively. I think some forums are slowly declining, and that such an impulse from the members could help to revitalize it. After all, we're a community.

Another advantage of a bigger staff would be that the staff members would all have less work, and can so do better work. Since a lot of the staff members are really good MOCcers, it would be nice if they had some more time to practice their favorite hobby as well. We would get more great builds too.

On the matter of English, I don't think we should ask perfect English from everyone. It's important that people take an effort, however. Capitalization and punctuation aren't hard to learn, but they do show a lot of goodwill, even if the grammar isn't very good or there are some spelling mistakes. I have no idea if it would be possible to help users with less capabilities in a language. Maybe there could be a place where members with the same native language can help each other to write better English. Now that would be a nice initiative, and it would help us all to understand each other better, to express what we think better (here or in real life), and be a better community overall.

I hope I mentioned some useful things, both for moderators as for 'normal' members. I would like to finish with a big thank you. For reading this comment, and especially for making this such a fun forum to be around on and to spend half of your life . Keep it up!

Edited August 31, 2014 by BEAVeR

[SMC]

Ok so I am not going to quote but go back and read all the posts in this topic and then find the one that might be considered slightly rude and unnecessary. I know that mods have a hard job and will probably become frustrated at times (for good reason) but as staff they should be the best behaved. There is a reason that I was hesitant to post this topic and it is because sometimes you do not get the best reaction from mods. I do feel sometimes that the mods need to be moderated as much as the rest of us because they have more power.

Another question if I report a post what happens?

Edited August 31, 2014 by SMC

[grum64]

Interesting Topic.

I'm perfectly Satisfied EB is run by the mods. They do a fine job of keeping everything in order so as said above Thank You for taking the time to make everything great.

I feel the way topics are locked are good. I understand that topics are locked for a good reason and respect the desicision made by the mod.

Overall all I'm very happy with the way things are run and thanks once again.

Couldn't have said it any better.

[Pandora]

The language part, not having english as a native tongue and I don't like the idea of going that road where your english should be almost perfect - I have been on a community like that and it wasn't fun!

On the matter of English, I don't think we should ask perfect English from everyone. It's important that people take an effort, however. Capitalization and punctuation aren't hard to learn, but they do show a lot of goodwill, even if the grammar isn't very good or there are some spelling mistakes.

I wanted to say something about this, off the back of the poll questions. The middle answer is all that we're really striving for - we don't expect perfect English from non-native speakers by any means at all, and there are many native speakers with bad spelling and grammar too, but that's ok as long as they're trying. Plus, typos happen. What we appreciate is someone making an effort - and that includes not using text speak and trying to use capitalisation and punctuation. So spelling and punctuation are important to us to maintain our standards, but we just want people to try their best, and it really is obvious to all of us (not just us Mods) when people are posting in abbreviations, text speak and leet-speak because they just don't care.

I'd like to see people argue less about unimportant subjects too, and spend more time on writing thoughtful comments, about news or about MOCs. On that matter, I think there might be a slight decrease in the interest in MOCs. They often don't get all that much comments (although that's not the point), and the ones they get tend to be short and without much content. If people want to say a MOC is awesome, then that's just the same as liking something. I'd like more feedback from the members. If they like it, why they like it, so you know what's important. And better, if they don't like it, what they don't like and how you could improve that. The real point of posting your creations is not to get as much comments as possible, but as much advise as possible, to become a better builder.

We (as the staff) have discussed this, as it's something we'd really like to encourage and nurture - feedback on MOCs, MODs and Reviews. We agree that it's indeed very nice to hear that someone likes something, but we're a discussion forum and it doesn't take much to say why you liked/didn't like something and that feedback is more useful for the MOCer/Reviewer. As part of this, we have also discussed possible ways of encouraging this and their feasibility, but haven't yet found a way to make it work.

Anyway, I think contacting the staff should be more easy. Now you have to PM, and you quickly have the idea your idea is not important enough to bother them with. Maybe a suggestion-topic in every forum would prove to be useful. Members who don't have the inclination to start something themselves, but do have great ideas, could show them there. It would be a great place for the mods of the forum to see what the users want, and make the forum more attractive and lively.

As I mentioned above, we introduced such a thread in the Town forum but it has been little used. I don't think it takes much to PM someone, and would hope that people would feel confident of getting a positive response to suggestions, even if the suggestions aren't taken up. Obviously, a continual flood of suggestions from the same person would be overwhelming, though!

Another question if I report a post what happens?

All Mods and Admins can see the report (it gets flagged up for all of us). Complicated or contentious reports are often discussed first before someone acts, otherwise obvious problems are dealt with either by whoever is around or by whoever is deemed the most appropriate (especially if it is a very forum-specific report).

It's probably worth saying here that we get a lot of reports, which we encourage - we'd much rather have people use the report button than get embroiled in arguments, and often when we step in we do so because of a report or number of reports. I suspect that there might be the view that we just appear out of nowhere to be Moddy, but we don't - we are usually there because one or more people have reported something. As I just mentioned, but it's worth saying again, often borderline or sensitive issues are discussed between the staff prior to action, too.

[ZCerberus]

Another question if I report a post what happens?

Since I know you're active in History, I can give you some insight to a few of your questions.

Reports are viewable by all MODs and some are very easily handled like SPAM. Others can be tricky and we we discuss and leave comments for each other before deciding to take action.

As for splitting/the Hobbit/LotR threads... Those are nearly impossible to moderate. At first they two lines were combined but they became nothing but "give us a Minas Tirith set!" thread. So after the thread was reported many, many, many, many times for being off topic and for having arguments about Minas Tirith type sets, and after some discussion we decided to split the topics into news and info about the actual sets for that year (the 2013 LotR and Hobbit thread, the 2014 Hobbit thread) and lastly the future/rumors thread so we could try to stay on topic better. As you know, there is still plenty of movie only talk in all the threads and we still get "LEGO should build this scene" set discussion all the time. Perhaps I can try to re-title the threads so they make more sense.

I don't think anyone else has a problem with it but I was given some advice, which I'll currently be following, that way I don't really post too much in a single thread. Other than that, I don't think anyone else has a problem with my posts outside of GoH.

Mr. Behemoth, I thank you for being respectful and understanding.

[Artanis I]

(I agree with a lot of Master of Puppets' post.)

I want to mention a few things regarding the poll and comments.

I put that the site is "undermoderated" and that there is negative effect. It isn't too bad, but I think it could be improved in some areas, that's all. (Negative as in detrimental, not negative as in the military sense.) But by that, I meant that some parts of the forum often seem to be flooded with off-topic or unnecessary posts, and a lot of unnecessary topics get started by the same people, and that there are too many obviously underage members. I just think that the staff could confront people a bit more about their unnecessary clutter. It's getting harder to sift for the news in some news topics. I can probably find it elsewhere easier these days.

Regarding the new topics each year question, I think that there should be (as is already the case) a separate topic for discussion for each theme per year. Not a new topic for a theme that has no new sets that year. E.g., in the History subforum: a Castle sets 2013, LOTR / Hobbit sets 2013 (or separate), & Hobbit sets 2014 topic. No LOTR sets 2014, Castle sets 2014 or Hobbit sets 2015 (unless it becomes a reality, but probably not) topic. What there isn't but could be, is a general theme discussion that needs no new thread each year. E.g. Castle or LOTR theme general Lego discussion etc. I suppose it would be all the future ideas, specific questions and general comments. That would be fairly free-flowing but allows the actual real information to be nicely separated from it. It also possibly prevents things like umpteen "what do you want to see in the next iteration of history themed sets" where the pages long discussion is pretty much the same every time. It seems to me that a lot of people just want to chit-chat or ramble about things around a topic, and this might be an outlet that doesn't get in other people's way. I think perhaps some people are a bit lonely day or night and want interaction with other EB AFOLs in a casual manner.

Some members like to see their name as the starter of a popular topic.

Don't they just...

I've been reading this forum most days for 4 years, and I have to say that's it's been a pleasant experience. I appreciate all of the volunteered work by staff past & present. I joined because it was active and informative. I stayed because it's mature and creative. I'm still a novice moc builder, but the collecting and building of sets is still fun. The reviews are often very professional in appearance and content, a billion times better than you get elsewhere. I enjoy the contests even though some are too hard for me to find the time or parts or courage to enter.

[SMC]

Since I know you're active in History, I can give you some insight to a few of your questions.

Reports are viewable by all MODs and some are very easily handled like SPAM. Others can be tricky and we we discuss and leave comments for each other before deciding to take action.

As for splitting/the Hobbit/LotR threads... Those are nearly impossible to moderate. At first they two lines were combined but they became nothing but "give us a Minas Tirith set!" thread. So after the thread was reported many, many, many, many times for being off topic and for having arguments about Minas Tirith type sets, and after some discussion we decided to split the topics into news and info about the actual sets for that year (the 2013 LotR and Hobbit thread, the 2014 Hobbit thread) and lastly the future/rumors thread so we could try to stay on topic better. As you know, there is still plenty of movie only talk in all the threads and we still get "LEGO should build this scene" set discussion all the time. Perhaps I can try to re-title the threads so they make more sense.

Thanks ZCerberus I have spent a lot of my time in history because of LOTR and Hobbit, when I first joined it was almost the only place I would post. I think that it does show that the moderating is different in the different parts of the site. Although as you say I am very active in History I have not really had any problem with the moderation and I don't think as many topics are locked. My spelling is not the best and there are times when I reread one of my post and think what was I trying to say and I am happy that the mods have not picked me up on it as I do try but don't always get it right.

I am surprised that from the poll it does not look like people want more of a say, you bring up splitting the LOTR and Hobbit topic, I was not a fan at the time because I think like most people that read the LOTR topic also read the Hobbit topic so having it one place made it easier for me. Sometimes it seems people want something just because a couple of people short it all the time but a nice poll can clear it up. But its not a problem that we now have 2 topics and I can understand why it happened. We did have the famous you cant make proper Minas Tirith for under a million pound debate but it never really bothered me as I just moved on if I was not interested. Anyway we will not have this problem for long, History might become a lot easier for you with the end of the lines.

Very much off topic but would you consider front page-ing the LOTR petition? I know it wont do anything but it makes us all feel better.

Edited September 1, 2014 by SMC

[SMC]

Just a last thought, now that Super Heroes is evergreen and looks to be getting bigger should it get its own theme and free up the license theme for Jurassic World.

Edit: Friends could also get its own theme too, just find its a bit of an odd duck with minidolls and all.

Edited September 1, 2014 by SMC

[Pandora]

Edit: Friends could also get its own theme too, just find its a bit of an odd duck with minidolls and all.

This has been discussed many times, both in public and between the staff. We have made the decision that Friends belongs in Town themes and is staying there.

[just2good]

One thing I do find confusing is the information that should be included in the first post. Should all the sets pictures be there? I've had a problem where putting all the set pictures in the first post slow down the first page, and it barely loads the pictures. But then again, having the pictures there helps reduce people reposting old pictures (which doesn't happen too often). I think we should rather put a link to the Brickset year page for the theme and make it clearly that the pictures are there. Does that sound good?

[SMC]

I don't think people really post just to get their count up.

Edit: 1000 post

[kabel]

This has been discussed many times, both in public and between the staff. We have made the decision that Friends belongs in Town themes and is staying there.

But how much sense does that make now that we have Disney princess and possibly Elves?

[just2good]

But how much sense does that make now that we have Disney princess and possibly Elves?

Well, Disney Princess is licensed, so it goes to the licensed themes; Elves is fantasy so it would go in the historic themes. Honestly, I think historic should get renamed... but I don't know to what. Fantasy could work, but people could get the wrong idea from it.

Disney Princess rarely gets any MOCs. I don't think it clogs up the licensed forum in any way.

Honestly, it doesn't look like there will be any 2015 Castle/LOTR/Hobbit sets, so Elves would be the only theme discussion there.

Edited September 1, 2014 by just2good

[rollermonkey]

1. For the most part, I like how things are run... I don't think it's 100% fair that members who happened to have been around longer get more say than adults who just came out of the dark ages, nor that complete noobs / younglings would get as much say as longstanding, well-respected members... I think the Moderating Team does a good job balancing the voices of all members.

2. Over/under moderation is in the eye of the beholder. I actually got shwacked for apologizing about having bumped a topic by a mod from a completely different part of the boards, then told what I'd been doing wasn't a problem by the 'local' moderators as I had contributed to the discussion each time and that they thought it was a pretty important topic, too. That part wasn't as bad as being told that justifying my actions to that mod was offensive by another mod from another completely different section of the board. As a 42-year-old adult, to me, if the local sheriff isn't upset with me, than the cops from three towns over shouldn't be hassling me. I was pretty offended by the treatment from mods who didn't know me at all, (as in, had never read any of my posts before that day) but I smoothed my feathers and moved on. Apart from that singular incident, I think the boards that I typically read here are pretty well moderated, and I've been on web forums for more than 15 years now and have seen much, much worse moderation elsewhere, that's for sure!

3. New topics for each year's themes? Heck yes. Can you imagine the chaos if there was a single thread for Star Wars since the first days? Yikes! You'd never find anything in there. For that matter, it's nearly impossible now!

4. I'm continually impressed at how good the non-native English speaking members use the language. Frankly, I think some of the younger American members could take some pointers from them. That said, I think that textspeak is inappropriate for forum usage, so let's stay away from that, OK?

5. No. Lastly means nothing comes afterwards. See also: #4

6. No. Just because someone has 3 posts, that doesn't mean that they don't have anything to share and conversely just because someone has fifty-thousand posts. that doesn't automatically mean that what they say carries additional wisdom, either... Or that if they do have great wisdom, that it should be kept for other post-addicts.

7. Staying on topic... While typically it is better when people do, it is far easier to merge two topics that stray together or re-title a topic whose train of thought has found a new destination than it is to split a new topic out of an old one. If people are having a mature, rational discussion, it is normally impossible to take such a rational, mature conversation to another location without derailing it entirely. Therefore, IMO, admonishing people for being off-topic can be the trickiest part of moderation. If people have devolved into mudslinging or the like, on the other hand... That's easy.

8. I actually rarely see locked topics, so I don't know where this question came from. Having said that, BOTH of those two 'Open Letter' threads in the Embassy sub-forum can be locked up (again) and allowed to rot, as far as I'm concerned.

9. No, there weren't 9 questions, but obviously I do appreciate the effort it takes to moderate a forum with as diverse a membership as this one has, and I think they generally do a fantastic job at something that is largely unappreciated by the unwashed masses, even if I don't ordinarily go out of my way to thank them for doing it.

Edited September 2, 2014 by rollermonkey

[SMC]

But how much sense does that make now that we have Disney princess and possibly Elves?

Well, Disney Princess is licensed, so it goes to the licensed themes; Elves is fantasy so it would go in the historic themes. Honestly, I think historic should get renamed... but I don't know to what. Fantasy could work, but people could get the wrong idea from it.

Disney Princess rarely gets any MOCs. I don't think it clogs up the licensed forum in any way.

Honestly, it doesn't look like there will be any 2015 Castle/LOTR/Hobbit sets, so Elves would be the only theme discussion there.

The point of having different themes is so that things are easy to find and so that things of a similar interest are in the same place. There is little point in having friends in with city, Disney princess with super heroes and elves with LOTR. People that like friends will most likely be interested in princess and elves. The minidoll is new a new subset of Lego aimed at girls unlike city, super heroes and LOTRs that have more in common with each other then they do with the minidoll themes that now sit with them. I can see why at first there would be a conversation about where friends sat but now it has become established with its own subthemes I think we can safely start a new theme for it as we know it is here to stay.

As for super heroes, Star War is not in the space forum but LOTR/Hobbit is in history forum. What is the difference, size and longevity. So the question is has Super Heroes become big enough to have its own theme. I think the case is help by Lego telling us that it is now evergreen like city, star wars, castle and space, the latter two don't even have any sets in 2015 but we know the next two years will be very big for SH with avengers 2 and batman v superman. License will also be getting Jurassic World (or will it go in Action along with Dino) and it does look like Lego is liking licenses at the moment so there could be others on the way.

I think sometimes we need to be a little more adaptable, if SH were not in license then that might have been a better place for the Lego movie.

Edited September 2, 2014 by SMC

[Infernum]

Great topic!

I have only one question about the structure of EB: Is their a max number of friends you can have? I mean the friends that show up on your profile page. A kinda random question, but it just occurred to me and I decided to open my mouth.

[Zerobricks]

Great topic!

I have only one question about the structure of EB: Is their a max number of friends you can have? I mean the friends that show up on your profile page. A kinda random question, but it just occurred to me and I decided to open my mouth.

I wonder that too, good question

[rollermonkey]

I think sometimes we need to be a little more adaptable, if SH were not in license then that might have been a better place for the Lego movie.

Absolutely agree with this. As much as I like the LEGO Movie, it really overwhelmed the 'Other' forum all year. There's a lot of blurred lines in some places, like having Modulars in Town when a good half of the Creator line could fit there, too but instead is down in 'Other'.

[Paul B Technic]

I really like "most" of how EB is ran, I do have some issues with the sub-forum I am mostly active in but I am not really in a position to bring those issues up.

[Rick]

There's a lot of blurred lines in some places, like having Modulars in Town when a good half of the Creator line could fit there, too but instead is down in 'Other'.

We clearly defined what goes in Town by two key word: minifig/-doll scale and contemporary. This includes Modular Buildings and the CREATOR buildings, because they complement the vehicle-oriented City theme really well. When it comes to discussion of new sets, that means the lines aren't always clearly defined. For most years, there's a CREATOR discussion thread in Special Themes for the whole wave, but - as of this year - there's also a CREATOR Houses thread in Town.

Most of the discussion here seems to center around set news and related discussion, but we also try to be a place for AFOLs to show their MOCs and receive constructive criticism from fellow builders. From that perspective, it makes a lot more sense to, for example, group Friends MOCs with City MOCs, because the scales are virtually the same. This also means that people can get feedback on their Friends vehicle (some examples) and building (more examples) MOCs from the people who build City vehicles and Modular buildings. The rumoured Elves line might (depending on how it's exactly done) fit very well in History because, when people start MOCing in the spirit of the line, they will likely benefit from the comments by people who build (fantasy) history MOCs. Moreover, the parts the line possibly introduces could find their way into minifig-scaled History MOCs quickly (like Friends parts do in Kristel's Modulars in Town).

[kabel]

Judging from what we see in the Disney princess line I really am not cinviced of Elves being an add on for the History community and wish you had discussed that with all of the History staff.

[SMC]

I think we are moving further and further away from how Lego splits up different lines. If you are talking about MOCs and parts then I think that Friends has a lot more in common with Disney princesses than it does with city. A lot of AFOLs don’t like minidolls and would like to see it have its own theme for those that do. I do feel sorry for those that enjoy minidolls as their Mocs and chat get lost in City, Licence and now History. Most supermarkets don’t even have the minidoll lines in with Lego so they don’t see this crossover appeal. As someone who spends a lot of time in history I really don’t want to see a Friends line there. We even have a friends moderator, I would have thought a friends/minidoll forum would be a no brainer.

Edited September 3, 2014 by SMC

[Rick]

Judging from what we see in the Disney princess line I really am not cinviced of Elves being an add on for the History community and wish you had discussed that with all of the History staff.

I was explaining why we decided to put Friends in the Town forum. If you look at the links I included, you see that the setting of a theme (contemporary non-fiction in the case of City and Friends) ties MOCers together much more than whether minifigs or minidolls are included. A very practical concern is that not a lot of people create pure Friends MOCs, so if we created a separate forum for the Friends line, I predict that it'd be a forum with a lot of activity around the time new sets are released, but very quiet for the rest of the year.

Regarding the rumoured Elves line, nothing has been decided and I'm sure we'll have a discussion about where to put the set discussion threads once we see pictures:

The rumoured Elves line might (depending on how it's exactly done) fit very well in History because, when people start MOCing in the spirit of the line, they will likely benefit from the comments by people who build (fantasy) history MOCs. Moreover, the parts the line possibly introduces could find their way into minifig-scaled History MOCs quickly (like Friends parts do in Kristel's Modulars in Town).

Maybe they'll have flick-fire missiles and we'll stick them in Action Themes.

If you are talking about MOCs and parts then I think that Friends has a lot more in common with Disney princesses than it does with city. A lot of AFOLs don’t like minidolls and would like to see it have its own theme for those that do. I do feel sorry for those that enjoy minidolls as their Mocs and chat get lost in City, Licence and now History. Most supermarkets don’t even have the minidoll lines in with Lego so they don’t see this crossover appeal. As someone how spends a lot of time in history I really don’t want to see a Friends line there.

Did you click the links I included in my earlier post? They're Town-themed MOCs that include parts introduced in the Friends line and/or minidolls. As I mentioned above, there aren't a lot of people that include minidolls in their MOCs and a dedicated forum would consist mainly of news threads. The MOCs that would be posted there would not receive the exposure they deserve and the comments from MOC experts in Town, History, etc. My experience in Town is that "Friends MOCs" receive great comments from traditional Town builders.

[rollermonkey]

That's the problem with the Special forums... We get MOCs of Friends style cars and the like in there all the time... It's a hodge-podge by design, and that means that stuff gets thrown in there at random, which is tough for fans of the dedicated lines like Architecture that get lost in all the jumble.