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In lugnet.general, Steven Asbury wrote:
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The instruction and catalog scans have been removed. Kevin posted the
following message ...
“Due to the loss of our major sponsor, Instruction and Catalog scans are no
longer available at Brickshelf.com. We are working to find them a new home.
When we do, we will post a link here. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
I also see there is a message asking users to transfer their files to maj.com.
Kevin (or anyone), can you give us some more information? Is Brickshelf going
away immediately? If so, what timetable do we have before our galleries
disappear?
-Steven
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I’m trying to not go into a total panic on this. Even if we can shift
everything over to Maj.com, it would be a huge hit to the community. For one,
not everyone will shift everything over, either because they don’t reallize that
the site is dying (I personally never go to the front page of Brickshelf--my
bookmark goes directly to “/cgi-bin/recent.cgi”), because they’ve either left
the hobby altogether or taken a break (e.g., someone who goes away to school),
or, tragically, those AFOLs like Travis Kunce or others that we’ve lost. So a
large number of MOCs would be lost to the community. Even if Kevin saved the
whole database, or switched it all over to Maj.com, all links would be broken!
Therefore any links page, any archived post on Lugnet or some other forum, would
become immediately useless.
I don’t think I’m overstating things to say that Lugnet, Peeron, Brickset,
1000Steine.de, Classic-Castle, or just about any major AFOL site could die and
the community would recover. Brickshelf, OTOH, is another matter altogether.
If we lost that we’d be reeling for a long time.
Is there any foundation to these fears? Is Brickshelf going away, is there
anything we can do? I know that I’m always intending to send in a donation but
never seem to get to it. I’m sure there are tons of other AFOLs who would
similarly be willing to donate. Could we do a fund drive? Has Jake been
notified? Is there anything LEGO can do? Or are they the “major sponsor” that
has been lost?
Kevin? What is the story? What can we do?
Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.
Bruce
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In lugnet.general, Bruce Hietbrink wrote:
> I'm trying to not go into a total panic on this. Even if we can shift
> everything over to Maj.com, it would be a huge hit to the community. For
> one, not everyone will shift everything over, either because they don't
> reallize that the site is dying (I personally never go to the front page of
> Brickshelf--my bookmark goes directly to "/cgi-bin/recent.cgi"), because
> they've either left the hobby altogether or taken a break (e.g., someone who
> goes away to school), or, tragically, those AFOLs like Travis Kunce or others
> that we've lost. So a large number of MOCs would be lost to the community.
> Even if Kevin saved the whole database, or switched it all over to Maj.com,
> all links would be broken! Therefore any links page, any archived post on
> Lugnet or some other forum, would become immediately useless.
Raised some good points. I had similar thoughts/feelings on reading the news.
This is big, and it's bad.
Don't forget we've already lost MOCPages (at least for the moment; I've crossed
my fingers) So losing BS would be like losing a fat chunk of the very essence of
the lego community. Who are we as builders without pictures of our creations?
The first thing I tell anyone who is a novice, or shows even a mild interest in
LEGO is to browse Brickshelf-- not LUGNET, since the words here are all but
meaningless to them. But pics? Everyone understands pics. I sincerely hope this
is not the end.
:`-(
Legoswami
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In lugnet.general, Bruce Hietbrink wrote:
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I’m trying to not go into a total panic on this.
Even if Kevin saved the whole database, or switched it all over to Maj.com,
all links would be broken! Therefore any links page, any archived post on
Lugnet or some other forum, would become immediately useless.
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That is not necessarily true; brickshelf.com could run a simple CGI that
redirects any queries to the corresponding location on maj.com. Since they seem
to be running the same software and have the same URL structure, it would be
pretty trivial to do.
But maj.com appears to be run by Brickshelf LLC. So I don’t understand why
brickshelf would go down, yet maj.com stay up. The only extra expense for
brickshelf, as far as I can see, would be the domain name, which is about
$60/year.
To me, maj.com is a pretty poor substitute. Going there today, none of the
folders shown on the first couple of recent-folders pages were LEGO. They were
a bunch of junk I don’t care to wade through looking for new MOCs. The server
code could be reworked a bit to give ALEs (*) their own subdomain or some such,
allowing us to see only the LEGO-related pictures, but I’m not too optimistic
about that happening.
I’m a software engineer, and this has me looking at it as an engineering
problem... if brickshelf does go away, or stop accepting uploads, then we need
to replace it with something. We want it to be something reliable, that won’t
disappear years from now. That’s tough to do -- people change, big life (and
death) events happen, so anything that depends on one person or a small group
will ultimately fail.
Two ideas come to mind:
1. We could make an open-source project for the CGI code that runs a site, and
set it up so that the code can be run on multiple sites which will mirror each
other. Then we would probably get a couple of mirrors going around the world,
just to give fast localized service. But then if any one site goes down, the
others will take up the slack, and if (for example) there is no longer a site in
the U.S., it’s virtually certain that somebody will set one up.
2. We could eschew the web entirely and make a custom (but fairly simple)
peer-to-peer file sharing system, like Napster or Gnutella but just for LEGO
images (and perhaps other media?). We could write it in something
cross-platform like REALbasic, and again, make it open source so that it can’t
die as long as at least one programmer is interested in it.
Of the two, option 1 is probably preferable, for several reasons. The
open-source project could also have a central “dispatch server” with a stable
domain name, which doesn’t serve any files, but merely redirects any queries to
the closest mirror site. That way, we could have stable, uniform URLs linking
into the gallery, even as individual servers come and go.
If this sounds like a good idea to anyone, I’d certainly participate in the
development work. But of course I’d still like to hear more about the future of
brickshelf.com before we start scrambling for a replacement.
Best,
- Joe
(*) ALE = Adult Lego Enthusiast, a newer term I prefer over AFOL.
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In lugnet.general, Samarth Moray wrote:
> In lugnet.general, Bruce Hietbrink wrote:
>
> > I'm trying to not go into a total panic on this. Even if we can shift
> > everything over to Maj.com, it would be a huge hit to the community. For
> > one, not everyone will shift everything over, either because they don't
> > reallize that the site is dying (I personally never go to the front page of
> > Brickshelf--my bookmark goes directly to "/cgi-bin/recent.cgi"), because
> > they've either left the hobby altogether or taken a break (e.g., someone who
> > goes away to school), or, tragically, those AFOLs like Travis Kunce or others
> > that we've lost. So a large number of MOCs would be lost to the community.
> > Even if Kevin saved the whole database, or switched it all over to Maj.com,
> > all links would be broken! Therefore any links page, any archived post on
> > Lugnet or some other forum, would become immediately useless.
>
> Raised some good points. I had similar thoughts/feelings on reading the news.
> This is big, and it's bad.
>
> Don't forget we've already lost MOCPages (at least for the moment; I've crossed
> my fingers) So losing BS would be like losing a fat chunk of the very essence of
> the lego community. Who are we as builders without pictures of our creations?
>
> The first thing I tell anyone who is a novice, or shows even a mild interest in
> LEGO is to browse Brickshelf-- not LUGNET, since the words here are all but
> meaningless to them. But pics? Everyone understands pics. I sincerely hope this
> is not the end.
>
> :`-(
>
> Legoswami
Eeesh, let us hope that this is not the case. Let this only be a duck and cover
drill...
Lugnet, Brickshelf, MOC pages are the three points of conjunction for all LEGO
interests. This would be really bad, as in a death blow to the greater
community. I have already withdrawn my own pics and am planning to host them on
a new site of my own. Which means that my small input of creativity will only be
seen by friends who know my site. Now magnify this by a hundred for all of the
people in this community. The seperate communities I think would find ways to
carry on, but the grand community would be gone.
This is like the burning of the Library of Alexandria (sp), if this happens, it
won't be long before we all de-evolve into primitve, barbaric brick building.
I think that before we sweat any more bullets, we need to hear the full details
of what is happening, and change the subject line to something more fitting,
that is IF Brickshelf is not going away. If it is, then we need to hear how we
AFOLs (ALEs) can take action and prevent the oncoming LEGO dark ages.
We will not go silently into the night!
By the way, as a novice turning moderate, I agree with the perusing Brickshelf
-- long hours of homework done there can do wonders to one's building skills.
Let's hear some news on what is happening, and what is going to happen. We AFOLs
will rally to the cause, I'm sure.
-Avery
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In lugnet.general, Joe Strout wrote:
snip 8< snip 8<
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But maj.com appears to be run by Brickshelf LLC. So I don’t understand why
brickshelf would go down, yet maj.com stay up. The only extra expense for
brickshelf, as far as I can see, would be the domain name, which is about
$60/year.
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$60/year? I Never pay that much for a domain! I can’t believe people still do!
Here’s where I shop: http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/default.asp?e=com
There may be better deals out there.
If you’re looking for a deal on hosting, try this: http://www.powweb.com/
snip 8< snip 8<
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(*) ALE = Adult Lego Enthusiast, a newer term I prefer over AFOL.
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I like that too. Sounds WAY more to the point.
Scott “Don’t pay too much for domains and hosting” Frischmann
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In lugnet.general, Samarth Moray wrote:
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Don’t forget we’ve already lost MOCPages (at least for the moment; I’ve
crossed my fingers) So losing BS would be like losing a fat chunk of the very
essence of the lego community. Who are we as builders without pictures of our
creations?
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Jake said that MOC Pages is OK (see
here); it’s just that Sean Kenney is away on his honeymoon, so he can’t fix the
glitch that’s got the site down.
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In lugnet.general, Joe Strout wrote:
> But maj.com appears to be run by Brickshelf LLC. So I don't understand why
> brickshelf would go down, yet maj.com stay up. The only extra expense for
> brickshelf, as far as I can see, would be the domain name, which is about
> $60/year.
maj.com probably gets more ad revenue since its audience is wider and the ads
are more varied. I'm not sure why that couldn't subsidize BS though...
--Bram
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