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In lugnet.announce.brickshelf, Kevin Loch wrote:
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I have not posted until now because there was too much uncertainty about
how (or if) this was going to work out.
Due to financial reasons, Brickshelf was no longer in a viable position to
continue operating. As our costs are billed monthly, any shutdown would occur
at the end of a calendar month. I decided that 15 days was enough time for
everyone to copy their files. Turning it off completely for a few days was
intended to send the message that this is serious and get everyones attention
so they could use the remaining time wisely. It also gave everyone an
opportunity to see what would break when it did finally shut down.
In hindsight I should have handled this differently but it’s too late for that
now.
I had long ago written off various ides for charging recurring fees because
AFOLs and geeks in general expect everything on the web to be free.
What turned this around is the totally unexpected volume of email I received
from what appear to be regular people. Many of these people expressed an
interest in paying some modest fee to keep the site running, if only there was
a way to do that.
In addition, I had underestimated the extent to which things would break
on other sites with Brickshelf gone. It was clear after the “test” shutdown
that some long lasting solution would be needed to at least keep old content
available in some way or I would not be able to sleep at night.
So we are going to try something new and see if it works. The site will
continue to work as it does now for free users. Paying users will have
the opportunity to have greater visibility of their folders (that pass
moderation and are not junk/avatars). Of course paying users would
also not see ads nor have ads on their folders.
To those wondering why maj.com was unaffected: It has
a tiny fraction (< 10%) of the traffic that Brickshelf gets While many
of you are aware of it, many more brickshelf users are not and it is possible
for me to run that site out of pocket at it’s current size. This is one
reason there were no instructions posted to simply move over there.
For those wondering if this was some elaborate stunt: I have a very
full time job and this distraction is the last thing I needed to deal
with right now. I did what I thought was necessary given the financial
circumstances. I am still taking a risk in continuing this but the
tremendous show of support has convinced me it is the right thing to do.
Final note:
It has come to my attention that some people have been impersonating me
on various forums. LUGNET is the only LEGO related forum I have ever posted
on (other than r.t.l in the old days) and it’s user authentication system
should give you reasonable assurance that it really is me.
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Kevin:
I don’t know about other AFOLs, but right now I have very little trust in
Brickshelf’s continued viability, and certainly not enough to give you $60 a
year.
I don’t expect to get things for free - I just spent $25 to upgrade to a
Flickr Pro account. I do expect
that if I spend money on a service, that it will be there when I need it. How do
we know you aren’t going to shut Brickshelf down again without any
communication?
Marc Nelson Jr.
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In lugnet.general, Marc Nelson Jr. wrote:
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Kevin:
I don’t know about other AFOLs, but right now I have very little trust in
Brickshelf’s continued viability, and certainly not enough to give you $60 a
year.
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I have faith in Brickshelf; enough to pay $60/year. So at least now you know
about one AFOL....
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I don’t expect to get things for free
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Really? Looks to me like you never ever bothered to contribute to Brickshelf.
Why not? Maybe because it was free?
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I just spent $25 to upgrade to a • Flickr Pro account. I do expect
that if I spend money on a service, that it will be there when I need it. How
do we know you aren’t going to shut Brickshelf down again without any
communication?
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Have fun with Flickr. I dare you to take down your BS account. But if you do,
have fun in MOC obscurity.
JOHN
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In lugnet.general, John Neal wrote:
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Have fun with Flickr. I dare you to take down your BS account. But if you
do, have fun in MOC obscurity.
JOHN
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Is this helping or hurting?
Jude
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In lugnet.general, Jude Beaudin wrote:
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In lugnet.general, John Neal wrote:
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Have fun with Flickr. I dare you to take down your BS account. But if you
do, have fun in MOC obscurity.
JOHN
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Is this helping or hurting?
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Okay, you’re right. I just got a little perturbed.
JOHN
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In lugnet.general, John Neal wrote:
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In lugnet.general, Marc Nelson Jr. wrote:
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Kevin:
I don’t know about other AFOLs, but right now I have very little trust in
Brickshelf’s continued viability, and certainly not enough to give you $60 a
year.
|
I have faith in Brickshelf; enough to pay $60/year. So at least now you know
about one AFOL....
| |
I don’t expect to get things for free
|
Really? Looks to me like you never ever bothered to contribute to
Brickshelf. Why not? Maybe because it was free?
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I just spent $25 to upgrade to a Flickr Pro account. I do expect that if I spend money on a service, that it
will be there when I need it. How do we know you aren’t going to shut
Brickshelf down again without any communication?
|
Have fun with Flickr. I dare you to take down your BS account. But if you
do, have fun in MOC obscurity.
JOHN
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Why haven’t I contributed to Brickshelf? The owner has threatened to shut it
down several times (this last time without any notice), does not respond to
emails or posts, and can shut it down again at any time without consulting
anyone. It just never seemed like a good use of my money.
I have donated to LUGNET, which is run by more than one person, and which has
always communicated with its users. The same goes for Flickr. True, both of
these services may shut down at any time, but I have faith that they would
consult with their users first. And I could have freeloaded on both of those
services, but I had faith in the products and their operators.
What, I should take my Brickshelf account down just to prove how valuable I am
to the world? Great idea, but someone just pulled the same stunt a couple days
ago...
Marc Nelson Jr.
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In lugnet.general, Marc Nelson Jr. wrote:
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| |
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I don’t expect to get things for free
|
|
|
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Why haven’t I contributed to Brickshelf? The owner has threatened to shut it
down several times (this last time without any notice), does not respond to
emails or posts, and can shut it down again at any time without consulting
anyone. It just never seemed like a good use of my money.
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So, in fact, you do expect to get things for free.
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What, I should take my Brickshelf account down just to prove how valuable I
am to the world?
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No, to be consistent with your “I don’t expect to get things for free”
statement.
JOHN
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Marc,
John is right. I won't even look at MOCs on Flickr. Maybe I'm missing
something, but I don't think Flickr is very good for viewing and downloading
MOCs.
"Marc Nelson Jr." <marcnelsonjr@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:JLHsvt.E4y@lugnet.com...
> > Have fun with Flickr. I dare you to take down your BS account. But if
> > you
> > do, have fun in MOC obscurity.
> >
> > [JOHN]
>
> Why haven't I contributed to Brickshelf? The owner has threatened to shut
> it
> down several times (this last time without any notice), does not respond
> to
> emails or posts, and can shut it down again at any time without consulting
> anyone. It just never seemed like a good use of my money.
>
> I have donated to LUGNET, which is run by more than one person, and which
> has
> always communicated with its users. The same goes for Flickr. True, both
> of
> these services may shut down at any time, but I have faith that they would
> consult with their users first. And I could have freeloaded on both of
> those
> services, but I had faith in the products and their operators.
>
> What, I should take my Brickshelf account down just to prove how valuable
> I am
> to the world? Great idea, but someone just pulled the same stunt a couple
> days
> ago...
>
> Marc Nelson Jr.
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Start here:
http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/?w=all&q=lego&m=names
There have been several LEGO groups that are theme specific already set up
for browsing.
--Mike.
In lugnet.general, Tony Kilaras wrote:
> Marc,
>
> John is right. I won't even look at MOCs on Flickr. Maybe I'm missing
> something, but I don't think Flickr is very good for viewing and downloading
> MOCs.
>
> "Marc Nelson Jr." <marcnelsonjr@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:JLHsvt.E4y@lugnet.com...
>
> > > Have fun with Flickr. I dare you to take down your BS account. But if
> > > you
> > > do, have fun in MOC obscurity.
> > >
> > > [JOHN]
> >
> > Why haven't I contributed to Brickshelf? The owner has threatened to shut
> > it down [snip]
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In lugnet.general, Marc Nelson Jr. wrote:
| |
I don’t know about other AFOLs, but right now I have very little trust in
Brickshelf’s continued viability, and certainly not enough to give you $60 a
year.
|
I’m willing to give $60 to help keep Brickshelf going, not only do I enjoy using
it to host my images, I think of all the LUGNET post with links to Brickshelf
that I reference constantly while building my MOCs. The idea of such valuable
reference material being lost is worth trying to help keep BS going.
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In lugnet.general, Marc Nelson Jr. wrote:
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I don’t know about other AFOLs, but right now I have very little trust in
Brickshelf’s continued viability, and certainly not enough to give you $60 a
year.
|
Maybe things could have been handled differently, and it’s hard not to have
similar concerns, but speaking personally, Brickshelf has been a big part of my
online life for a long time. Once I feel like I’ve made even a dent in paying
back for all the years that I’ve already been using it for free, maybe then I’ll
think about future viability.
I can’t really fault anybody if some people have drawn more value out of having
Brickshelf than others over the years; not everyone’s been around as long or
been active to the same degree, and how much you’ve appreciated that service in
the meantime is your own business. But in my case it’s hard to worry too much
about the way the future may or may not go, given all the value I’ve already
gotten out of having it around.
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In lugnet.general, Mike Rayhawk wrote:
| |
In lugnet.general, Marc Nelson Jr. wrote:
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I don’t know about other AFOLs, but right now I have very little trust in
Brickshelf’s continued viability, and certainly not enough to give you $60 a
year.
|
Maybe things could have been handled differently, and it’s hard not to have
similar concerns, but speaking personally, Brickshelf has been a big part of
my online life for a long time. Once I feel like I’ve made even a dent in
paying back for all the years that I’ve already been using it for free, maybe
then I’ll think about future viability.
I can’t really fault anybody if some people have drawn more value out of
having Brickshelf than others over the years; not everyone’s been around as
long or been active to the same degree, and how much you’ve appreciated that
service in the meantime is your own business. But in my case it’s hard to
worry too much about the way the future may or may not go, given all the
value I’ve already gotten out of having it around.
|
Well said, Mike.
JOHN
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I second that.
"John" <John@TCLTC.org> wrote in message news:JLHvu6.97K@lugnet.com...
> > I can't really fault anybody if some people have drawn more value out of
> > having Brickshelf than others over the years; not everyone's been around
> > as
> > long or been active to the same degree, and how much you've appreciated
> > that
> > service in the meantime is your own business. But in my case it's hard
> > to
> > worry too much about the way the future may or may not go, given all the
> > value I've already gotten out of having it around.
>
> Well said, Mike.
>
> [JOHN]
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