Subject:
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Re: Brickshelf Status
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:04:50 GMT
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Viewed:
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5307 times
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In lugnet.announce.brickshelf, Kevin Loch wrote:
> 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.
Kevin,
While I've forgotten my password (and thus, don't upload to my account), I do
not have a problem paying a bit to keep brickshelf up and running. I don't use
it extensively, but I think it's worth some money to keep it going.
Scott Lyttle
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Brickshelf Status
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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 (...) (17 years ago, 20-Jul-07, to lugnet.announce.brickshelf) !!
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