Subject:
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Re: Official and Unofficial theme categories
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.admin.database
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Date:
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Thu, 7 Jan 1999 16:56:05 GMT
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lpien@ctp.iwantnospam.comNOSPAM
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Todd Lehman wrote:
> Another example -- the 6399
> Airport Shuttle set could be categoried as a "Flight" set ("Flight" being an
> official sub-category of Town) as well as a "monorail" set ("monorail" being
> an unofficial nebulous category).
:-)
> Looking at this year's red Ninja sets, it also may make sense to split
> Ninja sets into two or three sub-categories -- the blue ones, the black
> ones, and the red ones.
I know you said you made this up for the sake of an example, but Nik and
I got in a row about this last night so I thought I'd share. I have to
credit him for making me scan all the sets and their figs. There don't
actually seem to BE any blue ninjas! Based on TLG descriptions and
examination of the sets, there are the following types of minifigs in
the sets:
- Samurai: blue torsos and arms, grey helmet "leather plate" that takes
the horns via clip
- Shogun: Like a samurai, but white torso/arms, grey "leatherplate"
breast armor and white leatherplate clip helmet
- Ninjas: These come in 4 colors, plus a special one
All grey with grey "cloth" face cover
All black with black face cover
All red with red face cover (the "red ninjas")
All white with white face cover (the "red ninja princess")
Red Ninja Master: all red with white beard and 2x2 garbage can lid hat
- Robbers/Bandits: Red torso, black hat (either the same helmet as
Samurai, but black, or black pirate/elf/santa droopy hat)
This is very confusing, there are a lot of different factions.
Prototypical, actually (ever play Sword of the Samurai??... to win you
have to play everyone else against each other)
But if I were going to categorise these sets I don't think I'd use the
ninja color to do it.
>
> I can see ANWB falling under an unofficial category called "airline" (or
> somesuch) which falls under an unofficial category called "promotional"
> (or somesuch).
Well, you know this topic gets me worked up so I will let it slide for a
while. But I strongly feel promotional is not a category. It's a
modifier on availability.
One small point, ANWB is not an airline, it's an auto club, I think,
which is why the (second set at least) subject matter is auto repair,
calling for help, trucks with their logo on them that can haul disabled
cars, etc.
> The Promotional/Christmas category is probably the same unofficial
> category as the Holiday/Christmas category -- just under a different name.
> So maybe the whole unofficial "holiday" category belongs as a sub-category
> of "promotional"...
>
> It's interesting to look at the Promotional/Soccer category vs. the
> Promotional/SHELL category. In the case of Soccer, it's actually its
> own *tightly coherent* theme -- (and as a side note, probably an unofficial
> sub-category of Town to some degree) -- while in the case of SHELL, the
> sets aren't their own "theme" but rather clear-cut instances of other
> themes, such as Town, Fright Knights, UFO, first-year Adventurers, etc.
> Nevertheless, the Shell sets need their own sub-category of "promotional."
> So -- in other words, the difference between Soccer and SHELL here is that
> sets within the Soccer category only belong to one category, whereas sets
> within the SHELL category belong to two categories: SHELL and some other
> theme-category. If you collect all Space sets, you wouldn't want to
> miss out on a U.F.O. set just because it was released through SHELL --
> especially when it has a 4-digit regular LEGO set number.
See, this is where calling SHELL a category falls apart. SHELL is not a
category, just a way to get sets. The shell soccer sets are
town/soccer/holland specific modified by the availability through shell.
> I notice that the McDonald's sets aren't in the DB yet. That'll need to
> be a sub-category for McDonald's and then sub-categories within McDonald's
> for the individual promotions (I think there were at least 3 years that
> they did them). One year (I think '89) they were offically called "LEGO
> Motion" sets. So "LEGO Motion" would be an official sub-category of
> "McDonald's," which is an unofficial or official (not sure which) sub-
> category of "promotional," which is an unofficial category.
Ditto. Just dump this, it doesn't buy you anything.
> The promo set 3047 Trick or Treat set (a.k.a. the "Orange Halloween
> Bucket") is arguably also a FreeStlye set. (Check out the makeup of
> the pieces -- right down to the stoopit Timmy minifig -- and the artistic
> style on the bucket and the presence of an idea poster -- normally only
> found in FreeStyle.) But of course it would have to be clearly designed as
> UNofficially belonging to FreeStyle. And if 3047 is not part of FreeStyle,
> then it's at least part of something that FreeStyle is also a part of --
> they're too similar not to be.
Ditto. This is a freestyle set that just happens to be only available at
Target.
> The "Samsonite" category is likely to have the same reorganization
> challenges as the "DACTA" and "Promotional" categories -- with lots of
> overlapping for different views of the data.
which is why again, I'd mark a set as Town (modified as available
through DACTA) instead of DACTA/Town
> Star Wars isn't a part of Space in the sense that it's not part of the
> LEGO Space System (official category), but it's certainly part of the same
> category that Space (capital "S") is. And that "space" super-category
> would also contain Launch Command, Space Port, and probably also the lunar
> lander set from the 70's, and the Technic space shuttle. Again, Launch
> Command would still be a 100% official sub-category of the Town System
> category.
You lost me here. These sets have subject matter of space but differ
significantly. LC and SP are properly part of town, as they are present
day sets at minifig scale.
The Technic SS is part of Technic. I think it's important to capture
subject matter affinity but not introduce supercategories for it.
Perhaps have a subject matter hierarchy modeled and have sets have an
affinity to it. That handles the sets that have more than one subject
matter (like the hydronauts/stingray hybrid, or a castle minifig set)
> Town is a hugely complex system with many, many themes over the years.
> Paradisa is especially interesting sub-category of town because it lasted
> for so long and was featured so prominently and differently in catalogs
> that people thought it was its own system separate from Town. Time
> Cruisers and Time Twisters are also special in that, although they are
> both themes within Town and are siblings, they should really be moved down
> a notch into their own separate, unofficial sub-category of Town:
>
> Town System (official category)
> |
> |-- foo1 (unofficial sub-category of Town System)
> | |-- Time Cruisers (official theme; sub-category of foo1)
> | \-- Time Twisters (official theme; sub-category of foo1)
:-) At first I thought this was FOOL not FOO - ONE ! :-) and thought you
were editorialising. :-)
> |
> |-- foo2 (unofficial sub-category of Town System)
> | |-- Launch command (official theme; sub-category of foo2)
> | \-- Space Port (official theme; sub-category of foo2)
> |
> |-- foo3 (unofficial sub-category of Town System)
> | |-- RSQ911 (official theme; sub-category of foo3)
> | |-- Rescue (official theme; sub-category of foo3)
> | \-- ResQ (official theme; sub-category of foo3)
> |
> : etc.
>
> BTW, it's interesting to note how similar the official Nautica-theme
> sets are to official Boats-theme sets (or is it Boats system?).
>
> > Trains
> > 12v
> > 4.5v
> > 4.5v/12v
> > 9v
> > Accessories
> > Classic Trains
> > General
> > ?
>
> Reorg festival! -- There must be enough fodder here to make a tree 4 or 5
> deep!
>
> And Larry can have monorail be a fractional sub-category of trains. :)
Actually, probably not, they are incompatible. You can't run trains on
monorail track or vice versa. However the sets probably would have
strong affinities in the subject matter hierarchy...
Transport
Land
Fixed Guideway
Two rail
Steel rails/wheels
Conventional Train (point A)
Steel rails/ rubber wheels
Paris Metro
Concrete rails/rubber wheels
Various airport people movers
One Rail
Concrete rails/steel wheels
Conventional Monorails (point B)
with most Lego train tying to point A and Lego Monorail tying to point
B via affinity
> Officially, ZNAP is its own whole system -- supposedly completely separate
> from Technic -- but it's interesting to note that ZNAP sets have actual
> Technic pieces in them -- that is, actual Technic pegs, gears, and motors.
> In that sense, it's almost more like Technic than ThrowBots/Slizer because
> there are more classic Technic pieces in regular technic colors in ZNAP than
> in ThrowBots/Slizer.
?? Lots of town sets have technic pieces in them too.
--
Larry Pieniazek http://my.voyager.net/lar
For me: No voyager e-mail please. All snail-mail to Ada, please.
- Posting Binaries to RTL causes flamage... Don't do it, please.
- Stick to the facts when posting about others, please.
- This is a family newsgroup, thanks.
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Official and Unofficial theme categories
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| (...) Wow! -- how many kids get to have that kind of a LEGO-geek discussion with their dad? :) Your categorizations above sound a lot better than colors! :) (...) I'm probably using the wrong terminology -- This whole OO-data-modeling thing is still (...) (26 years ago, 8-Jan-99, to lugnet.admin.database)
| | | Re: Official and Unofficial theme categories
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| (...) Actually, there are only three factions, according to TLG. They are the Blue Clan Samurai, the Red Robbers, and the Red Ninjas. The Blue Clan is teamed with the Dark Gray Ninjas, the Red Robbers are teamed with the Black Ninjas, and the Red (...) (26 years ago, 8-Jan-99, to lugnet.admin.database)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Official and Unofficial theme categories
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| OK, so here's my whole spiel on themes... This is a medium-term planning thing (1-3 months) and a background task while other stuff goes on. I don't expect we'll have the new theme tree completely worked out before the end of January or Februrary. (...) (26 years ago, 7-Jan-99, to lugnet.admin.database)
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