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Tonight there is a new newsgroup area on LUGNET dedicated to discussions about
LEGO as a company and to being an "online communication-to-LEGO channel." It
is starting out small, with the option to grow it as needed over the coming
months/years. (A major area of focus at present is of course LEGO Direct.)
The groups:
First, there's a main group, lugnet.lego, for TLC as a whole (as a company,
as opposed to in-depth discussions about products). This group probably won't
get much traffic initially, but will certainly have spikes from time to time
as issues arise and fade. This is where spin-off threads from .dear-lego or
debates about TLC should occur. (The .dear-lego group will remain as a one-way
open-letters forum and shouldn't be used for debates or discussions. At a
future point, the .dear-lego newsgroup may also require followups set to
.lego, in order to eschew discussions in .dear-lego.)
Second, there's a Brad Justus & LEGO Direct group, lugnet.lego.direct, for
anything and everything having to do with LEGO Direct -- questions, rants,
raves, suggestions, in-depth discussions about offerings, etc. -- anything
which would be helpful to Brad and his team at LEGO Direct. (Brad and others
at LEGO Direct will certainly help shape this group over time.)
Third and finally (and perhaps most importantly, if you're a casual reader),
there's a very special-for-TLC group, lugnet.lego.announce, for official LEGO
announcements. If you want to hear the latest news from LEGO Direct or LEGO
Media or stay up-to-date with LEGO Press Releases, subscribe to this group for
email delivery.
The charters for these three groups are short and simple -- to allow for
maximum flexibility, shaping, and future expansion.
For more background (mostly historical):
http://www.lugnet.com/general/?n=11596
http://www.lugnet.com/admin/general/?n=3827
http://www.lugnet.com/admin/general/?n=5027
http://www.lugnet.com/admin/general/?n=5029
http://www.lugnet.com/admin/general/?n=6024
CHARTERS/PURPOSE
================
-> lugnet.lego (group and hierarchy):
The LEGO Company
-> lugnet.lego.direct (group):
LEGO Direct
-> lugnet.lego.announce (group):
Official announcements from the LEGO Company: Press Releases, LEGO
Direct announcements, etc.
TO SUBSCRIBE
============
To participate via NNTP (netnews), point your newsreader here:
news://lugnet.com/lugnet.lego
or news://lugnet.com:1119/lugnet.lego
or news://lugnet.com:8000/lugnet.lego
or news://lugnet.com:8080/lugnet.lego
news://lugnet.com/lugnet.lego.direct
or news://lugnet.com:1119/lugnet.lego.direct
or news://lugnet.com:8000/lugnet.lego.direct
or news://lugnet.com:8080/lugnet.lego.direct
news://lugnet.com/lugnet.lego.announce
or news://lugnet.com:1119/lugnet.lego.announce
or news://lugnet.com:8000/lugnet.lego.announce
or news://lugnet.com:8080/lugnet.lego.announce
To participate via HTTP (web interface), point your web browser here:
http://www.lugnet.com/lego/
http://www.lugnet.com/lego/direct/
http://www.lugnet.com/lego/announce/
To subscribe via SMTP (e-mail), point your web browser here:
http://www.lugnet.com/news/mail/
To register for posting to any LUGNET group (if you haven't yet done so),
point your web browser here:
http://www.lugnet.com/news/post/setup/
--Todd & Suz
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This all sounds great, I just have one question:
In lugnet.announce, Todd Lehman writes:
> there's a very special-for-TLC group, lugnet.lego.announce, for official LEGO
> announcements.
So who gets posting privileges to this one? Must a TLC employee/r contact you
to get posting privileges...? Or are the privileges given to everyone but it
should be understood that the average lugnetter does not go and post there...?
Just wondering!
-Shiri
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In lugnet.lego.direct, Shiri Dori writes:
> This all sounds great, I just have one question:
>
> In lugnet.announce, Todd Lehman writes:
> > there's a very special-for-TLC group, lugnet.lego.announce, for official
> > LEGO announcements.
>
> So who gets posting privileges to this one? Must a TLC employee/r contact
> you to get posting privileges...?
Currently, no.
> Or are the privileges given to everyone
Currently, yes. Subject to change if it's abused.
> but it should be understood that the average lugnetter does not go and post
> there...?
Right.
--Todd
> Just wondering!
>
> -Shiri
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In lugnet.announce, Todd Lehman writes:
> Tonight there is a new newsgroup area on LUGNET dedicated to discussions
> about LEGO as a company and to being an "online communication-to-LEGO
> channel." It is starting out small, with the option to grow it as needed
> over the coming months/years. (A major area of focus at present is of
> course LEGO Direct.)
Some more background and clarification (Important):
This new .lego.* area (especially .lego.direct) is intended more as a
"community dialogue with the LEGO Company -- for courteous and concise
discussion" than as a regular traffic discussion group.
What does that mean exactly? Well, people at LEGO will be reading the
.lego.* newsgroups (especially Brad Justus at LEGO Direct) and they won't
necessarily have infinite amounts of time to sift through tons and tons of
messages. Brad mentioned, for example, that it took him hours to read
through all of the hundreds of replies to his first two introductory messages
last December -- much more time than he was prepared to spend. Thus, one
quick way we can help Brad and his colleagues is by trying not to deluge
these groups with messages.
Other things which are *un*helpful to Brad:
- Arguments, bickering, or other off-topic chatter/noise
- Me-too's and thank-you's (nice but not really helpful)
- Repetition of something that's already been said
- Misdirected rants, raves, or questions
Brad will probably be able to explain more later about what he'd like to
hear from the community, as things progress. Helpful things will probably
include things like:
- Concise, thoughtful answers/replies to actual questions
- Issues/concerns/suggestions which haven't yet been raised
So that's one way we can help Brad.
A second way we can help Brad is to rate messages in the context of people
from LEGO reading the messages. Thus, as you decide how to rate a message in
lugnet.lego.direct, for example, please consider Brad very strongly as your
target of recommendation -- and this will help Brad comb through the messages
more swiftly.
Some examples, with comments -- and this isn't to pick on anyone or suggest
that what anyone posted was bad or unhelpful -- it's just to illustrate the
above...
(These were chosen from the approximately 600(!) messages resulting as
follow-ups to a handful of messages posted by Brad Justus...)
http://www.lugnet.com/general/?n=11603
http://www.lugnet.com/general/?n=11608
http://www.lugnet.com/general/?n=11621
http://www.lugnet.com/general/?n=11654
http://www.lugnet.com/general/?n=11678
http://www.lugnet.com/general/?n=11684
http://www.lugnet.com/general/?n=11693
Very nice, warm messages -- but not particularly helpful to Brad.
Messages like these, if they should happen to appear in .lego.direct,
should be marked relatively low (even though they're nice!).
http://www.lugnet.com/dear-lego/?n=875
Not particularly helpful to Brad, but helpful to the community.
Followups are directed to another group, which is a Good Thing.
http://www.lugnet.com/general/?n=11726
Completely unhelpful to Brad, but giddy is fine here because followups
are directed to another group, which, again, is a Good Thing in this
case. :-)
http://www.lugnet.com/general/?n=12532
http://www.lugnet.com/general/?n=12545
http://www.lugnet.com/general/?n=11916
Way off-topic... Let's try hard to avoid this in the new groups. (But
again, taking off-topic subthreads into other groups is OK, as long as
it shifts the clutter away from the group in question.)
http://www.lugnet.com/general/?n=11660
http://www.lugnet.com/general/?n=12290
http://www.lugnet.com/general/?n=12390
(These are probably some of the more helpful messages.)
http://www.lugnet.com/general/?n=11728
Great questions -- but possibly mis-directed. (I think Brad mentioned
a while back that at some point down the road, perhaps LEGO Legal might
be able to appear from time to time to answer questions. Until then,
questions like these (important questions!) aren't probably much help
to Brad. But he can help define what he's looking for, and whether this
type of message should be rated higher or lower in accordance with
that ideal.)
Again, the above comments aren't to suggest that the deluge which occurred
last December was a bad thing -- if anything, it hepled show how enthusiastic
a community we are -- but as things settle in and become more "serious" we
should think twice before posting to the .lego.* groups, especially
.lego.direct -- which Brad will be reading closely.
.dear-lego is still for open letters to LEGO -- one-way without any answer
expected -- like "Dear Santa:"
.lego.direct is a two-way channel -- so use it sparingly!
> [...]
> Third and finally (and perhaps most importantly, if you're a casual reader),
> there's a very special-for-TLC group, lugnet.lego.announce, for official LEGO
> announcements. If you want to hear the latest news from LEGO Direct or LEGO
> Media or stay up-to-date with LEGO Press Releases, subscribe to this group
> for email delivery.
> [...]
A minor clarification here: The .lego.announce group is currently postable-to
by anyone -- so that copies of official press releases can be put there -- but
it might not always stay so open. In other words, if the group gets abused
(intentionally or unintentionally) and used for non-official announcements,
it'll need to have a filter on it which only lets certain pre-approved people
(such as Brad, for example) post announcements to it. Simple rule of thumb:
If in doubt, Don't post to the .lego.announce group -- use the regular
.announce group instead. :-)
The .lego.announce group will probably be the lowest bandwidth of all the
announcements groups. Highly recommend subscribing to it, at least by email!
http://www.lugnet.com/news/mail/
--Todd & Suz
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Todd Lehman <lehman@javanet.com> wrote:
> In lugnet.announce, Todd Lehman writes:
> > Tonight there is a new newsgroup area on LUGNET dedicated to discussions
> > about LEGO as a company and to being an "online communication-to-LEGO
> > channel." It is starting out small, with the option to grow it as needed
> > over the coming months/years. (A major area of focus at present is of
> > course LEGO Direct.)
>
> Some more background and clarification (Important):
>
> This new .lego.* area (especially .lego.direct) is intended more as a
> "community dialogue with the LEGO Company -- for courteous and concise
> discussion" than as a regular traffic discussion group.
>
> What does that mean exactly? Well, people at LEGO will be reading the
> .lego.* newsgroups (especially Brad Justus at LEGO Direct) and they won't
> necessarily have infinite amounts of time to sift through tons and tons of
> messages. Brad mentioned, for example, that it took him hours to read
> through all of the hundreds of replies to his first two introductory messages
> last December -- much more time than he was prepared to spend. Thus, one
> quick way we can help Brad and his colleagues is by trying not to deluge
> these groups with messages.
>
> Other things which are *un*helpful to Brad:
>
> - Arguments, bickering, or other off-topic chatter/noise
> - Me-too's and thank-you's (nice but not really helpful)
> - Repetition of something that's already been said
> - Misdirected rants, raves, or questions
...sounds like a great idea. Perhaps an idea to keep the signal to noise ratio high is to
require follow-ups go to a diff group (similar to lugnet.announce) except for certain
people (like Brad). Perhaps create lego.followup to direct most follow-ups and whenever a
group consensus is reached or the point is me-to'd to death, someone can manually post it
back to 'lego.whatever'.
...By keeping the follow ups in the lego.* group normally the guys at LEGO will know where
to look for most replies and continuing thoughts if they really want to see what kind of
response it gets.
...just a thought :-)
...you can go back to ignoring me now...
wubwub
stephen f roberts
wamalug guy (http://wamalug.org)
wildlink.com
lugnet #160
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Todd Lehman wrote:
> Some more background and clarification (Important):
Thank's for the clarifications.
> http://www.lugnet.com/general/?n=11728
> Great questions -- but possibly mis-directed. (I think Brad mentioned
> a while back that at some point down the road, perhaps LEGO Legal might
> be able to appear from time to time to answer questions. Until then,
> questions like these (important questions!) aren't probably much help
> to Brad. But he can help define what he's looking for, and whether this
> type of message should be rated higher or lower in accordance with
> that ideal.)
This one certainly doesn't belong in lugnet.lego.direct, but probably is
reasonable for lugnet.lego (and in the future, it is possible that there
might be a lugnet.lego.legal, which would then be the most correct place
for posts of this type).
One thing I'd definitely like to see is the various "what pieces should
TLC make" discussions happen perhaps in lugnet.dear-lego (or perhaps
they deserve their own group - I'd actually prefer to not see these in
lugnet.general). If the discussion generates a consensus list of things
to request from TLC, then I'd love to see a summary post cross-posted to
an appropriate lugnet.lego group. Part of what I see the division as now
being is for dear-lego to be a place to express wish lists, which we
hope TLC will read, but understand they probably won't be able to
fulfill. The lugnet.lego groups would then be the place where concrete
requests are made, which we want TLC to consider and respond to.
Of course all of that is just my opinion.
--
Frank Filz
-----------------------------
Work: mailto:ffilz@us.ibm.com (business only please)
Home: mailto:ffilz@mindspring.com
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In lugnet.general, Stephen F. Roberts writes:
> ...sounds like a great idea. Perhaps an idea to keep the signal to noise
> ratio high is to require follow-ups go to a diff group (similar to
> lugnet.announce) except for certain people (like Brad).
'Course, if Brad or another Lego rep continues the pattern they've set so far,
meaning drop in once a quarter, mention how wonderfully interested they are in
what we have to say (while responding to almost nothing that has been said),
make nebulous promises about things they're working on and planning, then
disappear again for another 3 months, having any posts at all by non-Lego
people will throw the signal to noise ratio out of whack...
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In lugnet.lego.direct, Todd Lehman writes:
> Brad will probably be able to explain more later about what he'd like to
> hear from the community, as things progress. Helpful things will probably
> include things like:
>
> - Concise, thoughtful answers/replies to actual questions
> - Issues/concerns/suggestions which haven't yet been raised
>
> So that's one way we can help Brad.
The word you're looking for is "pithy" :)
--
Asher
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In lugnet.general, Frank Filz writes:
> This one certainly doesn't belong in lugnet.lego.direct, but probably is
> reasonable for lugnet.lego (and in the future, it is possible that there
> might be a lugnet.lego.legal, which would then be the most correct place
> for posts of this type).
I would love to see a lugnet.lego.legal in the future, but it'll have to
depend on TLC Legal actually being willing to participate. :)
> One thing I'd definitely like to see is the various "what pieces should
> TLC make" discussions happen perhaps in lugnet.dear-lego (or perhaps
> they deserve their own group
Brad will probably be able to offer some ideas later, if/when LEGO Direct is
set up to take such requests... Someone one suggested a subgroup called
.bulk or .bulk-sales or .bulk.requests -- but it may turn out that LEGO Direct
puts forms up on their website for taking requests, in which case a newsgroup
for them wouldn't help them much.
> - I'd actually prefer to not see these in
> lugnet.general). If the discussion generates a consensus list of things
> to request from TLC, then I'd love to see a summary post cross-posted to
> an appropriate lugnet.lego group. Part of what I see the division as now
> being is for dear-lego to be a place to express wish lists, which we
> hope TLC will read, but understand they probably won't be able to
> fulfill.
Yah, agreed.
> The lugnet.lego groups would then be the place where concrete
> requests are made, which we want TLC to consider and respond to.
Yop -- and we'll need to hear mostly what TLC needs here before making more
channels for that. :)
--Todd
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Mike Stanley wrote in message ...
>
> 'Course, if Brad or another Lego rep continues the pattern they've set so far,
> meaning drop in once a quarter, mention how wonderfully interested they are in
> what we have to say (while responding to almost nothing that has been said),
> make nebulous promises about things they're working on and planning, then
> disappear again for another 3 months, having any posts at all by non-Lego
> people will throw the signal to noise ratio out of whack...
That'll be good. It'll mean they're probably hard at work rather than news
surfing like the rest of us..... ;-)
Cheers,
Paul
LUGNET member 164
http://www.geocities.com/doctorshnub/
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In lugnet.lego.direct, Todd Lehman writes:
> [...]
> A minor clarification here: The .lego.announce group is currently
> postable-to by anyone -- so that copies of official press releases can be
> put there -- but it might not always stay so open. In other words, if the
> group gets abused (intentionally or unintentionally) and used for
> non-official announcements,
Yikes -- well, that sure didn't take very long, did it...
http://www.lugnet.com/robotics/rcx/?n=570
> it'll need to have a filter on it which only lets certain pre-approved
> people (such as Brad, for example) post announcements to it.
OK, this filter is now in effect. 6 people (3 from LEGO, plus Suzanne, me,
and Chet Corbin) currently have "passage" to post to the group.
--Todd
[followups to .admin.general]
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In lugnet.lego.direct, Todd Lehman writes:
> > > there's a very special-for-TLC group, lugnet.lego.announce, for
> > > official LEGO announcements.
> >
> > So who gets posting privileges to this one? Must a TLC employee/r contact
> > you to get posting privileges...?
>
> Currently, no.
>
> > Or are the privileges given to everyone
>
> Currently, yes. Subject to change if it's abused.
OK, this has changed. Posting privileges to lugnet.lego.announce are now
disabled by default.
> > but it should be understood that the average lugnetter does not go and
> > post there...?
>
> Right.
Still true, but now managed by the server, in case someone forgets or ignores
the charter.
--Todd
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