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Subject: 
Re: Whatever happened... LETS end this.....
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.general
Date: 
Wed, 22 Dec 2004 05:40:04 GMT
Viewed: 
1030 times
  
In lugnet.org.ca.rtltoronto, Kyle D. Jackson wrote:
1.  More MOC posts---We can all do that.

I'm not really sure how that helps things. People keep suggesting that because
they don't want to be reading the slush fights, but what do they end up reading?
The slush fights. People like controversy, plain and simple. That's why people
tune into Jerry Springer or Howard Stern or Fox Scare-You-Into-Watching News.
People see a MOC and think "oh cool" but it doesn't get them to post. People say
something controversial and others want to share a piece of their mind and post.

2.  A MOC rating system on LUGNET---It's been put out there, just light a
fire under someone's @ss to get it going.  :]

Again, dunno if that helps, but I agree it would be cool. Lugnet had issues with
its voting system in the past due to abuse. It'd have to be done carefully.

3.  Don't be silent---Dave K's advice.  Good idea.  I used to ignore things
as well.  Sometimes it allows things to fizzle (like trolls).  Unfortunately,
other things need to be put down, hard.

Agree (provided it's done right of course). I think one important factor is
generally to reply in as non-chalant a manner as possible to avoid emotion being
a spark starter (as hard as that often is). You don't want trolls responding to
you because you made them angry. They should only respond if they disagree with
your point.

4.  Disband certain .Market newsgroups---Okay, this one I came up with.

I dunno. I don't see it solving any communal problems. It's potential cleanup
that I suppose could be done, but I don't think it'll aid the community attitude
or .

- .market.appraisal---Burn it.  It's hardly used anyway, and it's only real
use is to assess theoretical market values of sets.  At one time we found
that useful.  But now eBay, Bricklink, etc., provide all the info by default.
This newsgroup is now more suitable for speculators than for *Users*.

Eh. There's things like collection appraisal (for insurance purposes for
instance), MOC appraisal, etc, that could still fit here. But by all means given
the activity in the group, its content could be diverted over to .general  or
something with little or no ill effect.

- .market.auctions---Burn it.  Auction sites exist elsewhere, and I doubt
anyone has run a do-it-yourself auction in a long time.  Let's make LUGNET
about using LEGO, not the LEGO marketplace.

Um. I think I disagree. Although I agree that it's unlikely to get used, god
forbid that someone decides to actually run a manual auction and posts constant
updates to some other newsgroup for lack of .auction. That gets really annoying
really fast. My guess is that was part of the impetus for Lugnet to begin with,
since many people got annoyed with auction updates flooding the forum that they
weren't interested in reading.

Actually, upon further review, most definitely keep it! I've unknowingly been
pointed at several Ebay auctions via .auction that I've bid on (and won in some
cases, amazingly!)

- .market.BrickShops---Burn it.  I'm pretty sure we all know how to find
Bricklink, etc., by now.  Maintaining the links somewhere on the site is
adequate.

Hm. I still like the idea of BrickShops primarily as an "Alert" system for
stores having sales, etc. Maybe BL has this feature already and I'm just
oblivious to it (since for the most part I personally don't care much), but
people might very well pay attention to this group to be notified of sales, etc.

- .market.BST---The "trade" part could be useful.  But buy/sell?  You could
make an argument for keeping this, but establishing some norms for conduct.
For example, no brickshop sales, no auctions, no retail sales, etc.  Stricty
user-to-user transactions.  It'll be pretty easy for any of us frequenting
that group to tell the difference between someone doing casual buy/sell and
someone trying to run "business" through there.  Stomp 'em when they do.

I might make an argument to combine .auction and .b-s-t, or .auction and
.brickshops. Or something. Basically: one group for people "advertising" 3rd
party auctions and one group for people actually conducting manual business.
Yeah, I think I like that.

- .market.Jambalaya---Keep it!  I have no idea if people still do these
things but this was one of the original, fun, and *non-commercial* trading
mechanisms.  Revive it!

Yeah, I agree.

- .market.services---Burn it.  It has far too much to do with conducting a
brickshop.

Agree. This could easily be folded into another NG. Not really sure what though.

- .market.shipping---Burn it.  See previous.

Agree. Again, foldable.

- .market.shopping---Arguable, burn it.  I think we are all well-connected
enough by now that we know how to find retail LEGO deals.  But newbies may
not, and when I was a newbie many moons ago I found this to be a very useful
service.  Could keep it, but again, let's "police it" as users to establish
the norm of what's acceptable there, and what isn't.  Local sales: great.
S@H specials: awesome.  Brickshop ads: gut 'em.  :]

I guess I kinda like this area. I'd say keep it I guess.

- .market.theory---Occasionally things get FUT'ed here, but then nobody
follows-up.  I put some stuff in there about how much LEGO can be stuffed
into the PaB bags, because I couldn't think of where else to put it.
Shopping would probably suffice though.  Otherwise, everything else to
.theory is mostly more useful to speculators than users.  Ergo, burn it.

Here's another one that's foldable into some other group.

- SUMMARY for .market---It's reduced to simply .BST, .shopping, and
.jambalaya.

I think many of those foldable groups could easily just go into a
"lugnet.market" group-- I'm not sure why no such group exists, but just a
generic group.

My personal preference summary:
- lugnet.market (combo of .appraisal, .services, .shipping, .theory)
- lugnet.market.advertising (links to Ebay auctions, BrickShop sales/deals, etc)
- lugnet.market.buy/sell/trade/auction (people doing actual manual
selling/buying/trading/auctioning)
- lugnet.market.jambalaya (retain)
- lugnet.market.shopping (retain)

6.  Meh, what the hell, while I'm on the soapbox:  .people---burn it.  Burn
it down, and salt the earth.  :]

I totally agree with Todd on this one. It's part of what makes a community a
community. People naturally WANT to have a place to say "I had a new baby!" or
"I finally got a house with a Lego room" or some such. Gives an outlet for that.

Anyhow, these are just starts.  Absolutely none of the above ideas can't be
implemented immediately.  Does it fix everything?  No.  Does it "bring back
the good ole days"?  Not immediately.  But it's a start on some small
changes, enough of which will get us there eventually.

Upon thinking some more about Calum's list
(http://news.lugnet.com/org/ca/rtltoronto/?n=12619), I think I'd add another
cause to his list of 4 things that changed the community:

5) No More Geeky Clique Access.

RTL was an obscure "newsgroup". Even today most people don't know what a
newsgroup is. Only the truly computer-nerdy knew how to find RTL, making its
population a lot more uniform. Computer-geeks often share the same personality
traits, etc, and hence fit together pretty well.

When Lugnet opened the door via the web interface (and of course the WWW got
extraordinarily popular even among the non-computer-savvy) a flood of people
entered who were Lego fans of another breed (of many breeds as it turns out).

Oh, and I'll extend Calum's #3 (Star Wars) to be licensing in general. Fad toys
weren't Lego's focus until 1999. Star Wars, Bionicle, Harry Potter, Galidor,
etc. Not so much generic toys as they used to be, but toys that are almost
instantly destined to fad status. Invites yet another class of Lego fans into
the fold who are unlike Lego fans of ages past.

To the rtlto posters, I would offer the additional poke:  quit freakin'
hiding in this group!!  Okay, keep all your non-sensical banter here  :]  but
put the on-topic stuff in the proper on-topic groups to help seed those
groups with useful topics to everyone.

I dunno. I almost hate to be posting here myself because I know part of what
RTL'ers LIKE about their group is that it's their own little private place.
Y'know what? I think I'm going to FUT .general for that purpose, cuz I bet many
may be getting annoyed with all this traffic from non-regulars to their group,
but I do agree that a topic like this should bounce over to a more wide-spread
group, since it's gotten more attention than just RTL'ers.

DaveE

(Whisked away to .general)



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