Subject:
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Re: Brickshelf going away???
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Fri, 27 May 2005 22:16:21 GMT
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Viewed:
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6617 times
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In lugnet.general, Bruce Hietbrink wrote:
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I’m trying to not go into a total panic on this.
Even if Kevin saved the whole database, or switched it all over to Maj.com,
all links would be broken! Therefore any links page, any archived post on
Lugnet or some other forum, would become immediately useless.
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That is not necessarily true; brickshelf.com could run a simple CGI that
redirects any queries to the corresponding location on maj.com. Since they seem
to be running the same software and have the same URL structure, it would be
pretty trivial to do.
But maj.com appears to be run by Brickshelf LLC. So I don’t understand why
brickshelf would go down, yet maj.com stay up. The only extra expense for
brickshelf, as far as I can see, would be the domain name, which is about
$60/year.
To me, maj.com is a pretty poor substitute. Going there today, none of the
folders shown on the first couple of recent-folders pages were LEGO. They were
a bunch of junk I don’t care to wade through looking for new MOCs. The server
code could be reworked a bit to give ALEs (*) their own subdomain or some such,
allowing us to see only the LEGO-related pictures, but I’m not too optimistic
about that happening.
I’m a software engineer, and this has me looking at it as an engineering
problem... if brickshelf does go away, or stop accepting uploads, then we need
to replace it with something. We want it to be something reliable, that won’t
disappear years from now. That’s tough to do -- people change, big life (and
death) events happen, so anything that depends on one person or a small group
will ultimately fail.
Two ideas come to mind:
1. We could make an open-source project for the CGI code that runs a site, and
set it up so that the code can be run on multiple sites which will mirror each
other. Then we would probably get a couple of mirrors going around the world,
just to give fast localized service. But then if any one site goes down, the
others will take up the slack, and if (for example) there is no longer a site in
the U.S., it’s virtually certain that somebody will set one up.
2. We could eschew the web entirely and make a custom (but fairly simple)
peer-to-peer file sharing system, like Napster or Gnutella but just for LEGO
images (and perhaps other media?). We could write it in something
cross-platform like REALbasic, and again, make it open source so that it can’t
die as long as at least one programmer is interested in it.
Of the two, option 1 is probably preferable, for several reasons. The
open-source project could also have a central “dispatch server” with a stable
domain name, which doesn’t serve any files, but merely redirects any queries to
the closest mirror site. That way, we could have stable, uniform URLs linking
into the gallery, even as individual servers come and go.
If this sounds like a good idea to anyone, I’d certainly participate in the
development work. But of course I’d still like to hear more about the future of
brickshelf.com before we start scrambling for a replacement.
Best,
- Joe
(*) ALE = Adult Lego Enthusiast, a newer term I prefer over AFOL.
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Brickshelf going away???
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| In lugnet.general, Joe Strout wrote: snip 8< snip 8< (...) $60/year? I Never pay that much for a domain! I can't believe people still do! Here's where I shop: (URL) There may be better deals out there. If you're looking for a deal on hosting, try (...) (19 years ago, 27-May-05, to lugnet.general, FTX)
| | | Re: Brickshelf going away???
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| (...) maj.com probably gets more ad revenue since its audience is wider and the ads are more varied. I'm not sure why that couldn't subsidize BS though... --Bram (19 years ago, 28-May-05, to lugnet.general)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Brickshelf going away???
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| (...) I'm trying to not go into a total panic on this. Even if we can shift everything over to Maj.com, it would be a huge hit to the community. For one, not everyone will shift everything over, either because they don't reallize that the site is (...) (19 years ago, 27-May-05, to lugnet.general, FTX)
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