  
| Author: | SnarkBricks  | | Posted: | Jan 24, 2024 17:13 | | Subject: | Re: Important proposal regarding catalog variants | | Viewed: | 67 times | | Topic: | Catalog | |
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| NO! Our store sorts parts by the minutest detail and variant. I cannot see this
transition as anything other than a total disaster for stores like ours - We'd
have hundreds of lots to manage! The seemingly better way to handle this is for
Admin to go into the catalog and make these merging parts obsolete...no longer
added to the catalog for sale. This will send each store a notification of EACH
part that is becoming obsolete in their ACTION ITEMS listing and allow them to
make the commentary notes on each item and schedule their changes at a reasonable
pace to "pre-merge" them before a system merges them for the store. Of
the simple list of obsolete variants you showed in the list, we'd be looking
at hundreds, if not more than 1000 parts needing attention. I agree the parts
may be redundant BUT for that builder who wants genuine age appropriate parts
in their build, this is not a great option. Please reconsider and allow the store
to manage for the transition rather than backward management of it.
Snark Bricks
In Catalog, Admin_Russell writes:
| | Hello everyone,
As a platform, we have decided to take a hard look at some of the mold variants
that we are currently asking you to recognize. For sellers, more variants means
extra sorting and extra work while pulling orders, plus the issues that arise
from variant misunderstandings.
For buyers, excess variants mean that it's harder to assemble a wanted list,
find stores, and ultimately obtain the parts you are looking for.
I have put together a quick Help page to outline these proposed changes:
https://www.bricklink.com/help.asp?helpID=2625
Notice the date on this is coming up quickly (Feb 1), so I'm not giving a
lot of time for discussion. I'm aiming for about 1 week of discussion and
then we'll give sellers 2 weeks to adjust the descriptions on affected items
if they wish to retain the distinctions.
I plan to construct a full FAQ page with answers to all your questions. This
will serve to inform users about what was done here in February 2024, and also
help point the catalog in the right direction in the future.
To get started, I'll list a few here:
1. This sounds like you're dumbing down the BrickLink catalog to make
it easier for new users. Is that what is going on?
Not really. There are many, many other variants we expect people to sort and
care about. These ones don't really seem to matter much, and some of them
(e.g., the minifigure heads) actually cause problems for the catalog that cannot
be corrected otherwise.
2. What if I really care about a certain variant that is going away? Can I
still buy and sell that variant?
Absolutely! You can add notes to your listings to make them as "determined"
as you wish. Buyers can still search within notes for extra details, or they
can simply observe them as they browse listings.
3. How do I know which exact variants will be merged? I only see one example
in each category.
Please ask in this thread and I can be very specific. Usually we are talking
about a handful of parts and the printed versions.
4. Has a merge like this ever been done before?
Yes, there was a precedent - the Headlight Brick with Slot:
https://www.bricklink.com/message.asp?ID=1016584
It was marked for deletion a few years ago and was finally merged last August.
5. Are these the only parts up for consideration, or are there other variants
that will be merged as well?
This is all for now. Based on how well this goes, we may elect to remove other
entries later. However, we will keep all functional variants and important cosmetic
variants.
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Message is in Reply To:  Important proposal regarding catalog variants - Admin_Russell | Hello everyone, As a platform, we have decided to take a hard look at some of the mold variants that we are currently asking you to recognize. For sellers, more variants means [...]
(5 months ago, Jan 9, 2024, to Catalog) |
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