  
| Author: | Tarkur  | | Posted: | Jan 30, 2024 16:25 | | Subject: | Re: Important proposal regarding catalog variants | | Viewed: | 96 times | | Topic: | Catalog | |
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| 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.
|
The more I read these back and forths I realize no matter which side of the coin
you are how poorly thought out the update is. I would have much preferred if
BrickLink instead of putting out a thread like this basically saying, screw you
guys we are going to make changes to this site and do it with the bare minimum
time for discussion in the way we've already decided on. Instead of saying
something like:
"In the near future we would like to streamline the BrickLink catalog for
our users where a few previously known variants will no longer have their own
entries. It is here you come in! We have been going back and forth on finding
a solution for how we can improve the UI of the website and we need your help.
We know some fans depends on these variants as such we would like to find an
alternative solution for logging these variants rather than just throwing them
out. Whatever solution we end up on we hope that you as a seller or buyer whether
you care for variants or not will be having a pleasant user experience on our
site once things are decided. We will not take any actions on the catalog until
we have a working system ready and implemented. We will keep in touch for questions
and to move the process along as to not drag this out too long."
Man, if this was what we got instead, imagine all the discussions and headaches
we would not need to endure. We truly do live in the worst timeline.
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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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Sweden, Norrbotten
