Author:  Admin_Russell  Posted:  Feb 15, 2024 14:39  Subject:  Re: Variants Thread - February 12  Viewed:  280 times  Topic:  Catalog Cancel Reply

BrickLink ID Card Admin_Russell Location:  USA, California Member Since Contact Type Status May 9, 2017 Admin BrickLink Administrator

In Catalog, Admin_Russell writes:    Hello again everyone, Below I have listed the general groups of variants we are tackling and the results of the deliberation over the last month. I was originally planning to provide a schedule for when these changes will happen, but based on the progress with the tiles since February 1, I am hesitant to commit to any timeline except that we will not change anything on this list prior to February 15. Today the catalog team got a message (in all caps) protesting the variant merges. Some of the points have not been addressed yet, so I thought I would take this opportunity to answer these before we get started with merging. Sorry it's so long. 01 WHY RUIN SOMETHING THAT WORKS SO WELL! YOU WILL LOSE MANY CUSTOMERS AROUND THE WOURLD, IN THIS HOBBY/WORK OF ART THE BUYER ALWAYS COMES FIRST! One of the things people will learn about the BrickLink catalog is that it is HUGE. Meaning that it would be hard to ruin it by just changing a few entries. 02 IF YOU DO THIS, YOU WILL DESTROY THE GREATEST REFERENCE FOR LEGO PARTS ANYWHERE ON THE INTERNET, PEOPLE FROM AROUND THE WORLD HAVE BEEN DOING DATA ENTRIES FOR 20 YEARS, ALL THIS DATA WILL BE GONE! We are actually saving the data, and others have done this too: https://www.bricklink.com/message.asp?ID=1454780 In some cases we will be making Help Pages to preserve the most useful data. 03 THER IS NO NEED TO DO THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE BACUSE WHEN THERE IS 2 OR 3 VARIANTS THER IS ALWAS A PICTURE OF THE TOP AND BOTTOM OF EACH PART SHOWING THE DIFFERENT DESIGN IMPROVEMENTS! The need is both for sellers who have boxes of used parts to sort and buyers who have to make their way around a catalog with entries that are hard to explain. 04 MANY OF US WILL USE CHINESE BASED WEB SITES AND OR BRICK-OWL.COM TO SOURCE OUR PARTS! I don't think so! 05 YOU ARE MAKING TO VERY BAD OF A DECISION WITH NOT IN PUT FROM THE US, AFOLS / BUYERS / SELLERS, We took input from people for the last month in the Forum, plus other input for many years. These decisions were not made in a vaccum. 06 DIFFERENT VARIANTS HAVE HAD SEPARATE ENTRIES FOR 20 YEARS, DONT "FIX" WHAT IS NOT BROKEN OR YOU WILL HAVE THE SAME FATE AS SEARS 07 THIS DOES NOT HONOR DANIEL JEZEK, THE FOUNDER OF BRICK-LINK.COM IN ANY WAY! For sure, Dan would have been on the side of this project. He sometimes referred to the "balkanization" of the catalog as a bad things. Many of the variants being removed would likely not have been approved under his leadership. 08 THIS RUNIS EVERTHING HE DID FOR AFOLS / BUYERS / SELLERS IF HE WAS STILL ALIVE TODAY HE WOULD BE VERY DISAPPOINTED! I think he would be relieved to not have to account for several different kinds of hollow studs. In fact, he was the one that made the policy that only ONE head stud variant would be used in all minfigure inventories. By continuing to allow solid stud heads in early inventories, we are actually breaking this policy. 09/A IN JULY 2018 YOU INTRODUCED STUDIO WITCH IS IN INDISPENSABLE, STUDIO AND BRICK LINK ARE LIKE SALT AND PEPPER OR PRIMER AND PAINT THEY MUST BE IN SYNCHRONIZATION WITH EATCH OTHER Agreed, although it is interesting that despite my personal efforts to further integrate Studio into this Forum, both the administration and the Studio userbase have insisted on keeping them separate. 09/B RIGHT NOW I CAN DESIGN A MOC ON STUDIO, I WILL THEN EXPORT THE PARTS TO BRICK LINK AND ORDER THE PARTS, BUILD THE MOC, CREATE THE INSTRUCTIONS AND SELL THEM ON REBRICKABLE.COM Or you could do this in MOC shop next year (2025), but only if the MOC meets certain standards. 09/C WHEN YOU MERGE VARIANTS YOU WILL RUIN BRICK LINK WEATHER YOU INTENDED TO OR NOT! IF YOU DO THIS I WILL HAVE NO CHOSE BUT TO USE BRICK-OWL.COM FOR THE MERGED VARIANTS I'm not entirely sure whether Brick Owl will retain these variants after we have merged them. I would advise against it, but if Brick Owl wants to corner the market on parts that almost nobody wants, they are free to to that. The Brick Owl catalog was decoupled from the BrickLink catalog years ago with the invention of the Brick Owl ID (BOID). 09/D THE PROBLEM IS BRICK-OWL.COM IS NOT INTEGRATED INTO STUDIO, THAT MAKES ORDERING PARTS A LOT MORE DIFFICULT, AND VERY TIME CONSUMING! Well there is a reason that Studio is integrated with the BrickLink catalog and not other catalogs. We pay for the development and maintenance of Studio, and we choose to benefit our platform with the integration. 09/E I WILL HAVE TO MANUALY AND IVDVUALY LOOK FOR EACH PART ON BRICK-OWL.COM THIS WILL TAKE HOURS! My advice is keep using BrickLink. The variants we are removing aren't going to make a lick of difference in a Studio model. I would welcome any real-life cases where this variant merge project affects people's using of Studio. 10/A ALSO IF I BUY INSTRUCTIONS ON REBRICKABLE.COM AND BUY THE PARTS FROM BRICK-LINK.COM THIS PROCESS SHOULD ONLY TAKE A FEW MINUTES FOR THE ALGORITHM TO PROSESS THE DATA Rebrickable is an affiliate of ours, and they are being briefed on all changes. They Rebrickable folks are quite the experts at mapping things, so I wouldn't worry about this too much. 10/B IT IS CRITICALLY IMPORTANT TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETTWEEN SLOPED BRICKS WITH A RORGH OR TEXTURED SURFACE AND SLOPED BRICKS WHITH A SMOOTH SURFACE Sorry, it is not. There are not simply 2 kinds of textures. There are a range of textures that are out there, and only showing 2 on BrickLink presents a false dichotomy to our users. 10/C FOR EXAMPLE SLOPE BRICK 2 x 4 (45°) WITH ROUGH SURFACE 3037 IS MORE DESIRABLE BECAUSE IT DOES NOT GET SCTRATED AS EASLY AS ONE WITH A SMOTH SURFACE Yet currently on BrickLink (pre-merge) there is no way to order only a "rough surface" slope. You could get any of a wide variety of textures, including ones that some people think are smooth. There are a lot of blind partouts going on out there, so don't think for a minute that every seller listing even the smooth ones has actually looked at every brick, especially the New stock. 10/D https://img.brickowl.com/files/image_cache/larger/lego-red-slope-2-x-4-45-with-rough-surface-3037-32-935193-81.jpg BrickLink Discussions Moderators, please leave this link as an exception. That is indeed a beautiful image. 11/A IF YOU INTEGRATE BRICK-OWL.COM WITH STUDIO, IT WOULD MAKE THINGS EASER FOR US AFOLS The chance of that happening is very, very low - sorry. 11/B HOWHEVER THE NUMBER OF PARTS, NUMBER OF STORES AND THE SIZE STORES ARE FAR GREATER ON BRICK-LINK.COM THAN ON BRICK-OWL.COM OR THEY MIGHT NOT HAVE THE PART IN THE COLOR THAT I WANT SIMPLY BECAUSE THER ARE LESS AVABILE Very true, and one of the reasons for that is the active catalog present on BrickLink. People are attracted to the catalog, even though most variants the LEGO Group releases never make in into the catalog. 12/A LET US THE SELLERS AND BUYERS DECIDE THROUGH A BINDING VOTE, WEATHER OR NOT TO MERGE THE VARIANTS AFTER ALL IF THERE WAS NO DEMAND / BUYERS THER WOULD BE NO REASION FOR THIS WEB-SITE TO EXIST IN THE FIRST PLACE I've said this before, but if we left it up to a general user vote, BrickLink would lose most of the variants in the catalog today. 12/B THAT MEANS THAT YOU WOULD HONOR THE VOTE AND PUBLISH THE NUMBERS FOR ALL TO SEE! We don't even publish the votes for Forum suggestions or BDP models. It would increase transparency, but that may be too transparent. 13 THE PROBLEM IS BRICK OWL.COM IS NOT INTEGRATED WITH BRICK VALUT.TOYS THAT COULD RUIN ONE OF THE BEST PLACES TO GET CUSTOM STAR WARS MOCS/SETS Brick Owl and Brick Vault are their own sites with their own concerns. 14 PUT THE OLD MOULDS / VARIANTS ON A SEPREATE WEB SITE! LINKS INCLUDED There are some great sites out there that document many variants that we don't recognize on BrickLink. We have no issue with people building or using those sites. 15 IF YOU DONT LIKE THIS IDEA, ASK US THE SELLERS AND BUYERS WHAT SHOULD BE DONE TO SOLVE THIS PROBLEM! ALSO THER WAS NO PROBLEN IN THE FIRST PLACE, We have been asking these questions for years. Every meeting, every convention, every Forum thread. These changes have been a long time coming, and community input was at the heart of the decision to move ahead. 16 ARE THE PART NUMBERS GOING CHANGE OR MERGE ON STUDIO? Yes. Studio pulls these from the BrickLink catalog, so they will change. The tiles have already changed.

Message is in Reply To:

Variants Thread - February 12 - Admin_Russell

Hello again everyone, :) Below I have listed the general groups of variants we are tackling and the results of the deliberation over the last month. I was originally planning [...] (4 months ago, Feb 12, 2024, to Catalog)

Message Has 4 Replies:

Re: Variants Thread - February 12 - zorbanj (827)

[...] These false assertions about Dan are infuriating. [...] When I went through my inventory to add the requisite notes, I checked the price differential between my [...] (4 months ago, Feb 15, 2024, to Catalog)

Re: Variants Thread - February 12 - 1001bricks (52466)

[...] I don't know the others, but I wish to donate 1€ for this poor guy to fix his locked keyboard caps lock. Who's following me? (4 months ago, Feb 15, 2024, to Catalog)

Re: Variants Thread - February 12 - yorbrick (1185)

Was it also in green ink? These answers would be more believable if they were bold and all caps. :-) (4 months ago, Feb 15, 2024, to Catalog)

Re: Variants Thread - February 12 - brickerking (1889)

[...] Not sure why you would respond to a message in all-caps and post it here making this person out to be crazy. This person is actually quite passionate for BrickLink and [...] (4 months ago, Feb 15, 2024, to Catalog)

37 Messages in this Thread:

 Msg 1 - Admin_Russell 4 months ago Feb 12, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 2 - Nubs_Select (3821) 4 months ago Feb 12, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 3 - DaddyOs_Bricks (1423) 4 months ago Feb 13, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 4 - randyf (442) 4 months ago Feb 13, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 5 - Turez (43) 4 months ago Feb 14, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 6 - randyf (442) 4 months ago Feb 14, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 7 - brickbiters (134) 4 months ago Feb 16, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 8 - DaddyOs_Bricks (1423) 4 months ago Feb 14, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 9 - Teup (6610) 4 months ago Feb 13, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 10 - randyf (442) 4 months ago Feb 13, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 11 - Teup (6610) 4 months ago Feb 13, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 12 - oukexergon (331) 4 months ago Feb 13, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 13 - Admin_Russell 4 months ago Feb 13, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 14 - oukexergon (331) 4 months ago Feb 14, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 15 - jennnifer (3537) 4 months ago Feb 14, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 16 - 1977_mauro (3406) 4 months ago Feb 14, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 17 - WOLKsite (13) 4 months ago Feb 14, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 18 - brickerking (1889) 4 months ago Feb 14, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 19 - Teup (6610) 4 months ago Feb 15, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 20 « - Admin_Russell 4 months ago Feb 15, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 21 - zorbanj (827) 4 months ago Feb 15, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 22 - 1001bricks (52466) 4 months ago Feb 15, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 23 - Stuart9 (1102) 4 months ago Feb 15, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 24 - 1001bricks (52466) 4 months ago Feb 15, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 25 - BensBrickstore (3583) 4 months ago Feb 15, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 26 - 1001bricks (52466) 4 months ago Feb 15, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 27 - yorbrick (1185) 4 months ago Feb 15, 2024 to Catalog
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 Msg 30 - minifig_75 (375) 4 months ago Feb 18, 2024 to Catalog
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 Msg 34 - 1001bricks (52466) 4 months ago Feb 18, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 35 - minifig_75 (375) 4 months ago Feb 18, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 36 - SylvainLS (46) 4 months ago Feb 18, 2024 to Catalog
 Msg 37 - 1001bricks (52466) 4 months ago Feb 18, 2024 to Catalog