Announcing BrickLists

 

  • Announcing BrickLists

    Posted by Huw, 23 Sep 2009 15:08. Filed under Brickset.

    As I mentioned last week, I've been working on a new feature for Brickset, called BrickLists. These are like Amazon's Listmania! lists in that you can create lists of, in this case, LEGO sets, add notes to them, then share them with the world.

    You'll find a link to the BrickLists home page under the More... tab. Relevant lists are also shown on the set detail pages and member profile pages.

    I'm launching them not really knowing whether they'll be useful or interesting to you, or whether they'll fall flat. The only way to find out is to let you loose on them and see what happens. If they take off, there's a lot more I can do with them, such as marking them as favourites, showing a list of the most popular and so on.

    I'm hoping that it'll be obvious how to create, edit and publish them but if not, ask here and I'll try and help.

    So have a play and let me know what you think!


    44 comments, latest one posted 44 months ago. (Commenting has ended on this article)
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Comments

Posted by StealthNinja999 in United Kingdom, 23 Sep 2009 15:41

I'm not entirely sure what they are but it looks great! :)

Posted by legomarsfan in Bulgaria, 23 Sep 2009 15:57

Great update but i have a question- I think i remember brickset having amazon list for set purchasing, but what happened to them ?

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 23 Sep 2009 15:59

Wow! That looks great! Thanks Huw!

EDIT: I made my first list! It's about the red Toa!

Posted by bluemoose in United Kingdom, 23 Sep 2009 16:16

Just a hint guys - a list needs to contain more than one set !

We're monitoring & editing & deleting lists as necessary.

Great lists so far ! Keep up the great work :-)

Ian

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 23 Sep 2009 16:28

Hey, how about adding a "Was this useful or not?" "poll" on the BrickLists? That way we could improve our BrickLists! Another thing, we should comment on BrickLists! What do you think?

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 23 Sep 2009 17:01

> Was this useful or not?" "poll" on the BrickLists?

That will follow. Probably I'll make it possible to mark lists as favourites. They will then appear in your own favourites list and the data can be used to produce a list of the 'most favoured' lists.

To reiterate Ian's comment -- they look great so far, just as I had hoped!

Posted by jonbuddy in United States, 23 Sep 2009 17:06

I published a list: "Geonosis sets".

I hope some people find it useful!

Also, I might post another Bricklist. It is really fun, Huw! :)

EDIT: Huw, I did not mean to publish the "Episode II sets" Bricklist. There is nothing in the list, so go ahead and delete it.

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 23 Sep 2009 17:18

@Huw: What I meant was that you could vote "Yes" or "No" like in set reviews, so the author can see if his/her list is useful!

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 23 Sep 2009 17:36

@Alemas, OK, I'll see what works best

@jonbuddy -- good stuff. I think you may have encountered the only bug I'm currently aware of. If you create a list but don't put any sets in it it's not currently possible to get back to it or delete it because it doesn't appear in any lists.

If you did add a set it should appear in the sidebar when you look at the BrickLists home page and marked as 'not yet published' in which case you can select it, edit it and then delete it (I think!)

Thanks all for effectively beta testing this. I've already fixed a problem whereby it didn't show the I Own/I Want controls on other people's lists. There's also a minor formatting problem on sets without any rating but I'll see to that tomorrow...

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 23 Sep 2009 17:45

@Huw: Another thing: when you add the set to the list, and you are writing the set name/number, sometimes the name/number deletes itself if you make a mistake and deletes every letter I try put in afterwards!

Posted by Republic Commando Sev in United States, 23 Sep 2009 17:50

I have a question, I started a list, then saved it for later. Now, every time I click "edit" it takes me to the page of lists everyone else has posted, and it won't let me edit it. What am I doing wrong?

EDIT: @Alemas and Huw: The same thing has been happening to me as well.
Sev

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 23 Sep 2009 18:04

@Sev: I'm not alone then... Anyways, this feature is ULTRA-COOL, just that "Yes" and "No" poll on the lists and those bug fixes and it'll be perfect!

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 23 Sep 2009 18:11

@ Republic Commando Sev: Thanks, I think I've fixed that now.

@Alemas: I'll see if I can replicate that. It's probably something to do with the autocomplete feature, which should prevent you from entering/selecting anything which is not in the list it returns.

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 23 Sep 2009 18:12

@Huw: In the search box that doesn't happen!

P.S. LEGO Factory will launch LEGO Digital Designer 3.0, and be renamed LEGO Design byME, according to the Factory website! I hope LDD 3.0 will be Windows 7-compatible!

Posted by Captain Aardvark in United States, 23 Sep 2009 18:39

What happened to the lists?

Posted by Gus263 in Brazil, 23 Sep 2009 18:39

Nice addition!
I'll try to do a list including some complex Bionicle sets, but I just need time to do it. I hope it become useful.

@Captain Aardvark: The section "Lists" is now under the heading "More...". It can be found as "Data Mining" now.

Posted by obisky in United States, 23 Sep 2009 19:39

Hey, do you think you could add the feature to the Bricklists so you can mark some as favorites? I think it would really help. :P

Posted by thomsedavi in New Zealand, 23 Sep 2009 20:08

I'm looking forward to being able to make a 'favourites' list. I've given more than 20 sets five star ratings, but only three or four of those are my 'favourites'. I need a way to mark them out as special.

Will there be a function where we can go to a set listing, click on a 'favourite' button and that set will automatically be added to our 'favourites' list? That would make it much more accessible.

It'll be interesting to see how the 'favourite' sets are ranked in the Data Mining page... You'll add that function too, I hope... I predict it'll be different from the Top Rated sets because, for example, I don't imagine many people will have 'Oasis Ambush' or 'Brick Separator, Grey' as their favourites... although I'm sure Black Seas Barracuda will still be at the top. :)

Posted by legomarsfan in Bulgaria, 24 Sep 2009 07:20

lol I checked the lists this morning and now after school and theres alot of new lists

Posted by I like Lego in Canada, 24 Sep 2009 07:43

The Bricklists are GREAT! I made one about Promotional Sets, because I wanted a category on Brickset about Promos, and I thought, why don't I make my own, so I did. Check out my list, It's Work In Progress.

Posted by bluemoose in United Kingdom, 24 Sep 2009 09:58

Huw posted the following on the List creation page -

"BrickLists should be used to group related sets that would otherwise not be found or listed together.

Examples of good BrickLists:

* Technic fork-lift trucks
* Large pirate ships
* Steam trains
* Red Bionicles

As a rule, they should be useful to others: if they are not then the Brickset admins reserve the right to delete them."

Making lists of things that are naturally grouped together in the Brickset database (i.e. "new Bionicles") is not the intended purpose of 'BrickLists' - the aim is to provide links between sets that have some common trait that isn't already apparent in the database, i.e. to provide some additional information about them.

The "should be useful to others" is also important - a list, say, of your first 10 LEGO sets, or your personal favourite Time Twisters set, wouldn't be useful to others.

Ian

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 24 Sep 2009 10:32

Thanks Ian. I have to say, though, I'm very impressed with the quality of them so far. 'Fire stations' and 'Large cars' are excellent examples of lists which groups together sets that otherwise would not be related and is exactly the sort of use I had in mind for BrickLists.

'1984 Castle relaunch' is also good. Although the list of 1984 Castle sets can be obtained in the theme browser, its creator Novelty has added some great comments against each set.

I've had to delete only one so far: one about 2010 sets that added no value over the list returned by searching (and included a link to a confidential image)

So, please, keep going, I'm enjoying seeing what you're coming up with and I'm encouraged to enhance the feature in the coming weeks.

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 24 Sep 2009 10:37

@Huw: Hey, how about my lists? Are they good?

Posted by johntcondon in United States, 24 Sep 2009 10:56

Cool feature. After creating a couple lists, I'd suggest two things to improve this feature:

1. It would be helpful if there was a way for other users to add to lists (for example if they find something that is missing), or for users to post a comment to the creator of the list asking to include a set.

2. Changing the order of sets in a list is a little tricky - for example if I add a set and it defaults to #10 and I change it to #4, there will be two sets in the #4 spot. It would be great if when a set is moved to a new spot it renumbers the other sets accordingly.

Thanks for all of your efforts!

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 24 Sep 2009 12:04

Hey, you should make pages of the lists! There are so many that they don't fit!

Posted by Batmaniam in Canada, 24 Sep 2009 13:02

I am making a Familiar Faces list, it has all of the LEGO sets that are particailly similar to each other.

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 24 Sep 2009 13:42

@Alemas: yes they are. I like the Ferrari one.

@johntcondon: That's something I've thought about: collaboratively compiling lists. I'm not sure how best to do it though. Certainly I can add a 'contact the list compiler' link somewhere, that might help to start with.

@johntcondon: Agreed. Originally I had them numbering in steps of 10 since the numbers themselves are not displayed anywhere and are only used for sorting. That way you could slot one in between the first and second by giving it a number 15, but then I thought that it could be confusing, particularly to those not old enough to remember programming in BASIC where it was normal to give lines numbers in steps of 10 :) What do you think? Ultimately I hope to do a fancy drag-and-drop interface for reordering.

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 24 Sep 2009 13:46

@Huw: Hmmm, a "contact the list compiler" link? You should put the option of allowing people to contact you, and I prefer the "add comment" feature of the articles! BTW, thanks for your opinion on my lists!

Posted by bluemoose in United Kingdom, 24 Sep 2009 14:33

@Huw - I've deleted a couple of redundant lists, which is what prompted my previous post :-)

The quality & value of most of the lists so far have been very high .... but a few haven't been either. Keep up the good work guys, but we will be keeping an active check on quality control !

Ian

Posted by jonbuddy in United States, 24 Sep 2009 16:23

Where can you view every Bricklist made so far?

EDIT: @Huw (Sep 23 2009, 5:36 PM), thanks for the compliment. I'll try to keep them as useful as possible. :)

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 24 Sep 2009 16:36

> Where can you view every Bricklist made so far?

You can't yet. The BrickLists home page shows the most recent 20. Others are linked to on set details pages if they contain the set you are looking at. Eventually I'll do a page to show them all but there's only so many hours in the day!

Posted by jonbuddy in United States, 24 Sep 2009 17:53

>You can't yet. The BrickLists home page shows the most recent 20. Others are linked to on set details pages if they contain the set you are looking at. Eventually I'll do a page to show them all but there's only so many hours in the day!

I know. I was just wondering.

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 25 Sep 2009 03:36

I've changed the BrickList page to display the latest 100 lists. That should keep us going for a while...

Posted by johntcondon in United States, 25 Sep 2009 10:36

@ Huw: A drag and drop feature would be really great. A simpler solution could be a check box to shift the item up or down the list when the window is refreshed. But I'm not sure how "simple" that would be to create.

Posted by jonbuddy in United States, 25 Sep 2009 16:45

@Huw:

Thanks. :)

Posted by AndreasL in Denmark, 26 Sep 2009 10:32

@Huw: Hi, I have created the list for 'Road Plates'. For some reason I am unable to add set 6310, 6311, 6312 and 6313 to the list. They show up in the auto-suggest list but when I select them the textbox is left empty. Is this a bug? I am using Internet Explorer 8.

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 26 Sep 2009 12:28

@AndreasL, that's wierd isn't it. I can't add them either! I'll look into it.

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 26 Sep 2009 16:12

@AndreaL: That happens to me too! And I'm using Firefox 3.5!

Posted by brickmatt in United States, 27 Sep 2009 15:25

Perhaps the lists could be organized by theme or topic, to make it easier to find the lists you are looking for, or to make sure no one else has already published a list you are planning on making.

Posted by Novelty in Brunei Darussalam, 28 Sep 2009 10:30

From Huw: '1984 Castle relaunch' is also good. Although the list of 1984 Castle sets can be obtained in the theme browser, its creator Novelty has added some great comments against each set.

That was one list I wasn't sure about. I'm glad it's OK. Is it a bug that I can see johntcondon's unpublished lists? Also, perhaps the front page should highlight a list every now and again or something like that to encourage members to make useful lists.

Posted by Alemas in Germany, 28 Sep 2009 14:13

@Novelty: Seeing other people's unpublished lists happens to me too!

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 28 Sep 2009 16:53

Unpublished lists should be hidden from view. How do you get to them? I'll see what needs corecting if I can replicate it here.

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 28 Sep 2009 17:31

I think I've sorted this, LMK if not!

Posted by Novelty in Brunei Darussalam, 28 Sep 2009 18:24

You can still get there by typing in the URL, e.g. http://brickset.com/brickLists/?150

Commenting has ended on this article.