Classic-castle site of the month

Red Bean · Post by **Red Bean** » Sun Jul 11, 2004 9:38 am

Hi all,

Since the Lugnet site of the week is pretty much dead, what do you think of the idea of a monthly 'castle site contest'? I say monthly because there probably isn't enough castle-specific sites to justify a vote on a weekly basis. But once we run out of official sets for the weekly review, maybe this is something the admins can consider doing? There can also be an official discussion thread to discuss the site voting or something...

R. B.
visit my website: www.redbeanstudio.net

Sir Terrance · Post by **Sir Terrance** » Sun Jul 11, 2004 6:29 pm

Sounds like a great idea. We could have 5 sites nominated each month, then a vote to see which wins.

Post by **SavaTheAggie** » Sun Jul 11, 2004 6:31 pm

I do miss CSOTW, it was such a great thing. Lugnet has tried to restart it a half dozen times it seems, and every time it fizzled or didn't even materialize at all.

A C-C site of the month is certainly an idea to look into. The admins will have to talk it over as to it's feasibility.

-Anthony

Post by **architect** » Sun Jul 11, 2004 8:39 pm

I think this is an excellent idea. Perhaps admins could interview the person about their website and its content/moc's. We need to talk about it, but I like the idea.

Ben E.
Sets Admin

cnelson · Post by **cnelson** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 5:32 pm

Add my vote to the "yes" list!

It would be nice to have a cool MOC site and a cool informative site that isn't necessarily Lego-related but contains helpful castle information.

I'd nominate Dr. Carney's castles as the first cool Classic-Castle site!

Post by **Bruce N H** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 7:37 pm

I think this is a great idea, but I would say we should not include former CLSOTW winners. I've included the list of links below, but there are 21 sites that would be easy picks for a "Cool Classic-Castle Site of the Whatever) (CCCSotW)" (some may quibble with a couple of the inclusions since they are either ancient-themed (Erik Wilson, Brendan Powell Smith) or have more creations from other themes (Dave Eaton, Adrian Drake, maybe me), as well as 10 others that are MIA (either they have been taken down or the URL has changed and I don't know the new one). There might also be others because in 1996-1998 CLSotW didn't include descriptions on the archive page, so I didn't bother clicking on every site with a name like "Bob's LEGO" if I didn't already know it had castle stuff.

To include these sites in the running would be two say that for the next two years we won't bother to recognize any new sites, because, let's face it, the first sites would have to be Takeshi Itou, Robert Carney, Ed boxer, Anthony Sava . . . etc. Instead, I would suggest that if we went with such a CCCSotW contest, the sites below should be listed as "honorary CCCSotW" sites and taken out of the running. These builders could be considered again if there is a major new addition--e.g. Anthony would be "honorary" for Ikros, but could be nominated again for Chaos Skies. The definition of "major" would have to be up to the CC.com admins--simply adding a new MOC or a new chapter wouldn't count. Denix making BrickLords is a huge "new thing" and not in any way a tack-on to Avalonnia. Etc.

I reallize that I've got a conflict of interest here as my site is on the list below.

Former Lugnet CLSotW winners with Castle themes (or portions):
HoMa's World of Bricks (Holger Mathes): http://www.holgermatthes.de/bricks/
Minimundo (Folkart Thielen): http://www.minimundo.de/
Castles (Stephen Wroble): http://home.att.net/~swroble/Castles.html
Castle Element (Takeshi Itou): http://home.att.ne.jp/apple/hachi/ce_top.htm
Le Site de Baron-Sat (Eric Druon): http://baronsat.chez.tiscali.fr/
The Brick Testament (Brendan Powell Smith): http://www.thebricktestament.com/
Brick Tales (Bruce N H): http://www.ozbricks.com/bricktales/
MichLUG (MichLUG): http://www.michlug.org/
Minifig.co (James Stacey): http://www.minifig.co.uk/
Kingdom of Andrastavia (Kevin Hall): http://www.ozbricks.com/andrastavia/
KK Quah's LEGO Creations (K. K. Quah): http://web.tampabay.rr.com/kkqwebpage/
Brick Frenzy (Adrian Drake): http://www.brickfrenzy.com/
Kingdom of Ikros (Anthony Sava): http://www.ikros.net/
Dave's LEGO Site (Dave Eaton): http://www.suave.net/~dave/new_index.cgi
Eric Kingsley's LEGO Creations (Eric Kingsley): http://www.nelug.org/members/kingsley/
BrikWars (Mike Rayhawk): http://www.brikwars.com/
Brickmania (Daniel Siskind): http://www.brickmania.com/
1998 rec.toys.lego Ancient Theme LEGO Building Contest (Erik Wilson): http://itsa.ucsf.edu/~erikred/brick/cla ... cient.html
Mike Steele's LEGO Castles (Mike Steele): http://home.earthlink.net/~mesteele/castle/
Ed Boxer's LEGO Creations (Ed Boxer): http://www.geocities.com/edboxer/lego.html
Erik's LEGO Creations (Erik Wilson): http://itsa.ucsf.edu/~erikred/brick/

MIA (sites that are either dead or have a new URL that I don't know)
Avalonnia (Denis Pouchain)
Pawel's Castle Page (Pawel Nazarewicz)
The Valley of Asuncian (Jeff Huit)
Xcalabur’s LEGO Lair (Chris Maddison)
Steven’s LEGO Extravaganza (Steven McDonough)
LEGO Structures by Patrick Bosman (Patrick Bosman)
CastLEGO (Shiri Dori)
Erik's Fortuna Journal (Erik Olson)
Prince Strondheim's Castle (Matthew Verdier)
Santa Maria Cathedral of the Crusader (Michael Dorneich)

Bruce

cnelson · Post by **cnelson** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 4:58 pm

Instead of a site, what about a Cool Classic-Castle MOC of the Whatever? This would remove the overlap issues with the defunct Lugnet CSotW and would keep us from delving into the definition of what a major addition was. It would also open up the nomination for those who make MOCs but don't necessarily theme a whole site, and make the award based on a specific work rather than a body of work.

(Why is it that it's a penny for your thoughts, but you have to put your two cents' worth in? Someone's making some bread here!)

Post by **Bruce N H** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 6:33 pm

Hey,

Good points. One way to open it up would be to include Brickshelf galleries or MOCpages sites as "websites". That way anyone who can put a pic on the web would be eligible, with no need for fancy html skills or server space.

If we were to go with "cool MOC of the whatever" we'd want to go more often, probably once a week, as it's fairly quick to throw a MOC on the web. Also in that case you'd want to exclude old MOCs (or say only MOCs created after some certain date), since again we could do a "MOC of the day" and have a backlog of great castle creations for the next couple of years before even considering new things.

Of course, that is if the idea is to promote new building. If the idea is to get people to scour the web to find great creations as inspiration to us all, we would not want to exclude old creations. It is good to point newer members towards these MOCs. E.g. everyone here should go spend some time perusing Ed Boxer's castle if they haven't before. I know on FBTB about 3 or 4 times a year someone "discovers" S. Fujita's awesome depiction of the whole Star Wars OT and announces it to the forums.

Bruce

cnelson · Post by **cnelson** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 7:33 pm

In addition to a new MOC of the whatever (like you, I like week as the frequency), we could do a "Hall of Fame" that contains non-new MOCs and recommended links. Everyone should look at Ed's castle, Dan Siskind's site, Dr. Carney's creations, etc.!

Red Bean · Post by **Red Bean** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 8:08 am

Cool Classic-Castle MOC of the Whatever

I, too, think this is a good idea. But I do see a potential problem with this one.

Take a MOC by Takeshi Itou for instance, everytime he comes up with something new, it is likely that he'll be nominated for the 'MOC of Whatever'. That will give him one website with 20 'MOC of whatever' awards, wouldn't that be a bit redundant? But the thing is the 'MOC of whatever' shouldn't be a once-in-a-lifetime-award either, because then newcomers can easily miss out on the good stuffs. Which begs the question: for something like a great MOC, wouldn't it be better to just stick with what Bruce and others are currently, by simply posting it on the forum and involving everyone in a discussion?

Also, I'm a bit hesitant about making this a 'weekly' thing; I'm afraid interests might quickly fizzle out like the 'custom of the week' thing over at fbtb (do they still have that, btw?). My recommendation is to stick with the 'monthly' tag.

R. B.
visit my website: www.redbeanstudio.net

jamitjames · Post by **jamitjames** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 11:47 am

Let me add my vote, yes!

wlister · Post by **wlister** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 5:05 pm

FBTB still has the customs/MOC of the week vote. Basically the admins choose 5 MOCs and then put together a poll and let the visitors to FBTB vote on the best one. Now we could do something similiar here in the forums rather than on the front page like FBTB has it. There are hundreds of votes every week on FBTB so I don't think it would fizzle
here. As long as people keep making new MOCs.

Will

Post by **Bruce N H** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 5:56 pm

Hey,

On FBTB my impression is that it is a totally automated thing, which they can do since they host their own MOC galleries. To do such a thing here would be difficult, unless we thought the pool of eligible MOCs would be everything on Brickshelf with a "castle" flag. The vote count at FBTB is pretty easy due to the traffic through their front page, where it only takes two clicks to vote. I think this was part of the problem with the low vote totals on CLSOTW - people were unwilling to take the time to click to five different websites and page through a little to get a sense of them (also, there are some who felt they couldn't legitimately vote on a site unless they had read through all of the content on the site). Looking at 4 pics and deciding which one you like best takes all of 5 seconds.

Bruce

wlister · Post by **wlister** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 6:05 pm

We could do that for a MOC of the week contest. The poll could link to 4 or 5 Brickshelf images and we could vote on the MOC we like the most. It would take some work on the part of the admins. All submissions could be directed through an admin and they would make up the polls. Or the admins could open a new position for a weekly/monthly MOC and website contest admin. Just an idea to get people building again, it has been slow on the building front lately.

Will

Glencaer · Post by **Glencaer** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 9:00 pm

My biggest problem with a MOC of the week concept is that it infringes on the annual Colossal Contest.

Another issue is that it turns the general fun of making and posting MOCs into more of a competition. I like recognizing people's great creations, but I don't want to use it as weekly/monthly popularity contest.

Still, I dont want to impede this discussion as it is very thought provoking.

What if we did a one-on-one site poll. One site versus another site. Once we have a winner, new sites would then be compared to the winner (winner and challenger). This way there would only be two sites each period and we'd already be familiar with one of them.

-Lenny