Lego Spotter Feature for new sets - World map and timeline

Kangojack

Here’s a proposal for a new feature for Brickset.com, ‘Lego Spotter’.

The feature would allow members to annotate when and where they have found a new set available for sale (Country, Location, Date, Price).

The results could be displayed on a world map, or on a time line.

akunthita

I would love to see this! There used to be a blog (no longer active) that tracked the appearance of the Collectible Minifigures. It was extremely useful. I think they used Google Maps, and readers could pin the location where they found the new series of Collectible Minifigs.

I don't know if Huw could do this for all sets, but at least for rare and elusive sets like the Collectible Minifigs, polybags, exclusives, etc. it would be wonderful to have! Thanks for the great idea, now let's see waht Huw says...(c:

Huw

I was going to say "There used to be a blog (no longer active) that tracked the appearance of the Collectible Minifigures, but..."

Useful it may have been but I don't think it got a lot of use once the novelty had worn off.

It's certainly possible but a lot of work and given it would only be as useful as the data people put in it, I'm not entirely convinced it would be worthwhile.

Jonn420

Same idea i wanted to do with " Mr. Gold hunt thread", but people here are more worried about bickering or puncuation then helping each other.

Jenni

We did this with our locations, and then someone (not necessarily from Brickset as it was on Google Maps) decided to go in and move everyone into the middle of the Pacific. At which point it had to be locked and everyone quickly lost interest.

There will always be someone who thinks it's funny to mess with these things and therefore at some point you will need to limit access and it becomes someone's job to receive the information and update the map and who really wants to do that?

Right now people do post in threads letting people know where they've found things, information like retailers' inventory codes are shared. Huw and others publish news articles about the big things like the current CMF series and polybags, and they annotate each set entry to let people know what retailers they were found at in the major markets. I've started threads each time I've found an unknown set, such as the Kingdoms chess set, at my local LEGO store, I haven't done it for gear because I know how few people would care about the Friends carry case and name plate.

I think the map, while visually appealing, wouldn't add much information. It might be easier to get information from the map than by keeping up with various threads but it could also get so complicated that it becomes impossible to get any useful information. If you can log any set how do you know which set a pin is indicating? How long do the pins stay on the map? We've got 421 entries for this year so far, if each is logged in each country, and there's no way it would be limited to just one per country per set, that's a heck of a lot of information.

@jonn420 I understand why you might think that but I hope you don't really believe it. Helpful people are often quiet people, you can't tell from forum traffic but someone is packing up a bunch of LEGO books she bought my daughter and sending them off to us this week, just because she knew she'd like them, another member offered me his Valentine's key chain because he thought I "deserved" it more and was horrified I didn't get one, last I saw a local member he brought me a Blacktron minifigure just because, I shudder to think how much a Canadian member recently spent in shipping 50 rare polybags all over the world to people who couldn't get them otherwise. I've received packages that include extra polybags, stickers, candy and LEGO gear that was never part of any deal. I've had people spend a fair amount of time and take detailed step by step photos to explain a technique to me for a MOC. I've been fed, and taxied and housed by Brickset members who'd never seen me before. And, yes, sometimes people say things that drive me up the wall and there are threads that I quite deliberately do not read, choosing instead to spend my time talking to people I like. Like most things Brickset is what you make of it.

Huw

@Jenni, thank you for that -- you are right, Brickset is a great place where many people have made lasting friendships off- and on-line and full of people willing to help others one way or another. I'm glad to hear you've had some great positive experiences.

@Jonn420, as much as I'd like to, I can't add every feature to the site that's suggested, particularly those that are complex, of little benefit, and likely to cause a maintenance problem. In fact the next version of the site will probably strip out a few little-used features and pages in the interests of simplicity.