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Tagging minifigs

HuwHuw Administrator Posts: 7,119
in The Database
I'm about to implement minifig tags, as mentioned the other day. Now I want to figure out how best to use them.

If we consider specific themes there are obvious uses e.g. for Star Wars: Jedi, Sith, Droid, etc. but what generic attributes would be worth tagging for all minifigs?

Think about it in terms of 'would it be useful to be able to find all minifigs with {some property} ?'. 

One obvious one is 'female' but I would suggest that it might not be worth tagging with 'male' given there are so many.
Similarly, 'short legs' might be another, but not 'long legs'.

The purpose of the tags, at this stage at least, is not to describe the figure, which would imply each one should have, for example, a male/female/not known/either tag but to make it possible to find/view similar figures, or those related in some way.

I welcome your thoughts...

Comments

  • TheBigLegoskiTheBigLegoski Member Posts: 1,437
    'pointy ears'
    Very important to have a 'pointy ears' tag!
  • catwranglercatwrangler Member Posts: 1,895
    Not sure how to phrase this snappily enough for a tag, but what about a category for figures that are extra-wide or tall because a decorated brick has been used instead of legs, e.g. Queen or Witch. 
  • HuwHuw Administrator Posts: 7,119
    Yes, or anything other than standard legs: snakes, for example.
    catwrangler
  • SumoLegoSumoLego Member Posts: 15,241
    NBA spring legs would be another - as would Sheriff Woody's 'tall' legs.
  • ShibShib Member Posts: 5,477
    edited January 2017
    I think the main thing that minifig tags would be of interest me in I'll be IDing minifigs or to help find relevant gigs for builds, so facial details would be the main thing. E.g glasses or facial hair.

    To do this at he minute I generally go to bricklink and search something like glasses in the minifig head part of the catalogue and hope that the catalogue titles are good. Generally this works but can be time consuming compared to potentially looking here at minifigs then choosing tags glasses and female.

    edit: in a similar way something in the way of cartoony eyes could be useful - thinking the Clone Wars sets or stuff like exo force where the face don't match other standards very well

     
    catwrangler
  • LostInTranslationLostInTranslation Member Posts: 5,572
    Can we use tags to somehow filter only flesh colour minifigs? Not just licensed because that would include aliens and such too. 
  • BumblepantsBumblepants Member Posts: 7,729
    Double-sided faces might be a good one. Molded heads that vary from standard round ones? Perhaps something to note accessories that are attached at the neck or waist like sword sheaths, capes, skirts etc
  • OscarWRGOscarWRG Member Posts: 16
    tags for printed arms, printed legs, 2 colored molded arms and 2 colored molded legs
  • playwellplaywell Member Posts: 2,332
    edited January 2017
    Huw said:
    Yes, or anything other than standard legs: snakes, for example.

    I think two different tags would be better one for skirts (slopes) or brick legs and one for other like ghost, snakes, genies, mermaids and so on. So brick legs and molded legs?

    I would like to see one for anything other than standard head, not Chima where the head is just covered but where the head is molded.

    Maybe one for big figs and one for almost a big fig? Hagrid (Harry Potter), Spider Bytez, Dogpound, Leatherhead (TMNT), Mighty Eagle (Angry Birds).

    One for figures that are not Droids but don't use any minifigure parts like angry birds, Fishface (TMNT) and so on.

  • CCCCCC Member Posts: 20,556
    Shib said:
    I think the main thing that minifig tags would be of interest me in I'll be IDing minifigs or to help find relevant gigs for builds, so facial details would be the main thing. E.g glasses or facial hair.

    To do this at he minute I generally go to bricklink and search something like glasses in the minifig head part of the catalogue and hope that the catalogue titles are good. Generally this works but can be time consuming compared to potentially looking here at minifigs then choosing tags glasses and female.

    edit: in a similar way something in the way of cartoony eyes could be useful - thinking the Clone Wars sets or stuff like exo force where the face don't match other standards very well

     
    I do similar but use goatleg.com to setup the BL query. TBH I'm not sure brickset will be best placed to do this. It is a lot of information to be sourced for tags, when all the information is in the BL part names (and not the minifig names).
    catwranglerstefxan
  • TheBrickPalTheBrickPal Member Posts: 45
    edited January 2017
    By actor representation, perhaps? It would sure make Chris' article from early last year helpful...

    Also, by general factions, too - Serpentine/individual tribe, Avengers, you get the gist. Basically like the Jedi thing you mentioned.
  • shaaseshaase Member Posts: 15

    Huw,

    This is going to be tough for you as everyone has different ways thee want to see minifigs grouped. I can offer some suggestions as to what I’ve been working on for my own personal database that contains 2200+ minifigures. I don’t know the technical aspects behind your importing of data from Bricklink are the current fields all Bricklink fields or are some you own. My table in addition to allowing for tags also has extra fields (which could be tags themselves), these include the following;

    • World/Universe – since some minifigures can be found in multiple themes and don’t fall under one main theme, but you want to see all characters from there (i.e. Ninjago, Star Wars Universe, Marvel Universe, Chima)

    • Faction – playing off of World/Universe you might to see the different groups/sides and who is part of them (i.e. from Ninjago you have the Ninjas, Serpentines, Stone Army, etc.)

    • Sub Faction – some factions of course are made up of one or more (i.e. from Ninjago Serpentines, you have the Constrictai, Hypnobrai and Veromari)

    • Character Name – self-explanatory, I think in you database this is the Character Name field.

    • Detailed Name – some characters are represented differently throughout their (For example Luke Skywalker (Tattoine), Luke Skywalker (Jedi), Laval (Normal Chi), Laval (Fire & Ice))

    • Full Description – to fully differentiate between minifigure that are very similar (Luke Skywalker (Tattoine) – Smooth Hair, Luke Skywalker (Tattoine) – Wavy Hair)

    • Dual Sided Face – True or False Column

    • Dual Sided Torso – True or False Column

    • Printed Legs – True or False Column

    • Race - self-explanatory, but use for other things as well (i.e. Human, Elf, Alien, Cyborg, Statue, Zombie, etc.)

    • Sex - self-explanatory I only use it for Male/Female (but some might move Cyborg/Robot/Clone here from Race)

    • Minifig Type – to differentiate between the different styles of minifigs (I currently have, Standard, Modified, Bigfig, Construct, Microfigure, Minidoll, Single Mold, Statuette)

    Here are some sample of tags I’ve been implementing;

    • Non-Standard Legs – can be broken down further with Non-Standard Legs (Slope), Non-Standard Legs (Peg)

    • Non-Standard Torso – can be broken down further with Non-Standard Torso (Hook), Non-Standard Torso (4 Arms), Non-Standard Torso (Baseball Glove)

    • Non-Standard Head – can be broken down further with Non-Standard Head (Oversized), Non-Standard Head (Head/Torso)

    • Foot Wear– can be broken down further with Foot Wear (Flippers), Foot Wear (Roller Skates)

    • Leg Wear – can be broken down further with Leg Wear (Skirt), Leg Wear (Tail)

    • Neck Wear – can be broken down further with Neck Wear (Cloak), Neck Wear (Beard)

    • Back Attachments – can be broken down further with Back Attachments (Jetpack), Back Attachments (Wings)  

    • Headgear – can be broken down further with Headgear (Helmet), Headgear (Cap), Headgear (Mask)

    • Short Minifigure

    • Professions – tag for each profession

    • Movie Character/Television Character/Video Game Character

    Hope this helps and good luck. Look forward to seeing what you and the community come up with.

    TheBigLegoskiTyresOFlahertycatwranglerToc13
  • TyresOFlahertyTyresOFlaherty Member Posts: 345
    @Huw Can I just say how awesome it is that you actively seek user feedback/opinions? It would be so easy for you guys to run this site as you see fit, but the active interest in our opinions and thoughts on things is one of the main reasons that I am an active user of this site. Thank you!
    HuwTheBigLegoskicatwranglersid3windr
  • HuwHuw Administrator Posts: 7,119
    Thank you. There's no point doing anything if nobody wants wants it, so it's important that we listen to our users!

    ^^ Excellent suggestions! I can see I've opened a bit of a can of worms here but wouldn't it be excellent if at the end of the tagging exercise it was possible to implement an 'identify this minifigure' feature, like those old electronic 20 questions toys my kids used to have.

    Rather than asking 'is it bigger than a microwave oven' and so on it would ask 'does it have black legs?'... 'does it have a yellow head?'... 'is it wearing a helmet?'... 'does it have a female face?'... etc. etc... 'You're thinking of this figure! (shows pic)'

    That would be very cool and probably quite easy if the data was there.


    TheBigLegoskicatwranglerTyresOFlahertyricecakeLostInTranslationpaulmisonsid3windrstlux
  • datsunrobbiedatsunrobbie Member Posts: 1,831
    ^Newegg has a really nice interface for that kind of search. They list all the available tags, and the user checks off the relevant tags and gets a list of items that match all the tags selected.
  • graphitegraphite Member Posts: 3,275
    ^^ @Huw having the data there to identify figs would definitely be useful.  I fear that goes beyond the scope of tags though and really needs property fields as @shaase listed.  Not wishing upon you the task of doing so though.  But that eliminates the need for "short leg" tags but not "long leg" because of how common they are.  Database could just have default settings for the most common thing and then updated for the ones that are different.  A lot of work involved in that project.
  • CCCCCC Member Posts: 20,556
    Can you import minifig inventory data from bricklink? If so, that might help automatically populate some tags if you are going down the 20 questions route.
  • HuwHuw Administrator Posts: 7,119
    Not officially.
  • Switchfoot55Switchfoot55 Member Posts: 3,484
    Jang has one of his videos that shows his catalog of Minifigs/parts/accessories that is pretty detailed. It may offer some suggestions as to what types of categories (big or small) one could ultimately use?
  • sid3windrsid3windr Member Posts: 1,460
    edited February 2017
    Hah, so @Huw is building a real online version of #40161 What am I? - I'll play ;-)
  • stefxanstefxan Member Posts: 61
    Some help with identifing Minifigures would be great. I bought a huge Lego Bulk Slot and now I have hundreds of Minifigs. The problem is that the kids mixed all trousers, hands, heads etc. together or removed everything (including legs from trousers and hands from fingers). Now Im sitting every night trying to figure out who it could be starting with the body and searching through all items. Tagging could help me a log.
    datsunrobbie
  • stefxanstefxan Member Posts: 61
    Nearly a year has passed since my last comment here.

    What worked best for me to identify about 1,200 minifigures was Bricklink, a pdf minifigure guide and goatleg.com that I wouldn´t have found without this thread here. Thanks CCC!
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