Are we stuck?

[fishers64]

One of the complaints I hear is that, despite the admins restructuring to include General Lego Discussion, it isn't happening. Do you think this is true? Why do you think this is? Or why not?

[Lyichir]

I think part of the issue is simply that so much competition exists for general Lego discussion. The downtime fed into this in a big way, since BZPers who may never have participated on general Lego sites may have been forced to seek them out to continue to discuss Bionicle. Many of those who stuck around afterwards either had another outlet for general Lego discussion, or had little interest in discussing Lego outside of Bionicle (and in some cases, Hero Factory).

 

I long for a BZP that can feature more general Lego discussion, since I feel BZP's history with Bionicle gives it a unique perspective on both story themes and constraction themes, along with other niche themes which are given less credence by other Lego-centric sites (such as Lego Friends). But what I've seen is that while people discuss Bionicle sets from every possible angle, and endlessly debate even the most inconsequential of story details in S&T, discussion of general Lego sets (outside of Hero Factory) more often than not falls flat, and discussion of other Lego stories stagnates when only a few members are willing to invest in those stories (some of which require a literal investment, being told primarily in books).

 

It's telling that many of the topics in the designated Lego discussion topic are "What if..."-style topics about Bionicle that would be inpenetrable to the majority of non-Bionicle fans. Meanwhile, even in topics like "What do you want from Lego", the majority of comments wish for a Bionicle return and very few other concrete wishes.

 

One thing that I feel would help tremendously would be a greater number of "official topics" in forums such as Lego Sets or Lego Discussion. For discussion to really take off, the first thing that needs to happen is the establishment of more topics that don't die after a few weeks of inactivity (since Lego is generally released on a bi-annual schedule, meaning periods of inactivity are all too common, especially in themes like Space with a limited story component). Having designated spots for discussion of ongoing themes would be a godsend in that respect. Just look at the success of these sorts of topics in the COT forum to get an idea of how thriving and successful these could potentially become.

[Sumiki]

There is certainly more LEGO-related discussion on the new forum than on the old one, but not a marked and incredibly notable increase. Honestly I don't think there's anything anybody can do to fix this overnight, and any change to this is going to coincide with a change of activity. I think there's a lot of nostalgia for BIONICLE here as well - not like that's a bad thing, but unintentional member-led focus on BIONICLE is not going to help matters with attracting new members.