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Alyska

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So, what does everyone think of the new Lego Cuusoo service?I think it's a great idea, but I've found one issue with it. If you look at the "Top Ten projects" section, a majority of the most popular projects are licensed themes, rather than original ideas. Campaigns to bring back old lines, like Bionicle, also get a disproportionate amount of attention.Now, maybe the licensed themes are technically a fair use of the service, and many of the people submitting them have worked hard to create the MOCs, but I'm a bit concerned that they are jeopardising the opportunities of people who submit original ideas. Suggesting a licensed product gives you the advantage of instant brand recognition, and so people are more likely to vote for it than for something totally new. I would also question how likelihood of some of the licensed themes making it past Lego, as they require negotiations with the people who own the original franchises, not to mention licensing fees.Also, there is a potential problem with the doubling-up of ideas. Three projects out of the top ten involve Minecraft. Now, the one that got 10 000 votes and is currently in review by Lego is NOT the one that was created first. If Lego starts making Minecraft sets, who should the 1% of sales prize money go to in this situation?EDIT: I've just realised that the Minecraft project that did so well is actually one suggested by the company that owns Minecraft, not a fan. So, it looks as though none of the fans will get the 1% of the profit.So, what does everyone else think of the Cuusoo service?

Edited by Alyska

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It's a powerful ability, and a powerful tool in the hands of the fans. It's unfortunate that they seem to be more concerned with licensed themes - essentially, one fan saying "oh, wouldn't it be great if _____ were a LEGO line ... ?", instead of generating their own creations or ideas for submission. Considering a lot of the MOC fodder for older fans rely on themes LEGO would never dare license - war, Halo, and more violent things along those lines - for their own MOCs.If it were up to me, I would not eliminate licensed themes from consideration, though I don't see many viable licensed ideas coming from Cuusoo. Some can be done well - I imagine a LEGO Chronicles of Narnia series might work well, should LEGO acquire a license - but most are either too esoteric, too mature, or are too hard to acquire licenses for. In the case of LEGO Minecraft, I think it falls under the first category. How many people will be out there to buy LEGO Minecraft sets?If the first few Cuusoo ideas fail on epic proportions, I think the fans run the risk of losing this tool, this privilege, bestowed upon us by The LEGO Group. It's our duty, as the fans of LEGO and their building system, to not squander such a useful product. Most of the LEGO reviews for viability will weed out the unhealthy ideas that make it up to that stage, but if the truly brilliant ideas go relatively unheeded in favor of either young fans still ticked off over the logical cancellation of BIONICLE, or uninventive, uncreative, and non-viable licensed themes, then what use is there in such a product?I, however, hold high hopes about the future successfulness of Cuusoo.

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Trouble is, Sturgeon's law applies here. When you give everyone a voice, ninety per cent of what you get is crud. But that doesn't mean the service isn't worthwhile- the remaining ten per cent is worth dying for, even if it is hard to find. Perhaps the site could be moderated a little better, to avoid the dupe topics and the huge amount of spam in the comments section.But Lego does not have a good track record when it comes to maintaining web-based projects- they've cancelled Lego Universe, and they don't seem to put up much online story content for individual toylines after the first year. I hope they can keep this one up.Incidentally, one of the Cuusoo projects I saw this morning was "Bring back Lego Universe". I think that demonstrates pretty well that some people have completely missed the point of the service.

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"Bring Back" petitions - or concepts/ideas that essentially amount to a petition - should be banned. It is truly an abuse of the service, and I could fustigate how much I despise it for quite some time, but I won't.Most of the people submitting ideas and supporting others' ideas seem to not understand why their beloved lines were "suddenly" cancelled. I admire LEGO greatly as a company. They have done some great things, and while I can question their judgement from a fan's perspective, I cannot excoriate the company from a logical, practical perspective because everything they have done makes perfect sense.I do think LEGO could use more moderators. Their message boards are notorious for making sane people's brain cells turn to rotten glue, and moderation of any decent form - or in any form whatsoever - would be a huge boost to both their message boards and Cuusoo - and the silliness that inevitably ensues with both. (I can understand not truly moderating the LMBs - get rid of all the spam and you're left with about three posts.)Either way, the review system should trap all of these line revival petitions in a net of reality, but it does weigh down the legitimate ideas.

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Well, it's really not surprising that licensed ideas and "bring back" ideas are getting more support than original ideas - it's much more difficult to come up with something original that can catch the eye of people than to provide a new spin on something people already know. Still, the service is in its infancy, so I'd hope that as time goes on more unique ideas can gain traction; after all, sooner or later people are going to run out of large franchises to ask "hey, wouldn't it be cool to have LEGO ______" about.

Hey: I'm not very active around BZP right now.  However, you can always contact me through PM (I have email notifications set up) and I will reply as soon as I can.


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The number of suggestions regarding licensed sets has got me wondering whether the people who suggest them should actually get the 1% of sales profit, assuming such ideas end up being accepted. How much of it counts as their idea?Also, in the terms of the use of the service, there is a note about having to credit other people if you are not the original creator of it. I presume that many of the pitches would technically be violating this by failing to identify who actually owns the work. (It sounds like a nitpick, but it could result in Lego accidentally using another company's intellectual property without realising.)I don't think there's any limit to how many licensed themes can be suggested. And even if there was, the people on there are clearly not afraid to double up.

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In general, the unanswered questions about how certain things like licensed products and "bring back _____" suggestions would work are part of the reason why Cuusoo is still in beta. There are a lot of things that haven't been figured out about it. But I don't know if it would be good for TLG to prohibit these kind of suggestions until they know for sure whether they can or can't work. Plus, prohibitions on certain types of proposals could stifle creative ideas, as certain members become afraid to suggest things that could perhaps be easier to make a reality than the typical movie license proposals or revivals of old themes. Likenesses of certain famous sculptures, buildings, or artworks could easily belong to certain foundations and trusts, but that doesn't mean those ideas should be outright discounted.

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I found out today that there's no word filter on the site either. People can swear as much as they like (Well, maybe it gets reported, but it must take a while before something gets done, if at all). On an official LEGO site, that's pretty disgraceful, beta or not.The moderation and reporting system in general is just shocking. I reported a guy this morning who was making overtly sexual remarks to a group of minors, and it was a good hour before the topic was deleted... and the guy was still allowed to keep his account!Cuusoo was originally a Japanese thing, right? I guess that explains a few things. For one, the Japanese language has no swear words...

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  • 3 weeks later...

It's kinda sad how the Bring Back BIONICLE project is only on cuusoo's front page because of the sheer number of comments. All the other proposals on the front page start out with "This is my idea" or "Based on X". BBB starts off with "HERE IS HOW WE BRING ATTENTION TO OURSELVES".However, that's unrelated to what I actually have to say. According to an unnameable source (another forum), cuusoo has essentially instigated a crack-down on people who are under 13, who apparently got in through an account registering glitch. They will no longer be allowed to possess an account there, is the gist of it. As a forum, BZP doesn't have any such restriction, and rightly so, we don't want that to change. However, we have also had to deal with the fact that Greg can technically no longer have much contact with us, as he is prevented by LEGO from having contact with under-13's, in the same legal guidelines that cuusoo is trying to follow.Is it possible we could combine the two? Since cuusoo is an official LEGO way of recognizing who is over 13, whoever is trying to contact Greg could somehow use their cuusoo account as validation. Dunno, just a thought. Obviously so much of that is contingent on Greg's availability, whether or not these new rules of cuusoo are actually capable of being trusted, etc. But it is an in-house validation of sorts, so I dunno. Ideas, ideas.

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The policy means that under 13s cannot have accounts, and also that members cannot start projects until they are eighteen, so all projects by people under 18 that currently exist will be removed until the owner is eighteen (hmm... I wonder how old the Bionicle project's owner is...). I agree with their reasoning for the most part, but he one thing that really ticks me off is that kids under thirteen can't even vote for projects, when they are Lego's target demographic, and as such, most of the projects should be aimed at them. I've said this elsewhere, but I really think voting for projects should be independent of having an account.There really is no definite way of verifying somene's age on the internet, even if you use other sites as a basis. And as a regular Cuusoo user, I say that BZP should not be using Cuusoo as a role model for anything. One thing BZP could consider is having one's age registered in order to use the PM system, and have the under 13s blocked from sending PMs. Actually, Greg PMed me out of the blue once, a short while after the policy was announced, citing that he "knew" I was over thirteen, and it was therefore okay to talk to me. But even then, he was only using a combination of my profile details and his own personal judgement. And he wouldn't even be able to use that if he hadn't spoken to me in the past.I'm annoyed that the BBB project is still up, too- and on the front page no less. The Cuusoo staff have been so busy trying to get rid of the spam, trolling, underage users and plagiarism that they haven't had the chance to implement any other quality-control strategies or guidelines. I expect it will disappear sometime in the next month or so, for one reason or another.

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I can totally understand the under-13 rule, but having to be over 18 to start a project is patently ridiculous.I've always found chronological age to be a horrid judge of maturity development. I know 10-year-olds that act 30, and 30-year-olds that act 10.If someone is over 13, and has a good idea, let them submit it!(Plus, lying about age on the the Internet is nothing new - it's been around since the Internet started, really. People will not stop now, and even the people who wish not to lie can always use registration from their parents or something. It's a stupid rule on three fronts.)

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I can totally understand the under-13 rule, but having to be over 18 to start a project is patently ridiculous.I've always found chronological age to be a horrid judge of maturity development. I know 10-year-olds that act 30, and 30-year-olds that act 10.If someone is over 13, and has a good idea, let them submit it!(Plus, lying about age on the the Internet is nothing new - it's been around since the Internet started, really. People will not stop now, and even the people who wish not to lie can always use registration from their parents or something. It's a stupid rule on three fronts.)

The reason for this is explained in an e-mail sent to certain AFOL sites. It's not about maturity, it's about legal autonomy.

Raising the Project age to 18From next week Thursday (January 12), you will need to be at least 18 years old to create a Project on LEGO CUUSOO. As we considered the various changes needed to the Terms of Service (TOS), we have determined that users must be at least 18 to enter into a legal agreement with the LEGO Group that allows us to produce their idea as a LEGO product should it reach the 10,000 supporter threshold.If you are under 18, your projects will remain online and visible until Midnight, January 12 GMT. You have between now and then to save any images and text you’ve uploaded to LEGO CUUSOO. After that date, your projects will be unpublished, and you will not be able to re-publish them until you are 18 (according to the birthdate you have provided us). Once you turn 18, you’ll be able to re-publish your projects—and we hope you choose to do so!If you are under 18, you're still welcome to have an account on LEGO CUUSOO and you may keep supporting others' projects and are welcome to comment on them.

So you see, the reason for the change is because of the legal agreement that has to be made for a project to actually get made. This is not possible with submissions by members under 18 years of age.
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I've noticed that traffic on the site has decreased significantly lately, probably due to all the underage users having their accounts deleted. That, and a lot of teenage users would have been put off by the new guidelines that prevented them from posting their ideas.Furthermore, the promised Minecraft update hasn't happened yet. Now, this may be just me being cynical, but I think the answer is gonna be a "no". The sets posted on the project, while an interesting use of standard Lego bricks, would not make a good set. I don't see kids getting any more enjoyment out of that type of set than they would out of the bog-standard buckets of bricks- and Minecraft ones would only be more expensive due to the licensing cost. The project got to 10 000 on sheer brand recognition, not on the quality of the sets. And Lego knows this. They are probably very reluctant to hit their fans with more bad news, though, so they haven't posted their conclusion yet.Once all of their new policies are in place and everything is under control, it sounds like Cuusoo will be in serious need of a publicity boost. They almost need another "Minecraft"- some sort of well-built, official project that will get plenty of publicity and bring in new users. Anyway, Lego is obviously trying to improve the quality of the site, and I think that most of the decisions made in the last few weeks have been improvements, but it has also hurt their fanbase at the same time.

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I've noticed that traffic on the site has decreased significantly lately, probably due to all the underage users having their accounts deleted. That, and a lot of teenage users would have been put off by the new guidelines that prevented them from posting their ideas.Furthermore, the promised Minecraft update hasn't happened yet. Now, this may be just me being cynical, but I think the answer is gonna be a "no". The sets posted on the project, while an interesting use of standard Lego bricks, would not make a good set. I don't see kids getting any more enjoyment out of that type of set than they would out of the bog-standard buckets of bricks- and Minecraft ones would only be more expensive due to the licensing cost. The project got to 10 000 on sheer brand recognition, not on the quality of the sets. And Lego knows this. They are probably very reluctant to hit their fans with more bad news, though, so they haven't posted their conclusion yet.Once all of their new policies are in place and everything is under control, it sounds like Cuusoo will be in serious need of a publicity boost. They almost need another "Minecraft"- some sort of well-built, official project that will get plenty of publicity and bring in new users. Anyway, Lego is obviously trying to improve the quality of the site, and I think that most of the decisions made in the last few weeks have been improvements, but it has also hurt their fanbase at the same time.

I don't see why you think TLG will not be going through with the Minecraft proposal. From a letter posted to another LEGO forum on December 15:

Hi Everyone,We’ve seen some comments and questions about the Minecraft project on various AFOL forums, so here’s a bit of background on it and how we view the project and idea. We’re going to post here instead of commenting online on the several places where there is discussion, this way we can focus our time on working on the platform instead of getting into multiple dialogues. Some people don’t like Minecraft, others don’t see how it would make a good LEGO product, and some are wondering how something got 10,000 votes so quickly. We’ve also heard peoples’ desires that CUUSOO would promote well-built MOCs as the next models.LEGO CUUSOO is a place for people to share their ideas for potential new LEGO products. In response to Minecraft, Paal put it this way in the press release; “This is what LEGO CUUSOO is all about, connecting people’s passion to the LEGO brick.” While most Minecraft fans aren’t AFOLs, they are really passionate about Minecraft and happen to like LEGO products. So, CUUSOO worked just as intended here – a group of passionate people saw the opportunity to connect their interest to LEGO bricks, and we’ve identified a community with critical mass where we could produce products they would enjoy and buy.Now we are looking to see if we can develop LEGO models which the Minecraft community would want, and that has the design quality that is expected of a LEGO product. If we succeed, we meet someone’s passion with a LEGO product and identify a new LEGO consumer – some of whom will become regular purchasers and still some who might become future AFOLs.But how would Minecraft be a good LEGO product? Isn’t it redundant, and aren’t the blocky play set images out there just low-fi Basic sets, and wouldn’t using cubes be really unstable? Well, yes. We see the low-fi images of Minecraft models as representative of the idea of Minecraft themed LEGO products, and we know blocky play sets won’t work as products. What we do see is demand for LEGO products that celebrate the Minecraft game.Any product given the green light through CUUSOO goes through an extensive design process with our model designers. So, it will never be exactly what is submitted (neither Shinkai or Hayabusa were that way; Hayabusa went through two major revisions to get to the final, and we’ll have news on that in the coming weeks). We’ll share bits and pieces of that process as models are produced through CUUSOO. If you’re concerned with quality of an eventual set, the designers evaluating Minecraft have backgrounds with LEGO Architecture, Blacktron I, and Space Police I, so any potential product is in very capable hands. We’re also collaborating with the two original users who created the project.How did this happen so fast, when good models are only getting handfuls of votes? The quick answer is the Minecraft community is large, new, focused, and passionate (2 million Facebook fans/16 million players). We were taken off guard with this, and did not expect this kind of a surge in traffic to our platform that is still in beta. We’re looking at it as an amazing opportunity, though, and taking what we have learned to improve things for the future.Here’s what happened: Someone put up a Minecraft project. Mojang (Minecraft creators) found it and thought it was cool, and they linked to it on Facebook and Twitter. Immediately traffic spiked and even brought down the site a couple times. Along the way there was the issue of ownership; the original poster uploaded someone else’s image and the project got popular with that image posted. We investigated and all agreed the route of making it a collaboration was best. It was clear that the Minecraft idea would gain critical mass, and we would need a license anyway. So, Mojang agreed to step in and work collaboratively on it with the users, and the users just wanted to see Minecraft happen and were happy to work together.But what about this awesome MOC that totally deserves to be a LEGO product? As an AFOL myself, I know it’s a dream to think of your creation as an official LEGO product. In this case, the Minecraft community lacks in building skill but makes up for it in focus and passion. Think not just about building quality, but about connecting to your audience’s passion. There are a few dozen really great models on CUUSOO, with votes in the high hundreds and even in the 1000-1500 range, so it’s not impossible. Also think about what makes a good LEGO product (not just a good MOC). The game is still wide open. This is only the third CUUSOO product, and the first one on the global platform. So, get at it! JCUUSOO isn’t just about getting great MOCs produced, it’s about connecting passion for an interest with the LEGO brick. As a business case, it’s about finding new markets for the company that we would otherwise overlook, and supporting them with data before we produce a product. We see the Minecraft opportunity as a good one. Star Wars brought in many, many new LEGO consumers and fans and 12 years on it is still a strong theme. Harry Potter, the Direct exclusives and LEGO Architecture are doing the same. Minecraft will only be a fraction of Star Wars’ success, but it is an opportunity to connect with another passionate fan community, so it’s worth exploring.We learned a lot about the platform and user behavior through the Minecraft experience. Some of it we already knew intuitively, other things were new lessons that can only come after being overwhelmed with traffic of this nature. The experience either proved some assumptions and disproved others. We’re actively developing improvements to the platform itself, the rules, and the mechanics.Specifically, we’re very aware of the rampant plagiarism of AFOLs’ creations. It isn’t cool at all to have a site where users do this, and the upcoming changes will have more explicit rules and make it difficult for users to plagiarize in the future by allowing for user reporting and easier/quicker administration. We believe that stamping out plagiarism and raising the project submission age to 18+ will improve the quality of models on CUUSOO so users don’t have to wade through junk. We’re also working on improvements to the sign up process, the process of submitting your first Project, and making it easier to find things on the site. We’re grateful to all of you for your help with suggestions and flagging plagiarism. We hope to have the site improvements online soon.Hope this has addressed some of the main questions about CUUSOO and the Minecraft project.Thanks!Tim Courtney, the LEGO CUUSOO team

From this letter, I see no reason to think they're not going ahead with the Minecraft proposal. Frankly, whether the toy will be something kids would want to play with may not even be a factor. The Shinkai 6500 set was more of a model kit than anything else. Additionally, the fact that we haven't heard much about Minecraft product development isn't that significant considering that the second model to be accepted through Cuusoo, the Hayabusa space probe, has not yet been shown in a finalized form, despite the decision to produce it having been made in July of last year.The LEGO Cuusoo blog did tell us to expect an update on the Minecraft project sometime after Christmas, but I think the LEGO Cuusoo team is probably too busy with all of the big changes in age restrictions and other regulations on the Cuusoo site. Speaking of which, I hadn't previously read this Cuusoo blog entry that goes into detail about the age-related changes on the site, including answering a lot of questions that I've seen asked here on BZPower and on other LEGO fansites. It makes it perfectly clear that the 18+ rule for project proposals is a legal matter, not some subjective decision based on the perceived maturity of younger members-- although as mentioned in the quote above, the reduction in plagiarism of MOCs is something they hope will be a side-effect of the changes. Edited by Aanchir: Rachira of Time
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One thing BZP could consider is having one's age registered in order to use the PM system, and have the under 13s blocked from sending PMs.

Wonderful idea! Let's shut off members who are under thirteen from using PMs because they're not mature enough to communicate with other members! Why, because they're too stupid to think!Now that I think about, members under thirteen are the cause of all our problems and spam! I for one herald the beginning of the grand under thirteen persecution!Okay, sarcasm aside.While in the case of LEGO, which is for legal reasons, this would not be and is part of a disturbing trend in the LEGO community of casting off KFOLS. Many are not good MOCists and don't add to the community, but blacklisting them is inefficent and a naive way of thinking.One may point out that there is a conflict of interests in my argument, since I would be affected. However, just as kindergarteners look down on toddlers and brand them as immature, and third graders do to lower graders, many teens and young adults are simply judging and taking advantage of the fact that they're a majority to use kids under thirteen as scapegoats. KFOLS are an extreme minority on the site, and easy to pick on. Plus, since we're such a small group it's hard for us to be trouble. I believe that there should be people fighting against this ageism. (I guess those are kinda harsh allegations, but I think you know what I mean.)I would like to suggest something: Why not make this site a 13- or 18- only community? After all, why would teens and adults play with LEGO?
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One thing BZP could consider is having one's age registered in order to use the PM system, and have the under 13s blocked from sending PMs.

Wonderful idea! Let's shut off members who are under thirteen from using PMs because they're not mature enough to communicate with other members! Why, because they're too stupid to think!Now that I think about, members under thirteen are the cause of all our problems and spam! I for one herald the beginning of the grand under thirteen persecution!Okay, sarcasm aside.While in the case of LEGO, which is for legal reasons, this would not be and is part of a disturbing trend in the LEGO community of casting off KFOLS. Many are not good MOCists and don't add to the community, but blacklisting them is inefficent and a naive way of thinking.One may point out that there is a conflict of interests in my argument, since I would be affected. However, just as kindergarteners look down on toddlers and brand them as immature, and third graders do to lower graders, many teens and young adults are simply judging and taking advantage of the fact that they're a majority to use kids under thirteen as scapegoats. KFOLS are an extreme minority on the site, and easy to pick on. Plus, since we're such a small group it's hard for us to be trouble. I believe that there should be people fighting against this ageism. (I guess those are kinda harsh allegations, but I think you know what I mean.)I would like to suggest something: Why not make this site a 13- or 18- only community? After all, why would teens and adults play with LEGO?
While it's frustrating when sites have age limits, it's not as though it's any worse than the age limits on other things in life, like drinking, driving, marriage, and voting. Age is quite frankly the only quantitative measure of experience and maturity. It's not entirely reliable, but if people don't use age to judge these things, they have to use qualitative measures, and no commercial site is going to waste time doing a complete background check and analysis of every new person applying for membership.I'm personally a member on an AFOL site that sets the age limit at 18. Until you are 18, you aren't allowed membership, and I waited patiently to meet that requirement. People can and do lie about their age, but for the most part if a person lies about their age and can act mature enough that they don't stand out as a younger user, then they keep their membership and suffer no ill consequences.It's not as though people below an age limit a site sets are having anything taken from them because they aren't old enough. They simply aren't being given whatever bonus priveleges come with reaching that age limit. The added priveleges give people below the age limit something to look forward to, and users who are already mature enough to be constructive members of the community at a younger age aren't going to becom any less mature or constructive between now and the time when they're old enough to join the site.Now, placing an arbitrary age limit on BZPower would be taking things away from younger users, and that would be completely unfair. I also wouldn't see the point, as the people who continue coming back to the site time and time again are the people mature enough to establish themselves in the community, and less mature members of all ages don't tend to cause lasting problems for the site-- if they behave appropriately and according to the rules, they stay; if not, they suffer the consequences. On the other hand, if BZPower were to create an "exclusive" part of the site with its own age limit and its own priveleges, that would be fine, as long as those priveleges are new ones and not ones that are being taken away from members below the age limit. In the meantime, as the Cuusoo team explains on their blog, a user below the age limit can still submit or vote on LEGO Cuusoo proposals through a parent or older friend. But in the case of proposals, the person in whose name the account is made will be the one with whom the legal arrangements for producing the set are made, because it would not be legal for LEGO to do business in that way with people who are not legally recognized as adults.
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Well, I was mostly suggesting it as a means of us getting to keep Greg here and have members stay in contact with him without breaching Lego's guidelines, and it seemed like a broad restriction would be easier to implement than a specific one, but I can see why you might not agree with it. Then again, there may be another reason why Greg has stopped visiting BZP, so that may not even be relevant any more.Buuut, we're getting off-topic.

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I was responding to the suggestion about BZPower, not Cuusoo.Nevertheless, I feel like many people don't find any problems with these age limit for the sole reason that they don't have any reason to care since they're not affected.

You're probably right to an extent, but I feel the only reason people below the age limit should feel slighted was because the Cuusoo team was careless and didn't have the 18+ age limit implemented from the very beginning, even though it has now been found to have been necessary from the outset. If the 18+ age limit had been on the site to begin with, and the reasons had been explained, there would have been no need to "take away" priveleges from people. Instead, the priveleges would only have been granted to those people who could legally reap the benefits of them when the proposals reached the consideration threshold. As it is, it's natural that people who had joined the site to propose their ideas should be upset when their proposals are abruptly taken down for reasons that weren't made clear when they joined the site.The 13+ membership age limit is a bit more arbitrary, but presumably it's just selected as an age when people are expected to have some level of economic understanding. After all, supporting a proposal involves giving a realistic estimate of how much you'd pay for a product based on the proposal, since that tells TLG's designers what price point to design the products for. Sure, it's possible that a person under 13 could be very economically savvy, and it's possible that a person over 13 could have no talent for estimating prices. But these are expected to be outliers rather than the norm, and so the age limit still accomplishes its purpose to a reasonable extent.And as I mentioned, a person below the age limit can still support or create proposals through an older friend or relative. Since a person younger than 13 years old probably gets most of their LEGO sets (or in the very least, their spending money to buy LEGO sets) through their parents, this is probably more reliable for getting reasonable price estimates anyway.
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Hello I am new here and I just thought I would add my two cents on the situation. I am the creator of the Dragon Slayers project. I hit eighty supporters when the under eighteen rule was announced. Now my project is going to be unpublished. Howerver despite all this I agree what the staff did. There was alot of trouble with CUUSOO and I witnessed it. The over thirteen rule was there from the beggining and there was reason. There have been people who have joined who make sexual projects, cuss, and do any damage they can in fifteen minutes. LEGO is a family friendly company and they take protecting kids seriously. The other reason the rule was there is because there was an epidemic of spam. While I agree that age can't determine everything, you have to respect that it is the best indicator of maturity. Most kids do spam (team talk) and post off topic remarks. While this is not all of them most of them do. On the over eighteen rule, I think that LEGO was right. You do have to be over eighteen in order to be in legal agreement. It is how to world works. This does hurt many projects including me. I honestly think that this will also remove most of the liscenced projects with a logo. While not every teen does this many of them do unfortunately. This will also practically eliminate the plagirism on the site. While this does hurt my project I think CUUSOO is changing for the better. I asked the staff if my parents could create an account (account: lizardman) and reupload my project there. They said yes because my parents can enter into a legal contract with LEGO. My project may have lost over eighty supporters but this will make an overall better site. You have to respect that LEGO is changing the rules in response to the what teens and kids alike have done on the site. The over eighteen rule also reduces the sexual and non family friendly projects next to nothing. These new rules do make for a better site. Again just my two cents.

Do you want to have a theme revolving around mythical beasts? If you do please support my Dragon Slayers project on CUUSOO link: http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/7694

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Hmm... that's interesting... co-inciding with the decrease in traffic on Cuusoo, I keep seeing more people from Cuusoo setting up new accounts on BZP. (Hello, reptiman and cooldynamyte! It's me, Bunyip from Cuusoo.) I wonder why that is... oh, well, i guess it means BZP's transition to being a more general website has worked.@Eragon- It's not too difficult. You just set up an account, and vote for the projects you would like to see as Lego products. When you turn eighteen, you can create your own projects, too.

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Hi bunyip. Well I have actually lurked on countless LEGO forums. I actually joined one this week so i joined BZP too. Back on topic I wonder if they are going to set up a forum or PM system in CUUSOO. The staff say there is going to be a revamped design based on how users interact with CUUSOO. Any thoughts on to what that means?

Do you want to have a theme revolving around mythical beasts? If you do please support my Dragon Slayers project on CUUSOO link: http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/7694

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My latest MOC! http://www.bzpower.com/board/index.php?showtopic=9379

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Hmm... that's interesting... co-inciding with the decrease in traffic on Cuusoo, I keep seeing more people from Cuusoo setting up new accounts on BZP. (Hello, reptiman and cooldynamyte! It's me, Bunyip from Cuusoo.) I wonder why that is... oh, well, i guess it means BZP's transition to being a more general website has worked.@Eragon- It's not too difficult. You just set up an account, and vote for the projects you would like to see as Lego products. When you turn eighteen, you can create your own projects, too.

OK, too bad , I have 3 years to go =/, I don't have any project ideas anyway =P

Hi bunyip. Well I have actually lurked on countless LEGO forums. I actually joined one this week so i joined BZP too. Back on topic I wonder if they are going to set up a forum or PM system in CUUSOO. The staff say there is going to be a revamped design based on how users interact with CUUSOO. Any thoughts on to what that means?

What forums are ya on? I'm on alot too! =P

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I reccomend you join anyway. You can still vote for which projects you like and there are quite a few BZPers on there as well.

Do you want to have a theme revolving around mythical beasts? If you do please support my Dragon Slayers project on CUUSOO link: http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/7694

BZPRPG profile:

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My latest MOC! http://www.bzpower.com/board/index.php?showtopic=9379

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I just noticed that there is a bit of a new format. The bookmark button has been moved to the side. I heard about a bookmarking "bug" where members could not find a bookmark button. Perhaps this is the reason for the change?

Do you want to have a theme revolving around mythical beasts? If you do please support my Dragon Slayers project on CUUSOO link: http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/7694

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My latest MOC! http://www.bzpower.com/board/index.php?showtopic=9379

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I was responding to the suggestion about BZPower, not Cuusoo.Nevertheless, I feel like many people don't find any problems with these age limit for the sole reason that they don't have any reason to care since they're not affected.

You're probably right to an extent, but I feel the only reason people below the age limit should feel slighted was because the Cuusoo team was careless and didn't have the 18+ age limit implemented from the very beginning, even though it has now been found to have been necessary from the outset. If the 18+ age limit had been on the site to begin with, and the reasons had been explained, there would have been no need to "take away" priveleges from people. Instead, the priveleges would only have been granted to those people who could legally reap the benefits of them when the proposals reached the consideration threshold. As it is, it's natural that people who had joined the site to propose their ideas should be upset when their proposals are abruptly taken down for reasons that weren't made clear when they joined the site.The 13+ membership age limit is a bit more arbitrary, but presumably it's just selected as an age when people are expected to have some level of economic understanding. After all, supporting a proposal involves giving a realistic estimate of how much you'd pay for a product based on the proposal, since that tells TLG's designers what price point to design the products for. Sure, it's possible that a person under 13 could be very economically savvy, and it's possible that a person over 13 could have no talent for estimating prices. But these are expected to be outliers rather than the norm, and so the age limit still accomplishes its purpose to a reasonable extent.And as I mentioned, a person below the age limit can still support or create proposals through an older friend or relative. Since a person younger than 13 years old probably gets most of their LEGO sets (or in the very least, their spending money to buy LEGO sets) through their parents, this is probably more reliable for getting reasonable price estimates anyway.
> I was responding to the question about BZPower, not Cuusoo.Wouldn't kids know best about LEGO prices since they're the main consumers? After all, by 13, most kids have said goodbye to LEGO. Edited by Waffles
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but once a project reaches 10,000 supports, doesn't it switch from Idea Stage to Review Stage?And then if it's approved and turned into an actual product it switches to Product Stage?

Wow, i wonder if the Bring Back Bionicle will ever reach 10000.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but once a project reaches 10,000 supports, doesn't it switch from Idea Stage to Review Stage?And then if it's approved and turned into an actual product it switches to Product Stage?

Actually, I think it just gets called the "Product Stage" after 10 000. That's what the Minecraft project is labelled, even though they haven't given a definite yes or no as to whether it will become a product.

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Hmm... that's interesting... co-inciding with the decrease in traffic on Cuusoo, I keep seeing more people from Cuusoo setting up new accounts on BZP. (Hello, reptiman and cooldynamyte! It's me, Bunyip from Cuusoo.) I wonder why that is... oh, well, i guess it means BZP's transition to being a more general website has worked.@Eragon- It's not too difficult. You just set up an account, and vote for the projects you would like to see as Lego products. When you turn eighteen, you can create your own projects, too.

Hi,Bunyip!Now,LEGO CUUSOO is now against theme ideas,so only set ideas are allowed. D:-CDP

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Now,LEGO CUUSOO is now against theme ideas,so only set ideas are allowed. D:

Finally, a restriction that allows Cuusoo to be used for its intended purpose.
The staff are helping all the people who suggested themes like me change it into a set. I like the staff on CUUSOO alot. They are very helpful. I am just glad the staff is not taking down projects that don't follow this rule instantly. They are giving us time to change our projects to suggesting a set. This is going to severely affect a ton of ideas on CUUSOO though mine included.

Do you want to have a theme revolving around mythical beasts? If you do please support my Dragon Slayers project on CUUSOO link: http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/7694

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My latest MOC! http://www.bzpower.com/board/index.php?showtopic=9379

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