SITE UPDATE DECEMBER 2013 AND INTO 2014

[Jeff Mack]

Ok, so many of you have noticed that there has been an update to the home page and content section.  Overall I am happy that the transition has gone pretty good.  Again, it's not something I wanted to do, but here are a few reasons why it needed to be done.

• Back in June is when we did the Forum upgrade.  This I am happy about.  The forum has been great and much better than what was there before.  When we did this upgrade, I felt it would be good to utilize the tools that came with it and keep the system for the most part unified.  The blog area did its job but it's actually a negative for the site.  Overall its horrific for SEO (search engine optimization).  This site in many cases fell off the charts for all the content that we had.  I really don't think Google and the others really cared for find the blogs under /forum directories.  So users are not finding the content anywhere near the top of the list.  This may not be important for you, but its super huge for us. Using Wordpress, which is a true content management system, I will be able to do much better SEO techniques so searchers can find our content.  It also was very hard to find the latest content.  The other system had a horrible way to display the content.  It drove me nuts.
   
• There is a huge update to the forum coming in early 2014.  It looks very good and I am excited to get it on here.  The problem that I saw coming was it was going to be very hard to upgrade.  We made so many enhancements to this system with hooks/plugins that everything would probably break if we upgraded or we would have to wait a very long time to figure out if it would work.   By switching all the content to Wordpress, I can remove all of the extra hooks and get it back to a basically default system which is great news.
   
• Brickpoints will now be handled on the Wordpress side.  I have everyones totals, so even though you may see 500 points right now, over the next few days I will do an update and merge the totals.  We will be able to do a few more things with this system and we will update you on that later, but one nice feature is that we will be able to award brickpoints for people that login daily.  It's a great way to reward our loyal members.  This conversion needed to be done and made live so that I can update all the brickpoint code in Brick Classifieds.
   
• Member Blog Writing - There will not be separate blogs anymore for members.  Any blog articles that will be written are going to be fit right into the site.  So that means Brickvesting Articles, Evaluation Articles, High End Reviews.  We can create tons of categories to show great content. You will get all the good tools of Wordpress to work on your article.  All you need to do is click the Dashboard link on the home page/side bar in the blog area, or click +New in the header in the blog area.  That will take you to the dashboard and you can create a new article.  We will get a notification when you are ready to submit for publishing.  Ed will be announcing a new article contest in the very near future so get ready
   
• Brick Classifieds - I have gotten my butt kick at work and with travel over the past few months. It's been hard finding the time to get in and wrap this up, so I apologize for the delay.  I am off for the next two weeks and I have already forewarned my wife that I will be chained to the desk to put the finishing touches on the site to have for you in 2014.  I think it will be good timing that the holidays are over and we all know there is a huge surplus of Lego to sold.  So get ready.
   
• Price guide will be the next huge hit.  Once Brick Classifieds is out there and we are collecting feedback, we will be hard at work overhauling the price guide and Brickfolio.  This will also be the start of creating Brickpicker Premium.  We will give more details on all this, but from what we have put together for features, I don't think anyone will be disappointed.

 

So bear with me for a day or two.  I have already squashed a few bugs, but there is some more to optimize and fix.  I know there are some weird issues with the mobile template and I will get to that.  Thanks for reading my wall of text.

[DoNotInsertIntoMouth]

As long you are putting us over your wife, thats whats important

 

Looks good so far.

[Fcbarcelona101]

Everything sounds great. One thing, all of the articles are showing "Posted by Jeff Mack". Not sure if that's just a default, but will they show the author once you are done fixing the rest of the bugs?

[Jeff Mack]

Everything sounds great. One thing, all of the articles are showing "Posted by Jeff Mack". Not sure if that's just a default, but will they show the author once you are done fixing the rest of the bugs?

 

No, I am taking credit for everything.  I want all the power!!!   Yes, I will update all that when I am doing brickpoints, etc.

[TheOrcKing]

No, I am taking credit for everything.  I want all the power!!!

Ah crap, we are all seriously Jeffed. :fie:

[MartinP]

Awesome. Looking forward to all the new updates.

[IAmElim]

I wish I could have known about this site a long time ago. If I did, I would probably hold a much more impressive collection.

 

It's a great site with great features (brickfolio, forum, reviews, etc) and I thank Jeff Mack for puting this together. The only downside I can see is that it's going to encourage many more people into LEGO investing, which are competition to us "old" LEGO investors. But even so, I still believe that even if LEGO prices on the second market won't rise as fast as a few years ago, there will definitely be some nice gains to be made.

 

Keep it up!

[Ed Mack]

As Jeff stated, we will launch 2014 with a new blog and review contest.  The Wordpress blog editor is very cool and we are looking to upgrade the site's content once again.  I'll let everyone know right after Christmas about what the rules and prizes are.  

[justafrog]

Thanks for the update, looking forward to the changes ahead.

[peculiar23]

Great job guys! Looking forward to the new year and new brick picker!

[nir4life]

Thanks for the update! Looking forward to the future site! Great job so far!

[matt1147]

Great job and keep up the good work!

[DoNotInsertIntoMouth]

As Jeff stated, we will launch 2014 with a new blog and review contest.  The Wordpress blog editor is very cool and we are looking to upgrade the site's content once again.  I'll let everyone know right after Christmas about what the rules and prizes are.  

 

AHHHHH YEAAAHHH

 

I love contests. My sleep schedule doesn't, but I do.

 

Bring it on!

[Rich B]

Everything looks great Ed and Jeff!  Keep up the good work!!

[akohns]

Thanks Jeff. Things look great. Excited for the future!

[Bold-Arrow]

As always, thank you for your time and help. Keep up the great work

[exciter1]

Great stuff, you guys are always thinking ahead, which is good for everyone...

[DoNotInsertIntoMouth]

Just an Observation Macks:

 

The forums on the front page don't really stand out - it just says "forum". I feel like its an important part to the site - new people finding the site might not really gravitate towards it. 

 

Not necessarily sure how to make it stand out more, but to me I know I have to look for it every time I go to the front page.

[Scissorino]

logged in and wondered where my points had gone! Keep up your good work.

[TheOrcKing]

Is there anyway to 'like' a blog article now? I couldn't find the button for Fcbarcelona101's new one.

 

logged in and wondered where my points had gone! Keep up your good work.

That reminds me. The Brickpoints shown on the main page isn't correct. Now when I go to my profile and click on Brickpoints, it's the right amount but some reason I am seeing two different values. (Main page is at 655, profile is 10,732.)

[Fcbarcelona101]

Is there anyway to 'like' a blog article now? I couldn't find the button for Fcbarcelona101's new one.

 

Apparently, the only way to "like" a blog now is by sending a $10 donation to my personal address. Can PM that to you if you'd like....lol

[TheOrcKing]

Apparently, the only way to "like" a blog now is by sending a $10 donation to my personal address. Can PM that to you if you'd like....lol

[TheOrcKing]

An idea for the blogs, is there a way to display when it was originally posted/written like before? It can give an idea for anyone reading as to the timeframe the thoughts and charts were made around, and possibly keep certain comments like "Why didn't you list this set?" or "Why would you think that when this is going for how much now?". Just an idea for a later date.

[Ed Mack]

An idea for the blogs, is there a way to display when it was originally posted/written like before? It can give an idea for anyone reading as to the timeframe the thoughts and charts were made around, and possibly keep certain comments like "Why didn't you list this set?" or "Why would you think that when this is going for how much now?". Just an idea for a later date.

There probably is a way.  Jeff had to convert all the old blogs to Wordpress versions so it probably got lost in the shuffle.  We will add it to the list.

[Guest eightbrick]

An idea for the blogs, is there a way to display when it was originally posted/written like before? It can give an idea for anyone reading as to the timeframe the thoughts and charts were made around, and possibly keep certain comments like "Why didn't you list this set?" or "Why would you think that when this is going for how much now?". Just an idea for a later date.

Yes, that would be helpful. Usually people reply to articles pretty fast so I just go by the date of the first reply as a general idea since the conversion. On the nitpicking side of things, is the view counter and members currently reading bar gone for good? They are far from essentials, but I just thought they were really cool features.

 

Anyways, I'd just like to say I love the new editor. It's clean, has lots of features that even a computer noob like me can work out, and the SEO feature works great. Great to write in and great to read from. Awesome job guys!