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LEGO House AFOL Opening Event - Trip Report
Thanks to the work of fellow Bricks moderator jncraton getting us registered as a Recognised LEGO Fan Media site, we were invited to send a representative to the AFOL Opening event of The LEGO House - Home of the Brick a week before it opened.
This event was primarily a chance for The LEGO Group to say "thank you" to all the Adult Fans Of LEGO for all their support over the years, but especially with their help putting together The LEGO House - many of the attendees had models on display or had been involved in the planning of the building, right down to naming the café "Brickaccino".
After the doors were opened, we had a chance to get our personalised RFID wristband (this is a standard feature, not just a special treat for us - more on this later) and I grabbed a coffee from the café (I decided that I didn't need an "Overpriced Coffee" for $37 and so settled for a more affordable cortardo) we had a welcome from Jesper Vilstrup and Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, along with a introduction from representatives of the Skærbæk Fan Weekend which is also happening this weekend.

Kjeld in particular re-iterated the point that The LEGO House is for LEGO fans of all ages - and that we should all feel at home in the new Home of the Brick, and feel free to participate and use the areas and spaces as our own. LEGO User Groups and others will be able to use the spaces for events, gatherings and celebrations, as well as just visiting and enjoying the facilities.
The areas of The LEGO House

Welcome and Lobby
Tree of Creativity and Masterpiece Gallery
Experience Zones
History Collection
Parting Gift and LEGO House App

Closing Thoughts
Personally, I had a great time here, and think my kids would enjoy it as much as me - there's plenty of inspiring builds as well as fun little details throughout, and enough LEGO to keep everyone busy for a few hours. With only around 600 AFOLs in the venue it didn't feel crowded or overly busy, and we were all very considerate when rummaging through the (surprisingly) deep LEGO bins to find that last 1x1 tile! How I would feel trying to do the same when there's a few kids also rummaging amongst them I honestly don't know - possibly a little frustrated, but I guess that comes down to overall numbers - but part of the challenge is in building within some constraints!
Ticket and food prices seem fairly reasonable, and I'm sure it could be easily combined with a trip to LEGOLand (almost next door). Travel around Billund is fairly easy on public transport, and it's all very close to the airport.
All my photos are visible in this Google album:
AFOL LEGO House Opening
Edit to add: LEGO have confirmed that they'll be selling about 600 tickets per session (morning or afternoon entry), so it shouldn't feel all that different even in peak periods.
The report reads slightly better if you sort by "Oldest" ;) ‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾↘

This is a brilliant report, thank you! I'm so delighted to see how much much thought has gone into the design of the LEGO house. I would love to see it again once it's open.

This is a fantastic write-up! Thanks for sharing. It looks like you had a great time!

It's probably not worth it to bother with public transport go get from LEGO House to LEGOLand  (or the other way), it's only a little over 1 km, and most people will be able to walk that faster than the average wait for the bus.

That is true, and to be honest the nearest stop to the house at the moment isn't actually much closer anyway ;) It was more a comment on getting there from hotels around Billund or the airport (which I admit is only about 3km once you've walked around the perimeter.

3. Experience Zones
Coming down from the Gallery, you head into the experience zones - the four coloured areas representing different themes within the house.
Each zone has its own terrace area on the roof, covered in the rubber surface typically found in playgrounds, with different activities to let the younger visitors let off some steam from climbing frames to steps.
Most of the core areas (World Explorer, City Architect, LEGO Brick Builder and the Critter Creator especially) have DUPLO areas so that everyone can join in with the creative building - and you are certainly encouraged to build and share your creations!
Green - World Explorer, Character Creator and Story Lab
I started in the green World Explorer zone, taking in the impressive city builds, filled with both little jokes that most will get to various AFOL in-jokes that might not be as obvious! Around the edge of the zone are a number of displays of MOCs from the community, with different rooms and items in various scales, but all excellent builds.

After admiring the city, I made a couple of characters in the Character creator - massive selections of minifig parts to make your personal figure - and this was the first real opportunity to use the wristband - once you've made your characters, there are "photo booths" around the space with some handy studs to place your figure on and take a photo, with optional frames that you can then tag to your band for later.

Next it was on to the Story Lab - here up to 18 people (or pairs) can spend 10 minutes making a stop motion animation. You check-in before you start and are assigned a stage: each stage has three fixed cameras and a core stage set (currently a river front in the city, with a farm off to the right) along with a number figures, vehicles and props for your scene. The software gives you a nice onion-skin view of your scene and the previous shot as well as playing your animation each frame to see how it's coming along, and some special effects can also be added. Once the time is up you view the animation with intro and credits, and it's stored to your band for later.

Blue - City Architect, Robo Lab and Test Driver
Moving into the Blue City Architect zone you're confronted with a physical LEGO SimCity environment - a number of tables covered in square holes ready to accept 6x6 plates, with an interactive projection over the top - lots of little minifigs can be seen scurrying around the bare spaces asking for different types of buildings (red homes, green parks, yellow industrial/office and blue municipal) as well as some larger stadiums. Around the tables are building zones - filled with bricks and elements to create the different types of building. As you place them on the table the roads join up and the figures move gratefully into their new zones.

The Robo Lab, similar to the Story Lab requires a pre-registration process to assign you your robot, and then it's your turn to go and try and rescue the Arctic team that got trapped in ice while they were trying to locate some woolly mammoths! Your robot has a number of simple commands (forwards, backwards, rotate left or right, flamethrower and ice cannon) and it's your job to program a number of moves that will hopefully free the mini-figs. As you'd expect, chaining a number commands is more efficient, but any errors with the amount of turn can rapidly add up!

The robots are based around an EV3 heart, but interact with the projected landscape, refusing to cross water, celebrating the release of each mini-fig and so on. The assistant even had a LEGO Claw arm for separating any "boisterous" robots.
Finally for the blue zone is the Test Driver area, where you can build a car to attempt two different challenges - a 4 way race and a fairly tough jump through a hoop! You can grab a photo of your creation at one of the booths scattered around the area which are again added to your wristband.
Red - Brick Builder, Creative Lab and Library
The Red LEGO Brick Builder zone is dominated by the LEGO Falls - a massive "waterfall" of bricks cascading down from near the ceiling, with many troughs of bricks to rummage through and build with.
Off to one side is the "Creative Lab" where a themed collaborative build is taking shape - the theme we were working to was "A graffiti castle", making bricks and gargoyles to build up the sculpture. I think my attempt to create letters on a one stud grid when all I had were 2x4 bricks was a tad ambitious!

The library showcases a number of LEGO publications, including most of the Dorling Kindersley books and single issues of various magazines (including Blocks, Bricks and Bricks Culture).
Yellow - Flower Artist, Critter Creator and Fish Designer
The last main zone moves into the natural world, starting with Flower Artist, once again allowing visitors to create their own flowers from a huge selection of elements and display them for others to see alongside the static builds. Around the walls are more displays animal MOCs - again some familiar, others new to me. As with many of the build zones, you can capture your builds to your wristband.

The Critter Creator has a couple of fun build areas - one to make some dancing bugs (once you've built them, you pop them in a dance zone that then vibrates as the music drums through it) and some racing bugs that have either a fairly easy run down, or have to avoid a couple of dangerous snakes on the way to safety!
The Fish Designer builds on the LEGO Life of George concept of creating a "flat" creation from your bricks before scanning it in and releasing it into the aquarium with all the other creations. The scanning is fairly robust, and is activated by touching your band to the controller so again you have a memento of your build, before you add it to the display wall.

Did you get a picture of the library? I'm really pleased they decided to include it.

Sorry, no didn't picture that. It was a fairly small set of shelves and some book boxes!

5. Parting Gift and The LEGO House App
Back up on the ground floor and you make your way past the Tree of Creativity and a wall displaying just some of the over 900 million combinations of 6 red 2x4 bricks, and through to the exit.
Here you can see an injection moulding machine making red 2x4 bricks, along with an entire process that cools, counts and bags them up ready and waiting for you as you leave. On checking-out (again with your wristband) you're presented with your own card printed with one of the combinations you can build along with a code required to unlock your memories in the App.

Throughout the house there are a number of interactive displays that you can start to use once you've activated them with the RFID part of your wristband - on them you can find out about the different zones, and also see the various memories you've saved to your wristband, including the movies and pictures, as well as the "achievements" from Robo Labs. The App (available for iOS and Android) as well as providing a diverting little "find the home for the mini-figs" game also allows you to register your trip and download the memories to your device. To register your trip you need any two IDs from your ticket, your wristband and your 6 Bricks card - which should keep things fairly secure.

The touchscreen apps are written in Unity, running on PCs for those that are interested. There were a few minor issues I had with the tech - the machine my brick-self application was running on threw a "low on memory" error and shut the app down - the team were apologetic, but glad it wasn't explicitly their app that was at fault, and did try and see if the session was saved. I'd also downloaded the Android version of the app the day before our visit and was initially only able to save my video, but I updated it to the latest version (released the night before) and was able to store my images as well. I think it would be nice to be able to view them "in app" as well as store them, but realise that most people would want to download and back up their images.

"The touchscreen apps are written in Unity, running on PCs for those that are interested." I am really glad you brought this up actually, I was also curious. Hopefully everything will be working by opening day,

I love the mini LEGO factory, that looks like it was a lot of fun.

I only found out when I broke it and a couple of nervous helpers came over to see what I had done!

Yep, there should be a video in the shared album as well.

1. Welcome and Lobby
As you enter The LEGO House you are directed towards the wristband dispensers to generate your personalised RFID wristband, peruse the shop (although you may want to leave that till later!) and grab a coffee from Brickaccino. You can also access the forum - a raked seating theatre space for presentations with seating for about 200 people and pass the Koi pond to take the lift one of the public terraces on the roofs of the building.

Through-out this space there are a number of LEGO installations, ranging from the fun (a dog using a signpost) through to the impressive lenticular picture made from cheese slopes.

LEGO Shop
The shop is also accessible from the public space, so no need to pay to access that or the restaurants. The shop is well stocked with a wide range of LEGO sets, ranging from the common sets that are selling well, through the "hard to find" sets that are usually only in LEGO Stores and some specialist retailers, to the "LEGO Exclusives", including the new LEGO House architecture set that's only available here at the house.
Prices are on a par with the LEGO stores at home (exchange rates not withstanding) with the new house retailing at 449DKK. Other exclusives included some "mini-aquarium" sets, and they also had a "LEGO Portrait" machine, where you sit in a photo-booth choose the best of three photos and receive a set containing a yellow base-plate and grey-scale 1x1 tiles to make your own portrait mosaic!
Unlike some of the parks where the stores are 3rd party, this store is run by TLG, and so your VIP cards are accepted (indeed I managed to forget mine but they found me on the system and added my purchases for me!).

Is the LEGO shop treated like the standard LEGO stores, most importantly, can you use your VIP card there?

Good catch, this should probably be on the main site ;)

Update with the fact that yes, you can use your VIP cards.

2. Tree of Creativity and Masterpiece Gallery
After the introduction, it was time to explore the main part of the House - starting with a climb around the Tree of Creativity. This is a massive LEGO build, full of details, from the various carvings in the bark trunk to the wonderful dioramas in the canopy - many of the main LEGO themes are represented, including City, Space, Castle and Friends.

The Masterpiece Gallery is currently dominated by three massive Tyrannosaurus Rex models, each built from one of the three core products: DUPLO, System and Technic - and they all look amazing!

Around the walls of the gallery are displays of many MOCs from the AFOL community - and like any good gallery they plan to rotate these exhibitions to showcase the latest and greatest works - there were many classic models here, along with a number I'd not seen before. It would have been nice to see some of the LEGO photographers on display as well, but maybe that's a plan for later.

4. The History Collection and LEGO Cinema
Back downstairs from the Experience Zones and down into the basement you'll come to The History Collection and LEGO Cinema. For us the cinema was showcasing LEGO adverts from history. The History collection starts with a museum telling the history of The LEGO Group, with examples of the toys and sets it has created over the years, starting with the wooden toys, and telling the stories of the first Plastic injection moulding machine the company bought and the move towards toys with a theme that led to the original "LEGO Play System" town planning sets - combining early LEGO bricks with some pre-made vehicles in sets. It then moves into the "modern" era, focusing on the many sets LEGO has produced and not pulling any punches when it comes to some of the decisions that the company made over the years, finally coming back to it's current core values and principles that seem to be holding it steady with it's more focused element inventory.
At the heart of the museum is the collection itself - a room with a number of iconic and classic sets arranged in historical order and covering every theme and style. There's also an interactive table where you can scroll through a list of all the sets ever produced, including looking inside some of them, and add the ones you own to a virtual shelf that is then tagged to your wristband.


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Good example questions for our FAQ
Well, we've been going over 100 days now, so congratulations everyone - however we've still got a bit of work ahead of us before we can fully launch.
We've seen a steady increase in users, many of whom are new to the Stack Exchange experience which is great, but we've also seen a few "low quality" or "off topic" questions, and the users are being referred to the FAQ which is still a little bare.
Please can you suggest some questions that you think are great, on-topic questions for this site, and we'll add details of them to our FAQ.
As an example of what other sites have done, take a look at:

Role Playing Games
Seasoned Advice
Gardening and Landscaping
Economics
Theoretical Physics

Some of these also demonstrate ways we could handle examples of questions where the best audience is a little ambiguous for example some programming or software support questions.
We can edit the first section of the FAQ ("What kind of questions can I ask here?"), everything else is boilerplate.

I think we first need to change our global description 'LEGO® Answers - Stack Exchange is for LEGO® and building block enthusiasts.' to be less about general construction toys.

Well, if we give some good on-topic questions, and perhaps a little more description based on these questions we can leave that as it is...

\o/ Yay! 100 days! :D

Things we should include in our FAQ:

"What is this part?" and its variants:

"What set did this part come from?"
"Is this a LEGO element?"

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

sort: votes


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Should we merge "Part Identification" with "Identification"?
In the interests of feeding my taxonomy OCD, I was looking at the current part-identification tag, and felt its use was a little haphazard:
We have about 17 items tagged "Part Identification", compared with 74 tagged "Identification".
For some added context:

15 questions are also tagged with sets asking about Set Identification (especially after I added that to a few others)
13 questions are only tagged Identification (note that the query is running on an archived dataset which takes a while for that to update with the changes I made to clean up some of the questions)
5 questions are only tagged "Part Identification"

Currently our "Piece Information" wiki states:

Use identification for questions about unknown pieces or sets.

Do you think "Part Identification" stands on it's own?
Do we need something else to help distinguish "part identification" from "set identification"?
Should we create a similar "Set Identification" tag and remove "sets" from those questions instead?
If we create "Set Identification" should we then retire "Identification"?

In my mind, part of the reason that we can put multiple tags is so that we don't have to be super specific.  Set identification questions should be tagged with "set" and "identification".  Likewise, part identification questions should probably be tagged with "part" and "identification" or something similar.

@Nick2253 Agreed, but I'm not sure "Part" or "Element" really stand on their own. I guess "Sets" is really "Set Information" so is it ok to tag them "Piece Information" and "Identification" (which quite a few are anyway)

I forgot we had "Piece information" already.  That's probably the way to go.

I don't think a 'identification' tag is necessary given that almost every identification questions is clearly either about a part (or selection of parts) and a set.

I guess the idea was that we wanted the "identification" tag to exist to distinguish between questions asking about how a particular element should be used or has changed, compared with the "what is this part" questions - then people can mark "Identification" as an ignored tag, and not see them. Would you prefer a "Set Identification" tag and retire the Identification one?

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


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Update Page Titles and Mobile Site to reflect the Site Name
In light of the update from Robert about The LEGO Group not having an issue with the site being called "LEGO Answers", we should update the following items to reflect this:

The home page <title> tag currently reads: "LEGO® - Stack Exchange" this should be updated to "LEGO® Answers - Stack Exchange"
The Mobile site header just reads: "LEGO®" this should be updated to "LEGO® Answers".

I assume that these changes will also update the FAQ pages to reflect the site name as well?

And I guess "Lego® Meta - Stack Exchange" needs to become "Lego® Answers Meta - Stack Exchange", too?

Yep, I guess so ;)

Someone appears to have fixed this, but I'm not sure who or how ;)

I updated the FAQ page myself.

Thank Rebecca Chernoff for putting in waaay too much effort and putting up with my nagging until this finally worked.

Will do: Thanks Rebecca :)

This was all Rebecca Chernoff's work, but someone needs to post an answer to herald this as being complete, neh? ♪

I suppose so, although I was happy to mark it as status complete :)


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Do we need a "Set-Information" tag as well as "Sets"?
Questions about specific sets seem to make sense with with the sets, while questions asking about the details that would justify a set-information tag (e.g. weight/number of bricks/etc.) seem almost off topic for this site† - there are other sites (BrickLink/BrickSet) that do a better job of that, and (as proved by the answers provided to this question).
I'm not sure that the rebuilding question should be tagged set-information either.
† I came to this conclusion after thinking about it after I'd answered it. I'd flag it as off topic myself, but my vote is binding, so will wait to see what others think.

sets and set-information are now synonymous with one another. Questions like "How much does the Luke's Landspeeder (8092) weigh?" ask a very specific question but the answer given applies to any given set. A question asking how much X set weighs would be closed as a duplicate of that question.
"Why are there extra pieces in my set?" is a good example of a question referring to sets in general. It doesn't address a particular set in the title. There are however questions that need to be specific like this one.


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Problem with the (R) encoding on the Privileges page
On the privileges page, the reg glyph isn't appearing correctly, it's double escaped or similar:

&#174;

@JoeWreschnig I know, but last time I mentioned something like that I was reminded that we've not yet finalised the name ;) I thought I'd just ask for the (R) symbols to be fixed first.

@shog9 Cheers :)

Also appears on the mobile version of the site

@Ambo100 I'd not noticed that, even with all my mobile browsing - might need to add it as a new issue however?

@Zhaph-BenDuguid: It appears to have been fixed

Related: http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/113026/lego-is-broken-in-the-se-site-directory

Now fixed; thanks for the report!

Cheers good to have an accepted answer to go with the status completed tag :)


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Proposed update to our FAQ Page
As one of the 7 essential questions we should be asking here on meta is:

What should be on our FAQ

I would like to bite the bullet and propose the following as the text for the first section.
Note that we can't change the section title, and the line "Please look around to see..." is also fixed.

What kind of questions can I ask here?
LEGO® Answers - Stack Exchange is for LEGO and building block enthusiasts. If you use LEGO or one of a number of compatible systems that share similar building techniques, and need answers to your questions (or would like to answer questions about these systems), this is place for you.
The best questions are those that have specific answers; LEGO Answers is not a general discussion forum. In general, if you have a question which covers:

Building techniques for a particular part of a model
The history of The LEGO Group or elements
Care and organisation of your bricks
Techniques for getting the best out of your Mindstorms Robots
Replicating advanced building techniques in CAD applications (i.e. LEGO Digital Designer or LDraw based applications)

Then you're in the right place.
This is not the right site for questions about:

Computer games - for game play tips and other questions, see Gaming - Stack Exchange
General support for LEGO related software (i.e. LDraw/LEGO Digital Designer/NXT alternatives), try either their dedicated support channels or Super User

Before you ask your question, though, consider the following:

We want the questions on our site to be valuable sources of information for the whole Internet, not just our community members, so we try to keep subjective opinions out of our questions and answers when we can. Share your personal play experiences and viewpoints, but avoid argument.
Community members can and will edit your questions and answers to be clear, grammatically correct and in doing so may also edit them to conform with the LEGO Group's Fair Play requirement.
Community members will vote up clearly asked, cogent, reasoned questions and answers and vote down off topic, incoherent, or inflammatory questions and answers.
We don't want the information on our site to become obsolete, and so we try not to ask questions whose answers may change with time. This means we don't re-ask the same question once it's been answered - nor do we encourage speculative answers for which we have no definitive answer.
If you want more information on a question that already exists on the site, you can edit the question, add more answers, add comments, or even ask a related question. If you ask a question identical to an existing one, your question will be closed as a duplicate, with a link directing everyone to the existing question.

If you think your question might be appropriate but aren't sure, you can also drop into our Chat rooms or ask on our Meta site.

I think we've done a reasonably good job so far on questions 1, 3 and 6 (for now, I hope you think we're doing a good job), we've started 5, but I didn't get much response to my last attempt at this.
You can also join us over in chat to discuss this and other aspects of our FAQs.

Tagged as f-r as technically it's a "Change to existing functionality", but I'm keen to see what people think first.

This is well organized and clearly written, I think. On the FAQ question about reputation, I was a bit confused because I did not come to this group from the "main site" but from links through other LEGO fans. The references to the "main site" don't seem to be relevant to the use of this group.

@62Bricks cheers :) Do you mean the section on the FAQ here? If so when that talks about "main site" it means the "blue" LEGO Answers site, rather than this meta site - the real LEGO Answers FAQ where this will go probably makes more sense - does that help?

Let us continue this discussion in chat

I've put this live on our Main FAQ, feel free to propose changes :)

I think we should accept questions for LDD, which as much as a product of LEGO as NXT-G is.

Yes, I clearly need to reword that section a bit: we should probably accept question on how to use things like LDD, but we didn't do well answering general support questions like "it's not working, why?" see my comments in main chat

@Ambo100 - I've added a bullet point for CAD/LDD supported questions - is that better?


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Should we accept questions on all construction toys, or just LEGO compatible systems?
I guess we need to bottom this out once and for all - during the commitment phase a discussion was started, but didn't really resolve:
Is this site only about LEGO products and other brick based toys, or is it open to all construction toys including K-Nex and Meccano (for example)?

in my oppinion, this site should cover model construction toys in general, wich means:

LEGO and all of it's subsets (DUPLO, Technik, Mindstorms, ZNAP, ...)
other brick-based toys (similar to DUPLO, Minifigures, LEGO-System) (KRE-O, Nanoblocks, ...)
other beam/bar-based toys (similar to ZNAP, LEGO-Technik) (K'Nex, Meccano, fischertechnik)

I'm more inclined to allow K'Nex than Meccano that's for sure. However I wouldn't see why general wood working would have to be included - If we did allow Meccano we would have a hard time excluding sets like "Wood WorX" which come with pre-cut wooden shapes and instructions on how to build a fire engine or similar (although they do use glue, so could be excluded on that basis)

I feel like that its best that this remain only LEGO considering the size of the LEGO community and the diversity of their products. There are also no "modern" LEGO community websites, that I have found, and I can see this SE becoming a canoical LEGO site.


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What-brick-is-this type of question
We already have one of the what-brick-is-it kind of question and I suspect, from other LEGO communities, that we are going to get many, many more. The problem I see is that the title is useless. What do you think if we establish that the brick should be described in the question? Would that help? would that be useless?

I agree, and am curious myself the different methods to identify a brick. I've create a potential "canonical" question to help facilitate this idea.

We should also decide on a common tag - so far I've seen [part-id] [piece-id] [piece-name] [piece-information] all in use.

Where the submitter does not know what set it is from, perhaps we should encourage something along the lines of:
what brick is this - summary description (eg 4x2x8 with holes and a window)
That would at least help us get an overview from the title. We'd need to have a standard nomenclature described in the FAQ though (question on this here).

Agreed. It is practically imperative that if we plan to field these, that they have clear and distinguishable titles. The current "what brick is this" title is horrendous and the last thing the site needs, among other things, is a collection of identically titled questions all talking about different bricks. One could be descriptive on its functionality versus detailed about its stud count and dimensions, as long as whichever is done, it's identifiable.


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Should I not have answered "Lego Friends Houses"?
The question Lego Friends Houses was closed as "Primarily opinion-based". I had already made a stab at answering it and have received 3 upvotes so far for that. Should I have just left the question, or flagged it? (I cannot yet close-vote here).
My motivation in answering it:

This site needs questions and answers and I thought I could help the OP out
The OP seemed to suffer from a severe case of "only building what the instructions say" and "not mixing themes" and I wanted to suggest a way out of that, at least partly.

A good portion of Lego questions are open-ended or opinion-based. Is there a guideline for when it goes too far?

The question has been reworded by jncraton in such a way that it is now a valid question:

Is there a way to buy LEGO houses without minifigs?

I have changed the title and reopened the question. Despite the change in title, your answer still remains relevant and I fully support you for answering.
Questions based almost entirely on opinions rather than facts/references will be closed, if a user is able to reword the contents of a question to be more suitable (in such a way that does not completely change the context) then users can either vote to 'reopen' or flag the question for moderator attention.

A good portion of Lego questions are open-ended or opinion-based. Is
  there a guideline for when it goes too far?

I cannot say for sure where exactly the line is drawn. I think the phrasing of a question, can make a lot of difference.
A question titled 'Why are there so many LEGO Friends minifigs, but barely any houses?' can only truly be answered by either an employee from the LEGO company or an existing reference. Any other answer is speculative.
If the question is titled 'Is there a way to buy LEGO houses without minifigs?', anyone with experience or knowledge is able to answer and the answer actually solves a problem.
I don't expect everyone to agree with the examples given, it is after all my interpretation. I'd like to know what other members of the community think as well.

I think you've summed it up pretty well there :)


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How do we flag or comment on a user's profile?
I came across this new user 'a-child-of-god' (https://bricks.stackexchange.com/users/6377/a-child-of-god).
Like many new Stack Exchange users, his first questions and interactions needs some tweaking but then I saw his profile page.
In his description I think he doing a big no-no for a Stack-Exchange site.  He is promoting a way to circumvent the need to have 50 reputation points by deliberately entering a bad answer which, in many cases, will be turned into a comment by the moderators.
In my opinion, this  kind of systematic hacking of the SE format should not be allowed. But how?
Q: The same way we help new users understand the format for questions and answers, how can we comment on the content of their bio?

We did allow flagging of user profiles. . . for about a week. It turns out people used the mechanism to seek revenge on users who "offended" them on the site. So the more typical thing to do is flag one of the user's posts or comments with an "other" flag for moderator attention.
One thing to keep in mind is that different parts of a user profile are have different levels of publicness. We hardly ever worry about content in a user's "About me" section because you have to dig around a bit to find it. In this case, the advice is perhaps unwise, but not offensive. If the same user was more public with their advice (say, in a comment), that would likely be deleted.
As an aside, the problem of letting people comment before other types of contributions is something I hope to solve.

Hmm - it's not much of a "hack" and it does depend on the value of the answer and how the mods handle these responses.
Not all "Thanks" or "I'm having the same problem" responses get converted to comments - most will just be deleted completely.
I admit that I do tend to be a little more lenient if I think the response has some value but isn't a full answer on its own and converting it to a comment may help the person whose post I've added the comment to.


text:
'never tried it' type of answers
In this question about removing scratches on clear part, all the answers are guesses and untried concepts.
I could start flagging all of them as non-constructive or should somebody clean this up and mention that guesses are not a good answer?

I've protected it and added the standard "We're looking for long answers that provide some explanation and context. Don't just give a one-line answer" message.
There were some potentially useful (if untried) suggestions, which I've moved into the comments.
Cheers.
Edit to add:
That said, a little googling suggests that the last answer should be a good bet: Novus does appear to be a good fit for polycarbonate plastic - which is what the transparent bricks are made from...

There are 'never tried it' answers that still provide some value, based on knowledge about how the problems is typically solved in other arenas.  I took a stab at this question with that in mind and while there could be more a authoritative answer the general problem of plastic removal in scratches does not have only one type of solution.


text:
How are we covered in relation to using pictures from BrickSet and other sites?
In my recent answer to a question I've used rather a lot of images from BrickLink. Is there a need to get in touch with BrickLink and the other main LEGO sites for permission to use their images.
I know that submissions to this site is made under a Creative Commons license but I don't know how that affects stuff from other domains, and I expect the sites can take the bandwidth hit, but shoudln't we ask out of common courtesy? Also a lot of them get re-uploaded to imgur through the SE uploader.

Caveat: I am not a lawyer, everything here is my uneducated opinion.
It depends on the site in question really - for example LUGNet explicitly state that you can re-use their images, bit yes, you should really use the "link to image from web" in the image upload to move the images to imgur instead of pulling them directly from there.
Where I've pulled images from a forum post or similar, I've provided a link back to the original post and attribution.
For your answer I'd ensure that all the set numbers are linked, and then it's fairly obvious where the images came from.


text:
Finding ways around paying the full price
Many questions are around this subjects: "How can I get pay less for Lego", "How can I get around custom fees", and so on.
Lego and distributors are in business and we have our Lego bricks because of them.  Going around paying the normal price is only going to hurt this market.
Q: Should we support questions that are about trying to find ways around paying for the Lego product?
Here are two examples:
How can I minimize the number of merchants for given set of requested bricks?
What are some 3rd party mini-figure gun makers that distribute in Canada?

It is early in the life of this site so now is the time where we cast a wide net and set up boundaries, so this is a good conversation to have.
I asked my question about buying 3rd-party parts because I was worried about paying a $25+ customs fee for bringing hollow plastic across the border. What I decided to do was ask a question about buying these parts IN Canada to avoid these fees. What i did NOT ask for was methods for smuggling Lego across the border.
I see the points of other answers made in that this type of question might be too localized, but what I do not agree with is that these questions are searching for answers that are illegal in nature. My question was not about "circumventing the system", but about sellers of Lego parts within Canada, like if you bought from Amazon.ca instead of Amazon.com.
Neither my question or the answer I accepted are illegal in nature, but it indeed might be too localized and subject to change to be useful. If there is a push against this type of question, I will be happy to delete it

Lego and distributors are in business and we have our Lego bricks because of them. Going around paying the normal price is only going to hurt this market.

If you're trying to do so illegally, yes.
If you're just trying to find alternate buying routes, why not? Keep in mind you won't find a LEGO set for cheap unless someone is willing to sell it for cheap. And if they are willing, why would it hurt them? Most of them time it helps them getting rid of stock they wouldn't be able to sell anyway.
Ultimately, adult fans aren't such a huge part fo the LEGO market anyway (5 to 10% tops), so even if LEGO ended up selling parts to them at a loss (which they don't), it wouldn't be so bad. On the other hand, considering the quantities some fans buy, it's only faire that they would pay less when there is a chance.

The illegal ones are the problem.  I was bothered by the "not paying customs" answer.  Everything else is ok with me.


text:
Let's get critical: Jul 2013 Site Self-Evaluation
We all love LEGO® Answers, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.
The Site Self-Evaluation review queue is open and populated with 6 questions that were asked and answered in the last quarter. Run a few Google searches to see how easy they are to find and compare the answers we have with the information available on other sites.
Rating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well? Post an answer below to share your thoughts and discuss these questions and the site's health with your fellow users!

Part of the problem is that, due to its use of the plain-jane Area 51 banner, instead of something fun and LEGO-y, the initial impression might be that this is a scam site which steals answers from other places.

Final Results

Power Functions battery box and receiver limits
Net Score: 4 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)

How is the LEGO plastic different from Megablok plastic?
Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 1)

Damage Boiling LEGO Bricks
Net Score: 5 (Excellent: 5, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 0)

How many standard 2x4 LEGO elements are produced in a single 2x4 mold injection?
Net Score: 4 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 0)

What is the purpose of the hole in the 12 x 12 boat bow (6051)?
Net Score: 4 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 0)

How should I connect two LEGO cylinders with pistons to measure the movement caused by sea waves?
Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 0, Needs Improvement: 0)

I love this site, but it's too niche.  It is almost like having a StackExchange site solely for, I don't know, Spring Framework.
I toss "LEGO help" and "LEGO Discussion" into Google and Bricks is on page two.
I think it needs to allow expansion into all things LEGO and not restrain itself to building, and the existing base should try to generate questions on their own that might attract visitors. I posted at least one idea in the "Is LEGOland off-topic" meta question, suggesting we allow questions regarding LEGOLand, LEGO Discovery Centers and LEGO Stores.
Also, that LEGO movie is coming out and we are going to get some hits due to it, so I highly recommend getting prepared to handle that.


text:
Let's get critical: Oct 2013 Site Self-Evaluation
We all love LEGO® Answers, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.
The Site Self-Evaluation review queue is open and populated with 10 questions that were asked and answered in the last quarter. Run a few Google searches to see how easy they are to find and compare the answers we have with the information available on other sites.
Rating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well? Post an answer below to share your thoughts and discuss these questions and the site's health with your fellow users!

Final Results

What are the inspirational resources for building with Duplo?
Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 5, Needs Improvement: 0)

EV3 additional build instructions - PDF download or print possible?
Net Score: 0 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 1)

How can you estimate the value of a LEGO collection?
Net Score: 4 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)

How to repair cracked/peeling decals?
Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 0)

Are those bowls genuine LEGO pieces?
Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 5, Needs Improvement: 0)

How long does official Lego monorail track last?
Net Score: 0 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 1)

How to use Power Functions with Mindstorms EV3?
Net Score: 0 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 6, Needs Improvement: 0)

Is it possible to shrink down a wheel?
Net Score: -1 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 5, Needs Improvement: 1)

Part assortments for creative building
Net Score: -1 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 2)

Is there a fix for an NXT reporting "File error!" when running an EV3 program?
Net Score: -1 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 1)


text:
Let's get critical: Jan 2014 Site Self-Evaluation
We all love LEGO® Answers, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.
The Site Self-Evaluation review queue is open and populated with 10 questions that were asked and answered in the last quarter.
Run a few Google searches to see how easy they are to find and compare the answers we have with the information available on other sites.
Rating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well? Post an answer below to share your thoughts and discuss these questions and the site's health with your fellow users!

Final Results

What is the centre hole for in modern train tracks?

Net Score: 3 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 0)

What are LEGO baseplates made from?

Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 0)

Buying Individual MiniFigures

Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 0)

Getting started with Mindstorms and/or Technic

Net Score: 0 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 1)

Which was the first set / minifig with two faces to choose from?

Net Score: 0 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 1)

Invert motor block in EV3

Net Score: -1 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 1)

identification of lego set by color and shape of inner box

Net Score: -2 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 2)

How can I order an Ev3 gyro in Europe

Net Score: -3 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 3)

Advanced coloured lines following robot

Net Score: -3 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 3)

How can I find the analog output of a color sensor?

Net Score: -4 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 0, Needs Improvement: 4)


text:
Let's get critical: Apr 2014 Site Self-Evaluation
We all love LEGO® Answers, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.
The Site Self-Evaluation review queue is open and populated with 10 questions that were asked and answered in the last quarter.
Run a few Google searches to see how easy they are to find and compare the answers we have with the information available on other sites.
Rating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well? Post an answer below to share your thoughts and discuss these questions and the site's health with your fellow users!

Felt I had to skip a couple of the questions in the queue as I'd answered them...

Final Results

Large Lego Minifig Styles

Net Score: 3 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 0)

Which bricks warrant an extra to be included in a set?

Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)

Part Identification - bricks with posts

Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)

How does cleaning yellowed Lego bricks affect their clutch power?

Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)

What is the input to the Speed Regulator?

Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)

Retrobrite cleaning on old cellulose acetate bricks?

Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)

Cost of different works in a LEGO set price?

Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 0)

Why do some sets contain parts of an unrelated colour?

Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 0)

Small lego train sets on narrow gauge track?

Net Score: 0 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 1)

Where can I download the EV3 education edition software for free?

Net Score: 0 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)


text:
Let's get critical: Apr 2015 Site Self-Evaluation
We all love LEGO® Answers, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.
The Site Self-Evaluation review queue is open and populated with 10 questions that were asked and answered in the last quarter.
Run a few Google searches to see how easy they are to find and compare the answers we have with the information available on other sites.
Rating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well? Post an answer below to share your thoughts and discuss these questions and the site's health with your fellow users!

Final Results

Are BanBao bricks compatible with Lego?

Net Score: 5 (Excellent: 5, Satisfactory: 0, Needs Improvement: 0)

Where are the electric pieces for 42029?

Net Score: 4 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)

Lego Escher structures

Net Score: 4 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)

What logos appear on Duplo brick studs?

Net Score: 3 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)

Old sets, new bricks

Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 0)

EV3 controlled by 8879 speed control through IR sensor

Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)

Quick way to inventory parts

Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 1)

Why doesn't lego make many 2x2x4 Pieces?

Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 1)

How can I use bluetooth on my phone to run a program on the EV3 brick?

Net Score: -1 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 1)

Mindstorm EV3 no longer recognises SD card

Net Score: -2 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 2)

I'm surprised that there are not more questions about building problems.
It's nice to see many people taking a go at solving a specific building problem.  You can see all the different approaches and building styles in the answers.  Here are some examples that already exist:

How do I build a curved wall?
Brick-built alternative to "Door 2 x 5 x 5 Swivel, Bracket Base"
Any way to make this setup "tighter"?
What elements do I need to create a smooth multi cheese slope ramp?

Some times you just get stuck.  It's often great to see what other people can do to help you get past road blocks, but I don't know if this is a great site for that kind of discussion, since there's rarely a single correct answer.  Is that the kind of thing we want on the site?  The OP can mark the solution they went with as the answer, but all the submitted answers might be sufficient, or be more applicable to other people.
That said, it is nice to see the solutions that people come up with. So I'm torn.

@Grandpappy It seems like this may be what we want. I think that we want more questions that open themselves to multiple "correct" answers so that we can actually vote on and discuss the best ones. I feel like we too often have questions with one or two answers, and then that's all we get. Compare this to something like http://stackoverflow.com/questions/179123 where there are many answers with slightly different ways to essentially do the same thing. That seems to add a lot of value.

@Grandpappy I am a software developer by trade and I have used StackOverflow for years.  In programming there is as many solution to a problem as there are programmers trying to solve it.  Most of the time a majority will agree what could be the best solution but sharing all those solutions and seeing all the different approaches is a an amazing part of what makes Stack Exchange great. I see LEGO building the same way and I would love to see people fearlessly present all their expertise, experiences and creativity through this site.

You both make great points, and I agree.  Once the stackoverflow method of many answer was brought up, I was completely sold.  I'm also a developer, and having a good way to see the breadth of answers is often helpful.


text:
Let's get critical: Oct 2014 Site Self-Evaluation
We all love LEGO® Answers, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.
The Site Self-Evaluation review queue is open and populated with 10 questions that were asked and answered in the last quarter.
Run a few Google searches to see how easy they are to find and compare the answers we have with the information available on other sites.
Rating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well? Post an answer below to share your thoughts and discuss these questions and the site's health with your fellow users!

Final Results

Preparations for outside display

Net Score: 6 (Excellent: 7, Satisfactory: 5, Needs Improvement: 1)

I need information on LEGO part #3001 in Milky White with Sparkles

Net Score: 4 (Excellent: 5, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 1)

Is it possible to connect EV3 and NXT bricks like master/slave configuration via bluetooth?

Net Score: 3 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 1)

Need help to identify minifigure

Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 7, Needs Improvement: 1)

What is this model number please?

Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 5, Needs Improvement: 1)

How to build an automatic Lego train system?

Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 3)

I bought a second hand pack of pieces and it looks like it may be a specific set

Net Score: 0 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 7, Needs Improvement: 2)

How to make NXT bricks communicate information?

Net Score: -1 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 6, Needs Improvement: 2)

What set does this minifigure head come from?

Net Score: -3 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 5, Needs Improvement: 4)

What part can I use to get the connection

Net Score: -3 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 4)

My first thought is that this survey had a relatively small number of responses, and as such we shouldn't over-emphasise the value of the results. On the other hand, this data certainly provide food for thought, particularly as it is likely to represent the views of the more dedicated users of this site.
I have just a couple of observations:

What part can I use to get the connection

Net Score: -3
In my view (and with the benefit of hindsight) I think that this question should have been put on hold until it was clarified. I am still not quite sure what it is asking, and link-rot would make the question completely unintelligible. (I mean no disrespect to the questioner: it can be hard to ask good questions, and I doubt that I could have done better in this case).

whose head is this in this picture?

Net Score: -3
To be honest, I struggle to see why this is any worse than

Need help to identify minifigure

Net Score: 2
In general, part identification seems like a perfect fit for this site. That said, it would be nice if the titles of the questions were more descriptive so we can distinguish them more easily as the site gets bigger. For example "Identification of head with nauseated expression".
But still, why did the first of these questions score so much worse than the second?

While I agree it's a low number of responses, it's quite a lot more than we've had for the last 3 or 4 evaluations (Apr 2014: 4, Jan 2013: 4, Oct 2013: 6) ;)

In terms of the specific questions you're commenting on: "Connection" - agree this is particularly poorly crafted question, however it has got a fairly good response, but both Q and A could use some additional images detailing the issue.

Why is "Whose head" worse than "Need help" - The second one explained how they found the part in question rather than just supplying the answer, "teach a person to fish" and all that. Obviously those are my opinions and others may well be available ;)


text:
New Beta Theme Launched
Your site looks a bit different today. Yes, we are getting rid of the 'Sketchy' look and replacing it with a more-polished and finished design for sites in beta.
You can read more about the redesign of our Beta theme on our blog entry.
Please note: This will not affect your "graduation" status in any way. When your site is due for graduation, it will get its final(real) site design and branding.
If you're still seeing the old favicon, please do a hard browser refresh. (Although sometimes it may take Chrome a while to load the new image).
If you see any CSS or styling issues, please report it in this post I created on Meta Stack Overflow. It will be easier for me to track all the bug reports there.

Cheers Jin, very smart, I've been looking forward to this :)

Loving the new favicon too - I was worried we'd lose our brick ;)

It's a clean look, but have to admit that I kind of like the Sketchy motif better - guess I was just used to it. Glad we kept the brick though. :)


text:
Trivia or Fun tag?
Should trivia be made a tag synonym of fun?

Please, no fun tag. Fun is simply the start of a long clean up process.

LEGO is fun, anyway, so [fun] would be a redundant tag.

@BoltClock Now that was fun -ny. :)

Users of a Stack Exchange Q&A site generally do not need or even want a 'fun' tag.
On a technical level, tags are supposed to indicate what the question is about. A question tagged 'fun' isn't likely to be about "fun", so that type of meta-tagging (indicating why the question was asked rather than what the question is about) is widely discouraged.
The Death of Meta Tagging
Stack Exchange sites are set up to solve specific problems in a field of expertise. While there's nothing inherently wrong with entertaining and social discussions, those types of conversation starters are not really what we are looking for here. It's even debatable whether we even need a 'trivia' tag, but it seems well suited to questions about the product, and the culture/language surrounding it.


text:
Are questions about non-LEGO brick toys on-topic?
Are questions related to megabloks and similar products on-topic?
I ask because the site is bricks.stackexchange.com, but the logo is LEGO ®

I would say:
Yes
It would be ridiculous if there existed another se site for brick building toys other than Lego, so welcome one and all.
In related news, we should change the title of the site to Brick Overflow, instead of LEGO®. This would match our domain better too.

Maybe "Lego and other bricks"?

@PaŭloEbermann Way too long

@Dori Who would we be explaining it to? I think it has a clear enough meaning "I have so many bricks they're overflowing everywhere!" even if people don't get the SO reference.

@Dori Come see this cool new site, Lego Stack Exchange! Lego Stack Exchange? That's an odd name, what does it mean? Well it's a site that's part of the Stack Exchange Q&A network that's exclusively for Lego etc. enthusiasts. Oh. So why is it called Stack Exchange? Well there was this site Stack Overflow...

A third option would be to include only lego-compatible brick systems.
(I'm not sure how useful this would be.)

With glue, everything is compatible!


text:
Nomenclature of [Purchasing] tag
What is a good tag for purchasing/acquiring/procuring pieces? I have thrown out procurement since it is not likely to be the most intuitive, but none of the other two above seem to be as accurate or intuitive.
What should we use, as least to begin with?

+1, this is a very important discussion we need to have.

My 2¢:
Take a step back and ask yourself, "What is this question actually about?"

If the question is about solely about buying, purchasing, acquiring, or procuring (or some other similar synonyms), then it's a shopping question and should probably be closed.
If the question is only tangentially about buying things, then purchasing is a meta tag—and those aren't useful.

Once you eliminate these, what kind of questions are left? That should help you figure out what tag (if any) would be useful.

Yeah, I had gotten distracted to work (since the Lego.se prop distracted me from working) and forgotten to ask that question. I think you're absolutely right. Basically, purchasing, in this framework anyway, is too general to be of any practicable use here.


text:
Problem with "r" mark encoding
This was seen on creating a new brick.se account, although this may be present in other areas of the site.
FF7, Windows 7, 32-Bit. ~21:00GMT.

Affected iOS5 as well, glad to see someone got this before me. :)

Thanks for letting us know.  Taken care of!


text:
2021 Community Moderator Election
The 2021 Community Moderator Election is now underway!
Community moderator elections have three phases:

Nomination phase
Primary phase
Election phase

Most elections take between two and three weeks, but this depends on how many candidates there are.
Please visit the official election page at
https://bricks.stackexchange.com/election
for more detail, and to participate!
If you have general questions about the election process, or questions for moderator candidates, feel free to ask them here on meta -- just make sure your questions are tagged election.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Could we change the name on the @StackBrix Twitter account profile?
Currently the full name of our twitter account is:

Brix Stack Exchange

Whilst saving two characters in the account name is possibly valuable understandable when someone else already has the preferred account, there's no need for the "x" to propagate into the full name - please can it be be changed to:

Bricks SE

And then include the site name in the account Bio?

I support this suggestion.

@JoeWreschnig Heh, I did think about waiting, but the Brix thing just makes me sad.

Why not Bricks.SE?

No real reason, other than Stack Exchange is more obvious than SE - I'm really only after the profile name being tweaked, although I saw music.se seems to have changed the account name too. To be honest so long as we lose the x from the profile I'll be happy ;)

FWIW: the account is StackBrix not to save two characters, but because stackbricks was already taken

@shog9 fair enough, as I said this was about the profile full name.

Sorry, this won't work. ):
Twitter enforces a 20 character length limit on the description field.  "LEGO® Answers Stack Exchange" is 28.
The Name field has been changed to "Bricks SE"
The Bio field has been changed to "LEGO® Answers - Stack Exchange is a Q&A site for LEGO® and building block enthusiasts."

Hmm, well either "LEGO® Answers SE" or please just lose the x from the name (which was the original request) so it's "Bricks Stack Exchange"?

Apparently I still couldn't count :S Many thanks Rebecca.

FWIW: the account is StackBrix not to save two characters, but because
  stackbricks was already taken – Shog9

StackBrix sounds cheap and unoriginal.
Could we not use a word divider (delimiter) to divide the words Stack and Bricks?

Stack-Bricks
Stack.Bricks
Stack:Bricks

It appears Twitter usernames are letters, numbers, and underscores only so the only other option would be:

Stack_Bricks

Actually, since that account is inactive and obscure, it should be possible to contact Twitter to claim that username.


text:
Winter Bash 2015

The end of the year is upon us, and here in Stack Land, that can only
  mean one thing: it's time for Winter Bash 2015!
Event Overview
Winter Bash is a fun, lighthearted event we run every year as a way of
  celebrating the many amazing people who make our communities awesome.
  It's open to any Stack Exchange site that chooses to participate.
During Winter Bash, users earn virtual hats by completing certain
  tasks. They're sort of like badges, but they're more visible and less
  permanent. Hats can be "worn" on users' avatars just about anywhere
  avatars show up on the network. Here's an example of what some hats
  looked like last year, taken from the network leaderboard
Of course, we’re rolling out an all-new assortment of hats for this
  year's event, as we have in the past.
The Details
This year's event will start on 14 December 2015 and run up to and
  including 03 January 2016. Users will be able to see all the hats
  they've earned on http://winterbash2015.stackexchange.com. That site
  will also have an FAQ to explain how things work.
Individual users who don’t want to participate, don’t want to see
  hats, and/or are generally anti-hat will have an “I hate hats” option
  available. And just like last time, at the end of the event, all hats
  will go back into storage.
The only visual change to the Stack Exchange sites themselves will be
  the presence of the hats and the “I hate hats” button in the footer.

This has been good fun for all involved in the past, but as before we want to give you the opportunity to say, actually no, not this year. Remember though that if you opt out individually you won't see any Hats regardless of what everyone else is seeing :)

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because Winter Bash 2015 has finished and we all had fun.

It's more than acceptable to close questions on meta when the issues they relate to are fixed (in the case of [tag:bug]) or time specific issues (such as this one).

Having had support from the community to run the last three Winter Bash Events on LEGO Answers, I'm sure we won't have any objections this year.

Looks like we're all having a lot of fun with our hats again ;)


text:
Site may not be described as "LEGO Answers" - call for alternative titles
UPDATE: After a further review in March 2017, TLG have confirmed that they would like us to change the site name. This post is kept for reference.

I've got this comment from Jan Beyer, Community Operations Manager for the LEGO Group:

Regarding the website - it should not be called LEGO Answers - this imply that the LEGO Group answers but perhaps "Answers regarding LEGO bricks".

Now I have to admit I can't really find the part of the site which says "LEGO Answers", as everywhere I look I see "LEGO® — Stack Exchange" which may be OK; but if it does exist, can it be changed somehow?

Edit to add:
The site still has <title>LEGO® - Stack Exchange</title>, and so appears as "LEGO® - Stack Exchange" in Google results, and the mobile site also still has the main page heading as "LEGO®"

Follow-up:
LEGO Legal Affairs reviewed LEGO Answers and did not cite any problems with the name. They made a few suggestions about improving the site description to bring it into compliance. So, unless we hear otherwise, the site name does not need to be changed.

The giant logo on the top left of the page reads "LEGO Answers"

Then that's probably what he was talking about. No idea why I still don't see it — I just see a blue "LEGO®" with a small red "beta" above.

It was changed last week, you may need to refresh in some fashion.

@Grace actually, I see "LEGO Answers" with Safari, and just "LEGO" with firefox... any idea why? Which one is the current one?

@Joe thanks, I tried to hit refresh in IE and saw "LEGO Answers" replace "LEGO" so you're certainly correct.

Could someone re-title this question so its more obvious it is the "name this site" question?

I love the fact that we can't have "LEGO" anywhere in our title, yet some upstart pop-boy can release a single called "LEGO House", without the capitalisation or anything ;) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4BLVznuWnU

Jan referred me to someone from LEGO Legal Affairs who took a look at the site and did not cite a problem with the name of the site. He made a few suggestions about improving the site description to bring it into compliance. So, unless we hear otherwise, the site name does not need to be changed.

Good to hear! Out of curiosity, did they comment on the content of the site so far?

@Robert Am I correct in hearing that the Lego bricks community is discouraged from discussing/voting/choosing the site's name? I seem to remember other communities getting to pick their name. What's different with this site?

@antony.trupe: Sites have not picked custom names for a very long time. See http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/10/domain-names-the-wrong-question/

@Robert Fair enough, however, lego<-answers>.stackexchange.com doesn't exist, so I'm seeing inconsistency in the SE team's position. According to the blog post, the site name should match its domain, which in this case is bricks, right?

It's not a duplicate per-say but it's close enough. TLG originally accepted our name, but now that we're a Registered Media Fan Site we've been asked to change.

Brick Overflow
This has been brought up time and time again. The main reason for not calling the site Brick Overflow is that it's an in joke, and people who don't know about Stack Overflow will be confused, and hence not participate on the site, or something.
I disagree, I think it has a clear meaning in context to the site ("I have so many brick-related toys that they're overflowing everywhere!"). If you do know about Stack Overflow, there's an added bonus. Serenity was a great film, and I have friends who enjoyed watching it who had no idea Firefly existed. It still made sense on its own.

It sounds perfect

Well, to this specific questions, Jan answered:

I would like to see anything without LEGO.

So there. I'm in favour of "Brick (anything)". Even "overflow", while an in-joke, has a nice ring to it - who wouldn't be like to be overflown by bricks?

This isn't really a crowd-sourcing type of situation. We will talk to the folks over at LEGO® to see what, if anything, needs to be done to bring the site into compliance. But we're not really in search of a branded or customized name apart from LEGO® Bricks or LEGO® <something>… whatever will bring the trademark use into compliance.

I think contacts should indeed better be had at an admin level. Do you have any contact person already? If there are talks in progress, maybe this question ought to be closed.

Choosing a site name is not something the community does?

@Joubarc: My next task was to get in touch with you to get the contact you mentioned above. Would it be possible for you to forward an email to me to facilitate an introduction? community@stackexchange.com. Thanks.

I imagine the community can't pick a site name because there could be legal ramifications if the owner of the Lego trademark doesn't like it.

Robert, while I think it might be great to have "LEGO" in the title, how would that impact us answering questions on non-LEGO brick toys on the site (minority though they may be)? Equally, if the community is happy without the "LEGO" doesn't that make this moot?

@JoeWreschnig That's the problem with jumping into a conversation late in the game. I assumed it was the other way around. Thanks for the info.

Agreed - is there any news on this one way or another?

Still nothing to report?

LEGO's legal department didn't have a problem with the name of the site, but they made some suggestions to improve the wording around the various descriptions and such. With these minor changes, we are in compliance.

Cheers for the update :)

disappointed we don't get to talk about it :( might even say disenfranchised with the SE team.

Brick Stack
Sort of associates itself with the stack exchange network

Bricks
clean, simple, vague, open-ended.

Not to mention "bricks" is already in the URL and so it seems to make sense to include it in the site name.

Brick Answers
It is what it is.

Brick Q&A
Pretty clear its a Q&A site.

I'm pretty sure that as long as the word "lego" is not in the web address, it should be OK.

Brick Smarter
LEGO and other SAR toys
Trying to keep the tagline underneath from being really long like the following example:
Brick Smarter
Unofficial answers regarding LEGO bricks and other SAR toys
See how just trying to keep the tagline shorter helps the logo seem more coherent? I realize that the point is to "not be associated with LEGO", but then again I presume that other toys, such as DUPLO (another LEGO property) and K'Nex, fishertechnik, Mega bloks and similar toys are going to be asked here.
But yes, the LEGO brand is the most popular and is going to be the point of the most traffic for that reason.

That's funny, they look just like (ok, not quite, but assume the eyes of an eight year old) Technik. So Technik is OK but K'Nex isn't? Interesting isn't it? And if K'Nex is permitted, then so should be fischertechnik. Anyways, that's not my quibble. My point was "this site won't just be for LEGO brand toys will it?"

PS: SAR = Some Assembly Required. The "Brick Smarter" and the LEGO reference should help people figure out this isn't just for random toys that have to be put together when you get them home. I mean, I could see where there are people that slow in the world, but .. the title as "Brick ________" should help them figure it out.

Brick smarts is cute too.

@jcolebrand see this question here: http://meta.bricks.stackexchange.com/questions/38/lego-brick-based-toys-only

Brick Pile
Sounds like a sales site's name.

Mega Bloks
And other building block systems

Heh. Is that the sound of sharpening pitchforks I can hear? ;)

Hang on, I think I can hear it too!

Name alternatives:

Answers regarding LEGO bricks
Bricks
Brick Overflow
Brick Exchange
Brick Pile
Brick Answers
Brick Q&A
Brick Stack
Stack Brick
Stack OverBrick
MegaBlok Answers
Unofficial LEGO Answers (Unofficial answers regarding LEGO bricks)

@JoeWreschnig can I ask why?

I thought maybe you had a more firm reason why the last one was unacceptable in the shorter form. All LEGO wanted was that the name not imply that they were answering questions

@JoeWreschnig It has Answers as a friend.

what does that mean? I'm confused. "should never stand alone" ... huh?

@jcolebrand Referring to LEGO bricks as legos hurts their trademark. The term could become generic which would allow MegaBloks to refer to their product as legos.

@Pubby8 ooooooh, thanks. what about "LEGO products" do you think, since we would ostensibly have DUPLO and etc on here.

@JoeWreschnig I wasn't asking you any further to explain that. I only said "what does that mean, I'm confused".

@JoeWreschnig It's turning a proper noun into a regular noun. If the word enters the english language then trademark doesn't hold up. That's why we have Kleenex tissues and Band Aid bandages.

@Joe it's probably the first time we have a zealot zealous enough to telltale to the copyright owner

Note, the problem with "LEGO Answers" seems to be that "Answers" can be taken as a verb, so "Unofficial LEGO Answers" may actually be OK. I've sent some of the suggestions to Jan to have a definite answer. Anything without "LEGO®" in it is bound to be OK, but I think it would be a bit sad.

"Brick Exchange" sounds like a market for bricks.

This shouldn't be a CW answer, we should have each option as a separate answer to vote on.


text:
Stepping down as moderator
I haven't been very active recently, and each time the SE staff inquired, I thought I'd get more involved again.
Truth is, it's not going to happen anytime soon - other commitments, life going on, etc.
Since it's not fair to bricks.se to stay moderator while being for the most part inactive, I'm finally accepting that it's better that I step down so that someone else can get the opportunity. I know there are a lot of good users here which would make tremendous mods. Not sure how the SE staff is going to go forward though.
Anyway, thanks to all, it's been a very interesting ride. I'll most certainly try to connect again from time to time and answer questions if I can :-)

Hey Joubarc, thanks for all your help over the last few years - really been appreciated - I hope we still get to benefit from your wisdom in the future - don't forget that at your rep level you'll effectively still be a mod here ;)

We appreciate the time you've put into the site, hopefully we will still see you around.


text:
Shouldn't the Ask Question page mention the LEGO in all caps preference?
I see there are edits to questions where the word "lego" are being changed to all caps: "LEGO".
Shouldn't there be a quick little note on the "Ask Question" page to capitalize the word LEGO?
Or do it automatically on every save?
Otherwise, I have a feeling every post is going to end up being edited unless the poster is a frequent visitor to the site.  My two cents.
At the very least, correct the case in the question title window:

@Zhaph-BenDuguid All of the Exchange sites have that as lower case.  Must be the cool thing to do.

Nope, I'm submitting a meta request to change it in light of both our desire to have the word "LEGO" in caps on official text as well as encouraging good question titles ;)

Let's see if we can get it actioned: http://meta.stackexchange.com/q/118059/33051

And yes, apologies for the ironic use of lower case in the question title.

This is lower case across the network.

I've made a few edits where I've replaced Lego with LEGO whilst trying to improve on the post by fixing other spelling/grammar edits or adding tags. I generally don't think capitalising LEGO in an edit is worth doing so unless there are other ways the post can be improved.

The other moderator "Zhaph - Ben Duguid" does edit posts for just the capitalization.  I don't have a problem with that, but there should probably be some helpful tip for posters to follow accepted best practices.  That's all.

Yes, I'll admit one of the edits I made this afternoon were just capitalisations, in the other I changed "Lego" to "The LEGO Group", and in the last one I also added a tag. In general I'd also shy away from just capitalising them, but I was a little bored, it was nearly home time, and I was doing a little tidying ;)

I've been doing a few LEGO-only edits, for mostly the same reasons; but if I can improve the post as well when doing so, I have to agree it's better.


text:
Question about a question about LEGO games for grown-ups
There is a (non-meta) question I'd like to ask, but I think it could be seen as too subjective. So I prefer to ask here whether it would be acceptable: at the very least, this question would be useful in view of similar, future questions.
   The question (I am not asking it here!) is:

LEGO Games for Grown-ups
  Are all LEGO Boardgames more or less for children, or are some of them suitable for grown-up, more expert players? (Everybody likes relaxing with a simple game, but are any of the games a bit more challenging?)

Yes, I think that question should be fine - and I can think of at least two non-subjective answers to it ;)

Very well! Thanks for settling my doubts.

I don't have any problem with this question either, expect for the fact it may also be a good fit for boardgames.se. Whether it would be a better fit, I don't know - are non-LEGO people really playing these?

Not all LEGO Games are boardgames - Shave A Sheep and the new Chicken game (Kokoriko) aren't boardgames so much as dice games - and they don't seem to mention those sorts of games as explicitly "on topic" as far as I can see, even if they could be.

I sort of assumed any non-computer games would be on-topic, including dice games; after all card games are also represented. I guess we should take the time to chat a bit with the admins there and see what they think about it.

Yeah, looking deeper, I think they probably would be although it's hard to find any other examples (not really knowing the names of any beyond Yahtzee), however equally I think in the same way that while questions about Apple stuff could be "on-topic" for Super User they are directed to Apple.SE - similarly for LEGO questions - although I guess it depends on the core focus of the question

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Is question share popup on question upvote by design?
On each question upvote (but not answer) I'm getting a link share window popped up. Is it by design?

Yes, and it's happening across the network.
The idea is that you think the question is great (you've up voted it) and now you might like to share it with your followers/friends so the site gains more users, and you get the chance to gain a couple of badges.
I guess the issue is we're at a low question count at the moment so any question becomes "hot" as soon as it's voted up.


text:
Is it generally acceptable to answer a question that has an accepted answer?
Some questions continue to percolate even though they have an accepted answer. Is it generally O.K. to enter an on topic response afterwards?

Thanks. I'm enjoying the site. Nice job.

Usually I don't accept answers until I feel the topic is closed. But things tend to change over time and a better/more precise or more up to date answer can hopefully emerge. So yes it is OK to answer questions with accepted answers.

Yes!
Assuming, of course, that you've something useful to add. "Accepted" just means the person who asked the question found the answer helpful - it doesn't mean that answer is necessarily the last word on the topic. If you think you can provide a better answer, or even just answer from a different perspective, then by all means - post it!

I think this differs from my perspective.  Seeing a "check" next to the answer is usually an indicator that the asker has said "okay, thanks for answering me, I'm good!"  Otherwise, by definition, there is always a "best" answer from the list (that is, a question with just one answer has that as the best question) and the tag becomes meaningless (IMHO)

Sure - but just because one user (albeit the one who asked the question) is satisfied with it doesn't mean every future reader will be. The whole point of SE is that questions tend to be had by multiple people - a future reader with the same problem may well find your answer more useful. That doesn't mean every question needs loads of answers... But if you see an opportunity to expand on the knowledge provided, you're more than welcome to do so.

As Shog9 and Joe state (and demonstrate): Yes, there's nothing wrong with adding a useful answer to a question that already has an accepted answer - indeed I remember there being a discussion about how we could tactfully suggest that new users don't accept answers straight away on SO, because seeing that a question already had an accepted answer was perceived as discouraging others from answering.
It's also useful when technology or techniques have moved on - especially on programming sites where questions might be about Beta software, but even here, if the LEGO Group were to release a new brick that makes a particular form of SNOT building easier, then by all means post more answers about it.
Generally though, usually it's just people saying "Thanks that helped me too" because they can post an answer with no rep, but can't add a comment.


text:
Can I suggest a more LEGO-y skin?
I thinks skins are a really important feature of stackexchange. Every site has it's own identity, given by the styling it uses.
The current skin we use here is lovely, I really like the sketchyness, but the problem is, it doesn't shout "LEGO" at me.
I think we ought to try and implement the brick into it a bit more. (And yes, we can do this under copyright resrictions, just look at some other LUG websites.)
Perhaps the "questions tags users badges" buttons could be bricks? Or the side of a quote could be a rotated brick.
I'm not calling for a totaly LEGO-ified style, just something that will say "LEGO" at me a bit more.

I would have used round 1x1 studs for badges.

Badges get tailored too :)

While this site is still in Beta, we're using the "sketchy" skin and we're actually very lucky to have our custom icon. Most of the other beta Stack Exchange sites only have their initials as their icon (SmugMug and Poker being a couple of exceptions).
Once we've "graduated" out of beta, Jin the Stack Exchange designer will get involved and come up with some designs for us that we can then have a bit of a say on, but it's certainly good for us to talk about it now.

Edit to add:
Apparently we're about to lose the the sketchy skin for a more polished, plain skin:

The New Stack Exchange Beta Theme

Ah, I see, all Beta sites have the sketchy skin. That makes sense. Thanks.

@ambo100 yeah, what is that SmugMug thing, it's not even a sketchy icon ;)


text:
Should nomeclature and terminology tags be synonimized?
I have 2 questions based on what the official term is for a mini/micro/tiny/nano-figure.
One is tagged terminology, the other nomeclature.  I see many more entries under terminology; should nomeclature be a synonym of terminology?

Sounds like a reasonable suggestion, nomenclature is a harder word to spell and type ;-)

I've setup synonyms for both nomeclature and nomenclature which should help going forward

Consider that the tag is currently "nomeclature" without the second 'n'.

Indeed, I didn't realise it was misspelt when I initially posted that.

I've replaced it; there was only one instance other than my own question.


text:
Bug in LEGO® Answers Badges
I have noticed this bug in
LEGO® Answers where my badges don't show in the list of Accounts I have in StackOverflow and other StackExchange Accounts. I have earned about 8 badges and none show up.

Edit: The "Badge Bug" has been fixed.

Curious - they are appearing on your overall Network profile:

Could possibly be a slight caching issue - when did you earn those badges? If it's fairly recently that might explain it.
If it's not cleared up in a couple of hours I guess we should escalate it further.
Following it further, I can see that your Ask Different badge count has increased across the network (it's now 3) - I've raised this on meta.SO, it may be closed as a duplicate.
Looks like there's a more systemic issue - I've just noticed that a lot of our users are missing a large number of badges in the summary.

Edit to add:
It's been fixed, thanks for raising it :-)

Thanks for your Post. I hope StackExchange fixes it soon..

Lego is the only Account with Issue.

Almost - it seems to be happening across all sites with a ® in their name - so ExpressionEngine® Answers users are also seeing it.

When do you think the issue will be resolved?

Not sure, I'll see if I can ping a dev for their take on it...

Thanks the "Badge Bug" is fixed. Thanks for your Help :)

Could you add the Status-Completed tag to my Question :)

Doh, knew there was some thing I'd forgotten ;)

Thanks for all your Help :)


text:
Can we create a 'FLL' tag?
We all know that the FIRST lego league challenge announcement is happening soon, and we will definitely ask questions about it. I have noticed that there is no 'FLL' or 'FIRST' or'FIRST lego league' tag.
Could someone please add these helpful tags?

I just added it

I've added fll to your question (although I fear that is "too localised") and a rough wiki entry based on their about page. I've also created a synonym first-lego-league which will point to it. Feel free to suggest edits for other suitable questions for more rep ;)


text:
Did we mean to have motor and motors tags?
I just noticed when adding the motors tag to a question that we also have a motor tag.  Is there some value to having the singular and plural of this word both be tags?  This seems more confusing than useful.  Am I missing something?

Looks like we created a synonym for Motors to motor a few years ago, but we'd not completed the merge.
I've done that now.


text:
Criteria for losing "beta" status
In this question about changing the BRICKS icon it was mentioned that we have not fully graduated yet. I guess this means that we are still labelled "beta".
What are the criteria to be a graduated site? Are we close to that goal?
Edit:
I just noticed this question about boosting graduation qualification in which a screenshot of criteria was posted. Where can we find this list of criteria and how well we are doing currently?

The easiest place to track our progress (and where that screenshot came from) is on the original "Area 51" proposal:

LEGO - Area 51

As of today (11 September 2018), we're showing:

The key metric that we're down on is questions per day - we're fairly slow to generate new content, and this is now the key driver of a site's consideration for graduation (emphasis from the original):

from now on, when a site starts to consistently receive ten new questions every day, we'll consider it for graduation. This is not 100% automated; CMs will still be manually checking on how individual communities are doing, and some sites might still graduate "earlier" or "later" than their question activity alone would suggest; but it's an effective rule of thumb.

It used to be that sites that didn't meet the criteria were closed fairly swiftly, however as you can see from Shog9's answer here - with our high answered rate, and the dedication of our users, we're in a stable, good place.
See also this answer to "How do I know if a beta Stack Exchange site is growing well?":

Graduation needs a body of expert content, and a community to maintain and expand it. It's much harder to quantify that - there are some stats that can be manually generated by the SE developers, such as the number of high-rep users who visited in the last few weeks, and so on. And there are publicly-visible indicators such as the liveliness of the site meta and its chat. As more and more sites come through Area51 to graduation, we're all learning more about what indicators work, and what don't.

2018-10-03 - Edit to add:
The new StackExchange Theme includes the following module in the right bar on the homepage of the main site (and other Beta sites):

2019-08-01 - Edit to add:
As part of the revamp of the graduation process, we're no longer in beta!


text:
Can we change the icon of the Brick community
Is it possible to set a custom icon / favicon for the Bricks community ?
if yes, is there any guidelines for the icon (provided by SE or can be any copyleft icon, …) ?

Our icon is already slightly customised compared to most of the other "non-graduated" Stack Exchange sites. As we haven't fully graduated, we're using the standard "speech bubble" icon, however instead of having the site initials in it, we have a 1x1 brick (which is close to, but doesn't impinge on) LEGO's 2x2 brick favicon.
Once we graduate, as per the recent Theme Update announcement, we may well qualify for further enhancements such as custom badge icons, updated favicon, etc.

you already changed it right?

True, and the graduated designs have mostly been deprecated anyway.


text:
How do you post a picture of an unidentified bag?
I have a bag but no directions.  How do I post a pic of the bag?

When you are posting your question you should be able to see a picture icon in the formatting bar of the text box:

This will allow you to upload an image from your computer to our servers, or link to an image on another website (we'll make a copy of the image on our servers too I think).
How you get the image on to your computer is a slightly different question, and one that's out of scope of this site - it depends on what you're able to take the picture with - however most phones for example will allow you to sync with either a cloud storage provider or with your computer, or have a way to share the image via email - at which point you should be able to save it to your computer and then upload it.

It's worth noting that you can't upload images until you have 10 reputation. Users without this much reputation will have to post a link to the image hosted elsewhere.

Hmm - not sure that's the case - or atleast if it is, then it's a penalty for signing up - An unregistered user (me in Chrome incognito) was able to upload an image just fine: http://meta.bricks.stackexchange.com/q/335/56

There is a privilege at 100 rep that allows images in chat, but it looks like images are allowed earlier now - there's nothing in the New User Restrictions about images, just "more than two hyperlinks" - which would include image links, but one or two images would be fine.

Interesting. For some reason I thought this was rep limited. I wonder if this changed at some point. There are still questions like this one that ask about it: http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/183926/reputation-10-to-post-images


text:
Are questions asking for 3rd party tools or resources on-topic here?
On Bricks SE, are questions whose goal is to find a 3rd party software or resource that fulfils a given task related to Lego bricks on-topic?
I am asking because:

Various other SE sites, in particular StackOverflow and related software development-related sites, strongly discourage this kind of questions, pointing instead to Software Recommendations SE.
I could not find any explicit mention in the Help Center for Bricks SE, nor on this Meta site.
And finally, such a question would undoubtedly be on-topic on the aforementioned Software Recommendations SE.

The issue with the last point I'm seeing is that I'd expect a suitable answer to be considerably more likely when posting such a question on Bricks SE (where many users actively use and know software related to Lego) than on Software Recommendations SE (where it takes a huge deal of luck for anyone with a deeper interest in Lego to come across the question at all).
I see several questions like what I'm thinking about on Bricks SE, e.g.:

Is there any software for designing and testing Technic mechanisms?
Identification tool for LEGO parts

but given the above factors, I'm looking for a definitive answer.
Also note that this is a different question than what was discussed in Are questions on 3rd party software on-topic?, which refers to questions about a particular (known) piece of software, for which users could be redirected to the software's own forum or support channels.

I think we're generally a little more accepting of "recommendations" type questions here on Bricks, and there are, as you've seen, already questions asking for recommendations for software for creating instructions, track layouts, and various robotics control systems.
That said, many of those don't necessarily have a definitive answer, but will often have a couple of recommendations with some fairly good description of the benefits and trade-offs of each.


text:
Announcing a “Graduation” election for 2021
Bricks Stack Exchange will begin the nomination stage for an election on 27 September 2021, as your “graduation” election (as a result of having lost your beta label a while back).
The timeline:

Next week, I'll post a question collection post on Meta, so that the community can post questions they'd like to see the candidates answer.

Starting on 27 September, users can nominate themselves. The top questions collected the previous week will be compiled into a questionnaire on the election page, so that potential moderators can answer them.

On 4 October, if there are four or more candidates, we'll run an election. If not, I'll extend the nomination period for a week. If, at the end of that extension period there are still less than four candidates, I'll simply appoint the candidates who've nominated (and aren't already pro-tem mods) and we'll default to considering this a "pro-tem election" (for full details of the process, see the announcement on Meta Stack Exchange). (There's a small chance we'll need to remove a nomination, but I doubt that will come up.)

If there is an election, I'll announce the results on meta on 12 October (or 19 October, if we need to extend the nomination period).

The existing moderator team will need to run in the election if they wish to keep their positions.

If you have any questions about the process, please stick them in an answer here.

How long is the term of newly elected moderators? Is it until next election or longer? How often are the elections?

Moderators here don't have terms. They serve until they wish to step down or they become inactive. Elections are held on an as-needed basis. :)