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Please pay attention please to 'plates' thicknesses', adjust catalog if needed.
To All (particulary sellers using flatrate shipments up to 5 mm).
Due to a buyer checking out on some plates in my store with flatrate (should not be possible with my settings) I noticed something is wrong with the thickness of some 'plates' and 'modified plates': some of them are wrongly set at 2mm in catalog. Offcourse I already went over a whole bunch and filed about 2 or 3 dozen of changes to adjust towards 5mm (already approved by admin), but there might be more. I will resume going over the list I was dealing with tomorrow, but that list might not contain all 'plate' kinda items (it did contain some tiles with studs though), so attention must be given to anything that has a 'plate' styled form, if you encounter them, check if thickness is set to 2mm, if so, please file a catalog change to adjust to 5mm, thanks in advance, and be aware this might affect your shippincosts.
Cheers, Eric
PS1 You only need to adjust 'parent' items in case of need.
PS2 Might be incorrect on some molds if several exist (for example 2 out 3 'jumpers' where at 2mm, the third one was at 5mm, has been adjusted now)
Due to a buyer checking out on some plates in my store with flatrate (should not be possible with my settings) I noticed something is wrong with the thickness of some 'plates' and 'modified plates': some of them are wrongly set at 2mm in catalog. Offcourse I already went over a whole bunch and filed about 2 or 3 dozen of changes to adjust towards 5mm (already approved by admin), but there might be more. I will resume going over the list I was dealing with tomorrow, but that list might not contain all 'plate' kinda items (it did contain some tiles with studs though), so attention must be given to anything that has a 'plate' styled form, if you encounter them, check if thickness is set to 2mm, if so, please file a catalog change to adjust to 5mm, thanks in advance, and be aware this might affect your shippincosts.
Cheers, Eric
PS1 You only need to adjust 'parent' items in case of need.
PS2 Might be incorrect on some molds if several exist (for example 2 out 3 'jumpers' where at 2mm, the third one was at 5mm, has been adjusted now)
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Keep in mind some items might not have the 'plate' tag, but still be of the same appearance, and so still might have the wrong thickness...
@DagsBricks
Baseplates checked, found a couple that where at 2mm, changes filed. Did not check the ones without picture, some also do not have a description, so hard to figure out if they are a 'typical' baseplate or not.
Large Baseplates usually don't cause much shipping issues due to wrong thickness, as their Length and Width would cause a 'package' for most countries anyway.
@Jiries: petty you noticed but didn't bother trying to change something :-(
I noticed and filed about 100 chances by going over them one by one: 21 pages of 'plates', 7 pages of 'tile with stud', 6 pages of baseplates, each containing 60 items=2040 catalog entries (I only examined 'parents' offcourse) , yes it is a timetaking task, but it is also the most efficient way to get rid of catalog errors.
Unfortunatly a lot of people don't seem to 'bother' much, shame to see so many sellers are profitting from this sites awesome functionalties, it's rapidly growing database (mainly by the hard work of admin) in regards to new entries, but don't give a darn to actually help out to have BO move forward rapidly, particulary in regards to sizes and weights (and pictures for older stuff) and that those sellers keep relying on the efforts of the few that DO bother. What are some of you expecting? That it all get's solved with a magical wand?
Have a nice weekend all, hope you get some nice orders that worked perfectly with autocheckout, send a 'thank you' to the people who submitted the sizes and weights for the items in your received orders :P
Cheers, Eric
#1 Click on part, wait.
#2 Click on "View Other Colors", wait.
#3 Click on edit, wait.
#4 Scroll down down, enter stuff, scroll down some more.
#5 Click on submit, wait.
Come on, that's terrible. The right solution: we need to see a list of parts missing data, seeing right away where we have them in storage and being able to submit new catalog data, all of this on the same screen!
I intend to do this in my BrickManager software, but I kind of put the project on hold as I'm waiting for many features to be implemented on the BrickOwl side (or at least a sign that work on them has begun...).
I find the motivation prizes to contribute to the BrickOwl catalog are a little lacking too. I would add:
- Custom BrickOwl-themed minibuilds being sent automatically when reaching milestones (5000, 20000 points, 50000 points, etc.)
- Bigger sets to exchange for 20000 points or such
I do agree with @Stragus though that the steps involved in updating the catalog are tedious.
I sometimes try to go through a whole category like "weight" for all my items and it is quite some work.
If I could have one page with a picture/description of all the items missing "weight" and a field to enter the weight next to each of them with a submit at the bottom that would be a great improvement. I might even jump to less critical categories just to complete everything in my todo list.
and others offcourse.
Therobo 'approves' submissions from members, just like the other CA Maggie and the IA's in regards to inventory changes. On Brickowl these tasks are done by Admin Lawrence.
But just like on BL it is the users who build the database and submit the changes and submit the data, offcourse the admins also submit and adjust the database on BL, just like Lawrence does here, the big difference is that Lawrence also takes care of importing 'inventories' and new items, either from Brickset, either from TLG, reasons why it's going so fast.
But the new data (and old data obviously) still needs to be adjusted, like the creation of minifigs and weights and sizes offcourse, together with submitting pictures for stuff that doesn't have a picture yet. So yes, there are errors/missing data and the site is counting on it's users to fill the gaps and adjust where needed, there is an EDIT button on each entry, that serves that purpose.
How do you think 'regular' users get their catalog points ?
http://www.brickowl.com/points
Stargus has also embedded features in Bricksync to 'mass submit' data, a lot faster then the actual edit function on BO, particulary handy for weights and sizes and updating BLID's. Explore it ;-)
In your inventory there are buttons that tell you what items in your inventory have missing data, so it's quite easy to take that as a starting point to fill gaps...
A site like this can only grow 'catalogwise' if we all work together ;-)
Eric
Agreed, submission methods are not all that practical, the process is slow (extremely slow for inventory changes), but not a reason to not do it and wait for others to do it...
Your Bricksync 'submission' feature already helps a lot, particulary for 'bulk' changes, so that's a good step forward.
And prices, well indeed, I suppose Admin could/should put a little extra efforts in that and should actually 'value' these a bit more IMHO.
800 points for a small polybag, worthed a couple of $, while it can easely take several hours of submissions to build up 800 points is not very 'inviting'
e.g. To build up 800 points (let's use the points for pictures): 53 pictures must be submitted, if one spends 5 minutes to take a picture (but most likely more), edit it (colorbalance, cropping, etc) and upload it, it represents 260 minutes or +4 hours and thus to get a 5-10$ polybag...
On the other hand, on BL nobody get's a thing offcourse, except the Admins, they don't pay fees I believe, others (like translators and moderators) get 'discounts' on their fees, but that's just a few people offcourse.
Surely we can't expect a 10$ reward per hour, there is still the love and proundness of doing the contributions and it also helps our stores to move forward and grow and give potential buyers the option to find an buy what they need, but still, the rewards could get a bit 'uplifted' IMHO, fully agree with that Stragus (just in the same way people should value 'BrickSync' a little more)
And what's 1500 points for a buyer or a small seller? Two polybags, almost. Life's unfair.
Besides prizes, I think unique BrickOwl-themed minibuilds for reaching milestones would be great. A trophy of some sort, ideally featuring a custom printed/engraved part. You know, I don't even want to think about what these 300 hours would have been worth at the day job!
I've used it in januari and februari and saved nicely on fees, so it's a little more rewarding for the average seller, who has the time to contribute, and still sells 'nicely' during peak months (it's a gamble offcourse, as you don't know in advance whether it will be a good, an average or a small month). As of march I stopped redeeming as it's a little less worthwhile, I prefer paying fees during the calmer months, but I'll get back to it after august, I'm sure.
Based on my unredeemed points, I can have free fees on 33 months btw, if I pick the right months, it's pretty rewarding and a nice motivation :P
btw, did you know that this 'prize' came from my suggestion :-)
Eric