Talk:Sets

From BIONICLEsector01

External links

We have links to set instructions for all the pages about set-depicted entities, but for some reason, they are not listed on the pages in the Set namespace. (Ex: Lord of Skull Spiders has a link to the instructions, but Set:70790 does not.) I propose moving these items to the Set pages, and therefore removing them from the corresponding articles. Thoughts? --Angel Bob (talk) 17:30, 24 January 2015 (CET)

That would probably be a good idea. --Gresh113, Glatorian of Air (talk) 17:37, 24 January 2015 (CET)
As it turns out, I got Swert to enable PDF uploads to the wiki, so what should be done is the instructions links be uploaded directly to the wiki and then placed on the set pages (there's even a "upload from URL" function so it's stupidly easy!).
Also, maybe keep it on both pages? *shrug* -- Dorek Talk External Image 21:53, 24 January 2015 (CET)
I'd be against keeping it on both pages; my thinking is that it would just be redundant. Now that we're getting the set database up and rolling, I'd like to see all of the set information consolidated there, with the main articles dealing with the storyline details. --Angel Bob (talk) 22:41, 24 January 2015 (CET)
For the time being, where should instructions links go on a page if they redirect to a file hosted on BS01? Traditionally, they went under external links, but the links aren't really external anymore... (This is just until the set database actually has pages for everything and/or we decide to keep instructions links in the main space.) ~Volitak_Boxor
Keep them under external links for now, I think... unless it becomes a major problem it's a lot easier than reclassifying it. Or every time you upload the instructions you could create a new bare-bones page for the model in question, but that might be a hassle =P. -- Dorek Talk External Image 00:21, 25 January 2015 (CET)

Collectibles

Why are 8597 and 8598, the packs of Kanohi Nuva and regular Krana, listed under Winter 2003? I'm pretty sure they were released in Summer 2002, alongside the Toa Nuva, with 8559 and 8569, the gold/silver Kanohi + Krana packs, being released in Winter 2002 with the Bohrok. --Volitak Boxor (talk) 18:38, 29 May 2015 (CEST)

Probably because I read the dates wrong. I'll fix it (eventually!). -- Dorek Talk External Image 20:17, 29 May 2015 (CEST)

Collections

I'm not sure that we need to include all the multi-set collections on this main Sets page (not counting Takutanuva, Kardas, etc.). Most of their set numbers were just shop designations for combo packs, and there isn't really anything special about a lot of them. Having about a dozen combo packs listed under the 2003 sets, all without images, doesn't look that good, in my opinion. I don't even know if these collections all need their own set pages; there's not a whole lot to say for most of them that wouldn't be found on their component sets' pages. I think that it might work best to just have a subpage for collections, with maybe a paragraph of description and a big table of all the collections, stating the set number, component sets, and any extra relevant details (I'll try to make a sandbox soon, when I have more time). Any thoughts? --Volitak Boxor (talk) 17:59, 24 February 2016 (CET)

What I'm going to do now is actually divest the assorted templates into separate pages, so that the main sets page is just information, and pictures and stuff all go on different "list of" pages. Not ideal, but will make the page more manageable. So collections and combiners and stuff can be featured on the year's page. -- Dorek Talk External Image 19:13, 24 February 2016 (CET)

Playsets

So, all the playsets had alternate builds, which were illustrated on the back of the boxes, and - in 2007 - after the online building instructions. Do we have any printed/online instructions for them? Except the Caravan Crawler for it's a combination model from a magazine... also what do you think about adding the original magazine descriptions to the magazine combiner/alternate models to their respective set pages? — Surel—Nuva (Talk) 01:02, 17 June 2017 (CET)

i don't think more documented information is a bad thing. as the years go on, it'll just get harder and harder to find this information again if we want it. (2007 was 10 years ago already... dang. now there's a hard pill to swallow...)
Please, the magazine info from the Lohrak and Ultimate Dume clearly can be seen on the Lohrak's instructions scan.— Surel—Nuva (Talk) 02:04, 17 June 2017 (CET)
Here's a collection of images of the playset combiners I once put together, though the quality is pretty low. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4dmZV9xUddbZ2J3VnNvNG90MGs/view . Unfortunately, I think the original images are on an old computer; I can't share them directly. I don't know of anybody who ever successfully tried to make instructions for these models. Does anyone here own the playsets, and if so, would they be willing to take a crack at building these alternate models? I think that's the only way forward. --Volitak Boxor (talk) 02:46, 17 June 2017 (CET)

Gear

So, there's quite a lot of gear, such as cards (which we do cover with their respective games), clothing, roleplay tools, watches (which are pretty much LEGO sets, and even include masks), pens and finally, the McDonalds statues. Full list on Bricklink. Personally, I'd like to add set pages for the watches, and possibly make a single page on the roleplay tools and clothing stuffs. Any thoughts? ~ Wolk (talk) 21:48, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

i don't know if those would technically be considered sets, but they should indeed be documented on here, complete with information sourcing. i think the issue would just lie in deciding how to categorize those pages. collectibles? miscellaneous merchandise? not sure. Intelligence4 (talk) 05:40, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
Actually, as far merchandise is concerned, there was a vote on the merchandise page, forgot about that. Guess I can cross of that thought. I'd still consider the watches sets rather than merchandise since they're made of actual lego pieces though; however I'm not sure. I think they're too small of a matter to make a vote on though? (side note; put in the wrong bricklink link) ~ Wolk (talk) 16:30, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
I'm willing to consider watches as sets, since they are brick-based. Everything else should go on that eventual merch page. Although for trading cards, maybe the Card Games page should get a makeover? -- Dorek Talk External Image 16:40, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
i think the watches should stay with the rest of the merch. i agree about the thing with them technically being brick based, but iirc they were marketed with the rest of the stuff, as extras, not essential buys for the toy line. i could definitely see the trading cards being put with the card games though. Intelligence4 (talk) 16:11, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Reception

On each of the set pages there is a 'reception' subheading. What is the purpose of this? Is it for reviews, a summary of general community opinions, or what? This section is empty on most if not all pages. Additionally, it has the subheadings of "Critical Response" and "Community Response". What would count as critical response as opposed to community response? Having these two be seperate seems unnecessary when neither have any information in them. ~ Wolk (talk) 23:39, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

The best example for this is probably on the 2015 Kopaka set page, where critical response refers to various reviews, and community response refers to public polls. I do agree that it serves little purpose if very few pages actually make use of it. Though it might just be that many sets (probably primarily 2015-2016) do in fact have such information available, it's just not on the wiki. »Zapnox« 12:53, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Duplicate information

Surely this kind of information is made redundant by the existence of the pages such as Sets/2001? By duplicating this information in lesser detail here, wouldn't it make it harder to maintain and organise? My suggestion would be use this Sets page as a hub for the Sets/year pages, and just keep the overview paragraphs here. It would make this page less cluttered, and theoretically easier to find what you need. --MightBeAlon (talk) 19:54, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

That I think was my eventual plan (and also to avoid redundancies with the main BIONICLE page), I'm just not quite sure how I wanted to see it structured. For now, I'm just leaving it so there's something there. Work in progress! -- Dorek Talk External Image 20:06, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
The Sets/2001 etc are very basically constructed. The listing of the sets 2001-2003 was removed and nowwhere put. I see no practical reason as to why delete information from this page and create child pages for each year. It's much more practical to have all the information on one page and browse it there. Everything on one page i regards to asets makes it easiest to find. SF (talk) 19:46, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
And I had to log in after more than 10 years to point that out. SF (talk) 19:46, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
The problem I run into is that it gets to be too unwieldy. List of Sets makes a much better "master list" page than sets ever could, because of the random esoteric sets that pop up. The thing about the main Sets page is that it wasn't actually complete, because there's a lot of obscure collections that were never added, so to keep adding (especially without collapsible templates) wasn't very user friendly.
The 2001-2004 information is currently on their respective pages, which are more detailed than their original blurbs on the main Sets page were (though they still have plenty of overlapping information). The only stuff I've currently "removed" from the Sets page is just an image list which, again, is better served on either List of Sets or their respective year pages, where they currently are in more detail (although with a show/hide function to make everything smoother).
That said, everything is still a work in progress. Is it the images you miss the most, or just the list? I was thinking a very rudimentary list for the Sets page might not be a bad idea, but that's where the redundancies start to pile up. -- Dorek Talk External Image 20:56, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
The list as was on Sets was the most user friendly, with links to sets, sections, etc. Sections on Sets/2001 is basic with no links and with the whole "table of cotents" look, etc. The non-expanded sections are also not nice, as they have to be extended manually. If you need to make separate sub-pages for years, please do it in the same style as was done prior to the data deletions. SF (talk) 18:27, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

The links are a to-be-added thing (it was automatically linked to before with the way the template was set up, I haven't manually redone that yet). The current lists can be automatically expanded, so I'll take that into consideration; the biggest issue I had with the page before was the opposite, that everything was exploded all over the page, cluttering it.

Are you primarily using desktop, or mobile? I'm inclined to think collapsed-default is more mobile-friendly, but we can possibly adjust this for both! -- Dorek Talk External Image 02:38, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Workstation. Collapsed mode is irritating. The page was complete, I wouldn't call it cluttered. It was comprehensive, all-in-one, going into obscure sub-side ruins the esperience, I cant browse them all, now it will be going from one sublink to another. Had it been an idea of a minor user I would have reverted all the edits. In this situation I'm only giving opinion. Not to mention you could have sandboxerd all of this, save the code in notepad, work on it and when it was complete change everything in one go, without the work in progress looking messy. SF (talk) 20:46, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
Okay, we'll put in a fix for the collapsing (although I'm told it might take a minute due to some complexities that go way over my head). I hear you in that you wanted everything on one page; while I don't think that's the direction we're going to necessarily go in (at least visually) I'll adjust the course of the development to partially account for this.
It's rare I get feedback on my unfinished projects (and it's even rarer that I get help at all in completing them!) so I do apologize for leaving things in such a state. I find I do better work when it's broken up into chunks, but I will do my best to complete the page as soon as possible.
The one thing I will say is that the page wasn't necessarily complete originally; having done a deep dive, I'm turning up all sorts of obscure sets and products that weren't included or referenced before, and I don't think the page necessarily represented the complete experience. The goal is definitely to make things easy to learn, but not if it's going to be only partial knowledge. That does a disservice to the user. -- Dorek Talk External Image 04:37, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Reception (Again)

On most set pages, the reception heading features Brick Insights box, but also an accompanying text saying "SetTitle scored XX on Brick Insights, indicating average reviews;" however that number is subject to being updated, and on most pages is already out of date, and the indication really doesn't add much value. While I see the value in having more lengthy discussion on the set, such as 70788 Kopaka – Master of Ice, this sentence feels pointless and an immediete double listing of information that gets out-dated. Should it instead be removed? ~ Wolk (talk) 16:48, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Represents varying stages of development. Some of the sets have a few more clarifying sentences as to why BrickInsights scored that way - they have a very specific way of calculating scores based on the average, which tends to really skew based on how LEGO sets as a whole are reviewed. That doesn't mean it's bad way of scoring, just that, as with all numerical assignments, it requires context which the scorebox does not necessarily make apparent. Kopaka, meanwhile, was an earlier proof of concept on what it COULD look like, parsing out specific quotes to support a point. However, the issue is that generally newer sets lend themselves more to this style; no offense to the reviewers of BIONICLE's earlier years, but some of their reviews were just "this set is good. I like turning gears" without a lot of detail or insight, making including quotes kind of moot.
Would I like for more review sections to be like Kopaka? Sure. Do I have time to write them? Hahahahahahahahahaha -- Dorek Talk 20:01, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
Right. I suppose, my biggest issue is reiterating the score, as it is updated automatically in the template, but static in the text. ~ Wolk (talk) 23:38, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
My own issue is that the BrickInsights score template always seems to skew negative for BIONICLE, regardless of however popular or well-liked a set may be. 70788 Kopaka – Master of Ice, for example, has very positive reviews overall, but "Recommended by 1 of 10 reviews" metric makes it sound like most people didn't like it. As another example, 8989 Mata Nui has a Eurobricks review that is a respectable 7/10 and ends with a recommendation for BIONICLE fans, but it's apparently scored as a negative "avoid" review by BrickInsights! So I'm not altogether sure how good of a resource BrickInsights is, especially for a more niche theme like BIONICLE; I don't think people interested in browsing a wiki like BS01 would care about early-2000s LUGNET AFOLs giving negative reviews because "BIONICLE isn't real LEGO". --PeabodySam (talk) 02:31, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Visorak's Gate

There's an uncited line here that specifies Visorak's Gate as a Target-exclusive set. This is not the case in NA at least, where the box specifically shows it being a Toys R Us exclusive. However, I wasn't sure how to cite the box as a source - would it be more useful to track down one of the Lego Catalogs and see if they specify, since they typically did list exclusive retailers? (The preceding unsigned comment was made by TBOC)

I would think the box is enough if we have an image of that; entirely possible I mixed up the retailers, but the only box image I picked up when searching was the standard one, so if there is one with exclusive markings, that'd be great. It's also pretty likely that there's a BZP article that mentions it SOMEWHERE. -- Dorek Talk 16:32, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Errors & Inconsistencies

Several sets feature errors in their instructions, such as Umbra's left hand not being connected to his arm, while other sets are depicted inconsistently between the instructions, product photos, and CGI renders, such as with the orientation of Thok's or Hewkii's thigh armor. Would details like these be worth noting in the respective sets' Trivia? ~ Wolk (talk) 12:22, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Entertainment Earth Collection Sets

Entertainment Earth lists several different collection sets (some appear to be duplicated, listed as "Case" and "Set", but with shared item numbers...) from 07-08. These are complete with set descriptions, which leads me to believe they are actual collection sets - However they lack set numbers! Probably by omission on the retailer's part. The sets are the following:

The Mistika ones were apparently up as early as March. I'm not really sure what to do with these since they lack set numbers. I suppose they are not the first instance of that; we've had plenty of pictures of boxes without set numbers. Maybe I'll just add them to List of Sets? :/ ~ Wolk (talk) 19:47, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

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