Brief history of Lego Space online communities?

[Ra226]

When I first decided to pursue once again some form of Lego Space community, I was saddened to find Lugnet such a ghost town. It seems several have come here, but many of the old names are simply gone. I'm curious to know just what happened during the gap in my involvement (roughly 2004-2011).

So, anyone want to help me piece together (no pun intended!) a history of the AFOL Space community? I think it'd be an interesting study in Internet communities and evolution.

As I see it, rec.toys.lego (usenet, baby!) is where it all began as far as online communities goes. Then many migrated to Lugnet, and then to classic-space.com. Then things get hazy. I understand there was a server crash here but that participation was on the decline before that.

So where did everybody go? I've skimmed the "Proposal for Saving the Future of Lego Space! (SatFutoLes)" thread (which has some excellent ideas in it) and gathered that many went to Flickr primarily. But I wonder if Facebook, or any other sites have anything to do with the scattering of the people? And what's the appeal of Flickr? It seems to me to be too broad to offer a real sense of community.

-- Tom

[Sir Michael Le Fanu]

Flickr has groups... But that really doesn't appeal to me. Of course it's useful because you can link to it and post the photos here but if thats where the community is, it's fairly sad. There's also Eurobricks and FBTB (which also have excellent blogs and frontpages ). I think that if we want them back we need to somehow advertise... But we need some more stuff that will appeal to users. To me it just looks like a regular LEGO fan forum that had it's time.

[_zenn]

I find flickr lacking the 'forum feel'. Although I check certain groups daily, I like the hang out here and on Eurobricks for more interesting conversation/debates and stuff.

But on topic; due to the rise of all kinds of community based websites I think a whole lot of afols got divided over several boards and communities. It could also be a 'second darkage' maybe...

[Scooter]

Yes, for a new-comer to the online Lego scene, it would be nice to know more about the lay of the land and history of this site and others.

[Admiral Netsooj]

Quite simply, I think that the whole "add your note here" had quite an alluring factor to Flickr. I am guessing that as more and more people started hosting pictures on flickr, they found all the useful tools there to be very suited to Space MOCs. the Group function seems to be something suited to Space MOC's, considering all the groups out there (NBT, Starfighters, Vic Vipers, Blacktron, M-tron, VOAT, Classic Space, to name a few)

The old CSF was an old style forum, in a sad state of disrepair, (if I recall correctly) as well, so I expect all the high end builders 'left for greener pastures' so to speak.