but that is exactly why I look up leaked images, so I can plan what to buy a few months down the line, sometimes you might think a certain January set is good, but then you see the summer line up and change your mind, and lego is an expensive hobby with a stingy company, and on top of that they want us to buy without planning ahead?! I’m glad I’m not a starwars/legostarwars fan!

1.- People who prefer discussing rumors.
2.- People who wait for fact before discussion.

There are merits to both sides of the equation… it’s simply deciding which part of “peanut butter and jelly” you like better.

That said, I personally prefer blurry prelims where they belong… the National Enquirer, along with the NASA photos of Bigfoot, and Nostradamus coming back to life to say the world is supposed to end every other Monday.

Show me a catalog, I’ll talk about it… Show me something that I can’t see, and to me, I’m just shoving one foot in my mouth and the other in my behind if I say anything remotely concrete.

AFOLs have their favorite lines and regularly dump on the kid’s lines. The cycle of comments is what it is and will always play out the same. Speculation is and should be treated the same as “I wish they’d make … set.” It is fluff reading without any meat. As for being in the pocket of TLG, I will note that news agencies regularly post “news” at behest of their owners.

As to small, grainy pictures, that is part of the cycle. Many fans want to see those. Some others don’t. That is a personal choice and does not change the fact that it is “news”.

“Raising the level of discussions” only says that you want to avoid controversy. The maturity of the readers hasn’ really changed. I didn’t think that you were bothered by individual comments. Frankly, I don’t see the pain of controversy starting with the new set picture freaks. Honestly, I can only see the pain coming from legal action by TLG or fans that “Respect the Brick!”

It is fairly apparent that TLG does have a hard-line on this issue. It is reflected at many sites. Eurobricks is aligning more with a “Respect the Brick” policy. rebelscum.com shows:
“Unfortunately, LEGO has advised us they do not value the Star Wars collector that buys Star Wars LEGO as much as the LEGO fan that buys Star Wars LEGO.
We don’t believe it serves our community well, and no longer dedicate resources to covering Star Wars LEGO.”

Of course, the simple message is “We got tired of dealing with this. Stop bugging us to post pre-release pictures.”

I respect your decision on the leaked photos thing, and I think it’s admirable that you’ve chosen to take a stand one way or another.

However, pulling the pictures seems very drastic to me. I can’t imagine Lego is so naive that they would think a news site would NOT publish the photos. My fear is, in the long run, this stance will diminish BB. It seems like the site is caving to the wishes of a company that hasn’t taken care of business.

I work in PR. Sparring you the boring details, I can say that when we experience a leak, we’re well aware that the flaw is internal and not the responsibility or fault of outside entities (like media outlets). Those entities act in accordance with their purpose and we deal with them on those terms. We try to cover the leak as quick as possible and exert some influence. It’s almost always too late–so the solution is to update procedures, enforce policies internally and retrain employees. That’s the BEST we can hope for.

With respect to the examples of the power miners and pirates being susceptible to competitors–I’ve not seen any sets from other companies either before or after Lego released their sets. Is this a problem more outside the US? Without seeing any actual competition, this argument on the part of Lego seems without merit to me.

Also, as far as the power miners negative-turned-positive reception, I can see your point on the “value” of the comments. But then why not just disable comments on those announcements? There is still value in seeing the photos, and certainly fans will find other ways to discuss their opinions. But this feels like more of a ‘punish the fans’ approach.

While I’ll begin looking elsewhere for news and photos of new sets, I hope that BB reconsiders this stance. I hope this is more of a growing pain of the relationship between BB and Lego that will need to be worked out. (It seems more of a Lego pain than a BB one). They seem to have unrealistic expectations of their fans and the sites that support them.

I don’t agree with the policy, but I will certainly continue to enjoy the wonderful MOC creations on this site, support my fellow Lego fanatics, and participate in lively discussions.

I won’t stop visiting because of your decision. Keep up the good work and thanks for all you do!

P.S. Power Miners sucked before the final pics were released and still sucks now that the final products have been revealed. Juniorized garbage!

P.P.S. That FBTB comic sucks even worse.

In an earlier comment I more directly addressed your editorial, saying “I respect your decision, but I don’t fully appreciate your reasoning. You will always have people decrying a new product, whether it’s a different line of Lego or strawberry-flavored Kleenex. It’s just a fact of life on the Internet and I find it difficult to believe that it negatively affects the Lego Group. In fact, I think it’s quite the opposite; it gets us excited about upcoming products and encourages conversation. Folks like us—folks who seek out these pics—are loyal fans of Lego.”

Having had a day or so to think about it though, I can appreciate your exasperation at the reactions you see in the forums. The constant negativity must be difficult to mitigate, and in that light, I can see why you would like to put an end to it.

I can appreciate the decision not to be the first to post these kind of pics (i.e., if an inside source emailed you them to you). You’ve built up a rapport with the company and you’d certainly earn their scorn for disrupting their marketing plans.

However, once the images are all over the Internet, I think the damage (and I use the term loosely) is already done and posting them is fair game. You state clearly that it’s not your responsibility to take care of the company’s security problems, and I couldn’t agree more.