Brickshelf should be shelved.

So if anyone noticed, most of the links in the last post are broken. That is because the website that hosts them, Brickshelf is down, and has been down for a few days now. The general conscensious of the population is that it's down for repairs. This can neither be confirmed nor denined, as the guy who runs it, Kevin somethingorother has, as per usual, made no annoucement at all as to the reason behind it. This is Kevin's usual method when Brickshelf gones down. No forwarning, and no explaination.

I can't really fault him though. The site is completely free, with absolutely no fees or requirements from the users. Still, considering that people are willing to use the site over others, it would be nice if he would have the courtesy to make a quick note as to the reasons behind the offlines.

This aside, my main point is that I think Brickshelf should be completely redone, or else shelved for the time being. While it does provide a very needed service to the online Lego community, it is outdated, and slow, and awkward. Apart from the unschedualed, and unexplained, and somewhat regular breakdowns, the largest reason people don't use is that there is no comment feature on it.

I'm not completely sold that that option needs to be there. It would allow for many creations that are not posted elsewhere to recieve some feedback, but at the same time, distract the point of the site, which is to provide a spot to host pictures, nothing more. Brickshelf is not intended to be a table, around which people hang out, but merely a shelf, on which to store items. (Hence the "shelf" in Brickshelf)

The problems I would like to see fixed, apart from the downtime, are a) The uploading procedure. At the moment, all you can do is either upload each picture individually, or upload a zip file with all of them on, and both ways are rather slow and ponderous. b) Update the whole layout of the site. It looks far too much like those homemade sites from way back when the internet was new, very ugly. c) While I understand the ads on the site are necessary to keep it running, I would like to see a better management of them, to put them in a more, out of the way corner of the site, as it were. d) A better manner of sorting the pics, and a better search engine.

Where I would like to see the whole site go would be to a split version. On the one side you have a site much like flickr, with commenting, updated look, etc. On the other side, you have a site with absolutely nothing but the ability to upload pics. It would be even more basic than it is now.

Let us hope that the Brickshelf guy does at some point do something with his site. The absolute worse thing he could do would be to leave it exactly as it is.