Comments on: Beautiful curves of the Phenix

By: Benjamin P

Benjamin P — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 08:31:31 +0000

This is absolutely fantastic! So much detail and design work put into this. Stunning.

Shame there aren’t any bigger pictures…

By: Lich Barrister

Lich Barrister — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 18:04:43 +0000

I spent about a minute with my jaw dropped at the sight of that… wonder. Wow.

By: shannonocean

shannonocean — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 11:43:22 +0000

Un.Be.Lievable.

By: Tom. Simon

Tom. Simon — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 20:55:30 +0000

That is fair enough Catsy. MOCPage users actually share your concerns. A way forward may entail Sean Kenney accepting some volunteer coding help. I’m pretty sure he does not make a profit from running the site. I very much hope those issues can be resolved (and some are not difficult) so the benefits can be fully enjoyed. BTW: I for one do open all items in new windows, so I appreciate your objection. I’d like to thank you, actually, for participating in this interaction. The long standing issues you have brought up have been accepted by MP users with some complacency. May be time to light a fire under some of them. All the best. Tom

By: Catsy

Catsy — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 20:44:54 +0000

Nathan: I’m pretty sure that the hit-and-miss quality issues come from the JPEG compression used when resizing images. Can’t be certain, but I see a lot of ugly JPEG artifacts in the smaller thumbs.

Tom: today is a weekday, and it is taking an average of about ten seconds to serve a page. This kind of latency is even present when hitting the back button after clicking through a thumbnail, due to the fact that the pages on MP are set to no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate–forcing a call back to the server even when you’re only returning to the page you were just on seconds ago. I’m sympathetic to the reasons why the servers are slow, but this is just bad design that exacerbates the problem, making it very painful to browse through a gallery without opening every full-size image in a new tab/window.

Most of my other complaints boil down to layout, usability issues, lack of features such as adding notes to images, and other things that tend to be subjective–but refusing to allow page caching on a site that already suffers performance issues just isn’t defensible.

Let me put it this way: I’m glad MOCPages is there. It’s good that there are multiple alternatives and it’s a great gateway into the Lego community. I just find it frustrating to use and wish people who have the option would cross-post or migrate elsewhere.

None of this should be construed as criticism of this excellent MOC–quite the contrary.

By: Tom. Simon

Tom. Simon — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 20:25:09 +0000

Yes, there is a resolution restriction, again due to funding. Not sure how that gels with the no photo limits, but I’ll ask. Experienced users compensate with ample pics. This builder may be relatively new, but I have nothing but encouragement for him to continue. He has in fact added a second post on MOCPages with additional pics, in response to calls from the community.

By: proudlove

proudlove — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 20:12:09 +0000

This is the first ship in a long time that has really wowed me. It’s stunning in its originality and design. I also wish I could view it somewhere other than MOCpages. Is it my imagination or is image quality actually worse there? I look at my own photos and the MOCpages versions seem grainier somehow. I don’t even understand how that’s possible.

By: Tom. Simon

Tom. Simon — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 19:52:57 +0000

MOCPages is a gift to the LEGO community. All it’s shortcomings stem from it being limited volume as yet, and therefore with limited advertising revenue to buy servers. In exchange for that you get: a unique flowing format that supports creative writing and story telling, unlimited free space to post past 200 photos without encountering fees, and a welcoming user community. As a user of both MOCPages and Flickr, I find the SNR identically the same. BTW, the performance issues can largely be avoided by visiting on weekdays.

By: Catsy

Catsy — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 19:10:28 +0000

^ YMMV. I personally can’t stand the site design, persistent performance problems, and signal-to-noise ratio on MOCPages and tend not to spend much time there if I can help it. It frustrates me when I discover outstanding creations like this one that are only viewable there, because I can only put up with navigating it for so long.

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 18:53:00 +0000

This looks fantastic in the wide shots, but I find myself disappointed by the detail views.

By: Tom. Simon

Tom. Simon — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 18:35:28 +0000

Yes, this is one of the most beautiful ships I’ve seen too. And, whether the techniques are novel or not, they are surely masterfully applied. Also, MOCpages is a most excellent place to view it.

By: Catsy

Catsy — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 18:23:26 +0000

This is one of the most beautiful SHIPs I’ve ever seen. A masterpiece. I just wish it were viewable somewhere other than MOCPages.