Hi everyone. MOCpages will be down tomorrow morning for about 5 or 10 minutes while we do the first of two upgrades.

Downtime #1
12-March 2009
9:00 am to 9:10 am
EST (New York)

During this downtime we'll be performing software upgrades to the server. The web site will still be slow during this time.

After the software upgrades are in place and running properly, I'll announce a second downtime when we install the new computer hardware.

For those of you wondering why this is taking so long, I'll just answer that with a screen capture of my Inbox (right). :)

I wanted to apologize for the slowness of MOCpages these past few weeks. At first, the slowdowns seemed to be caused by the ad networks... but it turns out that the site is getting too popular for our servers to handle!

The slowness is driving me bananas, too.

So don't worry... this week we're upgrading the servers. More efficient servers with more memory and more storage will mean more MOCpages for everyone! Yay! The site will go down for a half hour (likely during a weekday between midnight and 7:00 am, Eastern USA) while we put the new servers in place.

Hang tight! Soon the site will be nice and spiffy fast again!

Hi, everyone!

I'm super happy to announce that MOCpages is sporting a fresh new facelift, a pile of great new features, and will hopefully be a lot more fun (and a lot less frustrating) for all of you.

So check out what's new, join some groups, upload a buddy icon, catch up with your favorite builders, and have fun!


Some highlights:

Groups bring together people, conversation, and LEGO creations.

Track your favorite creations and favorite builders so it's easy to find the stuff you like. We'll even tell you what your favorite builders are up to.

Get activity updates about you and your friends.

See what's new, what's popular, what's being discussed, or browse great creations from the past.

The new rating system prevents spamming and attacks. Anonymous visitors must first validate their e-mail address before leaving comments. And no one can "rate down" your creations anymore, thanks to changes in how we show who likes your creations.

A great new look for your home page makes it easier for people to browse your creations.

Two new photo upload layouts, "grid" and "full size" (plus the older 3 layouts) let you arrange pictures in lots of ways.

As promised, I've been hard at work on a whole new set of coolness for MOCpages. Everything's nearly ready and I wanted to give you a sneak preview of what's coming.

Soon you can get together, stay updated, find the cool stuff, track your favorite builders, join groups, create contests, prevent spamming... and of course, share your LEGO creations. Over 50 new features. Still 100% free.

Sneak preview

OK... a LOT of people have been e-mailing me about "Can I put this on my page?" "Can I do that?" "What if I do this instead?" "Why did you delete my page?"

It's really simple, and I'm not trying to be some kind of evil MOCpolice... I just want to make sure that MOCpages doesn't turn into a sort of digital junkyard full of all kinds of different things. People like MOCpages because it's a place to see cool LEGO creations, and I want to make sure it can stay that way!

Basically, when people visit MOCpages and click on a page, they expect to see a LEGO creation. Anything other than than is bothersome and distracting.

Think about it this way. Imagine you went to YouTube and searched for "LEGO Indiana Jones Video". You see a lot of results, and click on one called "Best Indy Stuff". But instead of seeing a great video, all you get is a slide that says "go look in the comments for links to my favorite videos". That might be a little annoying, but so what. You go back and click on another one. But it's the same thing, by someone else! After you keep clicking on more videos and getting the same kind of stuff, you'll get pretty frustrated. "How can I tell which videos are really videos? Where's the actual STUFF ??"

That's what happens on MOCpages when you create pages that don't showcase your LEGO creations.

So, can you do other things with your pages? Sure!! Sometimes people sell photos of that creation, or sell that creation itself. Sometimes people link to real-life inspiration for that creation. Somtimes you can download LDD files of that creation. Sometimes people link to other people's creations that they used as inspiration for that creation. The subtle difference is that the MEAT of the page is still all about the LEGO creation.

Imagine if you created a page that was "here are my inspirations" and listed all sorts of stuff that you like (cars, favorite car LEGO creations, car movies... etc...) Who cares? No one would be happy clicking on that page because they'd expect to see a creation, but just get a bunch of other stuff. BUT! ... what if ALONGSIDE your LEGO creation you said, "here is my inspiration for THIS creation"? Suddenly it has meaning and relevance and can be interesting to visitors. Visitors can see what you think and what interests you. They can get interested in what you're interested in!

It's a subtle but important difference. I hope it makes sense.

I know it's cool to form alliances and legions and brotherhoods and gangs and groups and clubs and gaggles and stuff... but MOCpages "pages" are for sharing your LEGO creations.

If you want to link to your friends or allies or enemies or pets or noodles or anything else that is not a LEGO creation, why not put it on your home page?

As I've said in the past, MOCpages will soon have new features that will allow you to link up with friends, mark your favorite builders, and other goodies. In the meantime, lots of folks complain about these alliance pages cluttering up the site, so please stop adding "LEGO creations" that aren't LEGO creations.

Thanks for understanding.

Hi everyone... I made some minor tweaks to the Comments you've made page.

• The page is now sorted reverse-chronologically, so that your most-recent comments are at the top.
  
  
• I banged around at the moving parts. The page now loads a lot faster than it used to!

Enjoy. And let me know if you find any bugs.