Large Scale Central

Ranting: building logs

General Discussion
#1

well, the vote for building logs is done. John’s new style nearly won it.

meaning, that many of us like this style of log.

but let’s think about it a second time:

in my eyes this style has some grave disadvantages.

  1. pics and text being together in pictures, leaves the pics very small.

  2. text formatted as pic can not be cited.

  3. text saved as a pic can not be found by searchmashines (neither the one from the forum, nor externals like google)

your opinions?

…and John, it is meant neither personal, nor frenchyphobic, just factual. okay?

#2

The format John used does make for a very clean look.

I think it is best suited for articles, and not forum posts.

A building log sorta falls in between. An article that receives comments :wink:

Ralph

#3

In John’s defense ( i hope i’m right here), Johns on dial-up connection, writing up the “Page” off line and then only uploading a “page” at a time, makes a lot of sense to me, and possibly a much shorter connection time. Just a thought.

#4

Dave, this is NOT meant to attack John. it is meant to not create a fashion, that will hinder the usage of the knowledge published here.

take any word, that is published in this manner, and try to find it in search.

these picture-texts will not appear in the search.

#5

Korm, old buddy, I just gotta ask, Who uses “search” anyway???

When newbs have a question, they just ask. Even if it’s the exact same question somebody else asked yesterday. And it gets answered again. And everyone but the old grouches are happy.

And anytime any really interesting old threads from most forums turns up in a general “google” search, odds are most of the pix have gone off into a cyber black hole anyway.

The simplest solution to your “problem” is bookmark anything you find interesting. The next simplest is to just add a few keywords, either in the original post or responses. Since your the one who brought it up, I cheerfully volunteer you to do it.

K?

:smiley:

#6

I am aware of the limitations of this style of post and I agree with Korm’s criticisms. Dave’s defense is quite correct. Connection times are for me a considerable challenge. Formatting my entries as I did gave me greater control over both the blog’s upload times and its final appearance.

As for the small pictures, personally I confess I much prefer them; they take up less memory, and of course load times are greatly reduced. I reduced all the pictures in my blog as much as seemed reasonable, either dimensionally or by cropping or both.

I believe the lack of a search function for text in image files is a handicap, as Korm so rightly says.

I haven’t tested this yet, but I suspect you could find my blog if you searched for “vat car”, but you wouldn’t get very far searching for “brass ladder”.

I would like to see Dave’s winning blog from last year, and the all other builds from that and previous years, but so far my searches for those have drawn blanks as well. So there!

I intend to keep searching. It might be a good thing if all these challenges had a forum category unto themselves… (Hi there Bob :wink:

In any case, precisely because of what Korm and Ralph have said, I have been considering duplicating all my blog entries together in one article, which I hope would make easier to find.

I do appreciate all your comments.

#7

Korm has a good point, and good for you John not taking it the wrong way and understanding it was a constructive suggestion.

I myself was on the fence about it, I saw where it was real handy and at times I found myself searching for the photo referenced in the text.

#8

Jake Smith said:

…I saw where it was real handy and at times I found myself searching for the photo referenced in the text.

That’s very innerestin’, Jake. Let me know what makes the difference; the next time I do something like this I might be able to improve things.

#9

Welll John, You could search the keyword “challenge”… But some of the resulting links are just plain dead.

Some that seem to still work - even if many of the pix are MIA:

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/16311/2012-build-challenge-time-to-c

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/14195/my-challenge-for-2011/view/page/1

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/12393/new-years-challenge/view/page/1

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/12573/challenge-2-shawn-v

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/12720/challenge-2-da-mikster

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/12807/challenge-2-ralph

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/12810/challenge-2-korm

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/16316/too-late-for-challenge

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/12346/new-year-s-scratchbuild-challeng

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/12591/challenge-2-eddie-taylor

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/12433/to-our-challenge-entrants-and-ot

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/12557/challenge-2-geoff-george

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/12570/challenge-2-john-lilly

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/12705/challenge-2-ron-spencer

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/14132/2011-build-challenge

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/14228/don-t-know-if-they-ll-get-done-f

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/14229/2011-challenge-ralph

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/14281/2011-challenge-mik-s

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/14454/2011-challenge-we-have-win

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/16153/2012-challenge-mik-s

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/14136/2011-challenge-the-greenbuck-h

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/14139/2011-challenge-harlem-transfer

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/14235/2011-challenge-loco-barn

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/14245/2011-challenge-backwoods-train-s

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/14385/2011-challenge-backwoods-statio

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/14386/2011-challenge-warren-through

http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/14409/judging-the-2011-build-challenge

#10

Brilliant, Mik, as always. Bigthanks. Yes I did notice one or two dead ones. I’ll start with the earliest ones…

#11

Thanks Mik… I wish the one build challenge thread with the Warren thru truss bridge worked tho would have liked to seen it…

#12

Some amazing models back there. eg, Dave Taylor’s caboose, Ron Spenser’s crane and boom car, John Radder’s plow, Mik’s two builds and two blogs about the oilfields - loved all that info, thanks Mik - that industry a fave of mine too - love those oil vat cars!!! I haven’t seen everything back there yet - I’m sure there’s more to discover. I wonder if Bart ever finished that combine - I remember admiring it last year…

Mik, over the past few years you have had some great ideas for challenges. I bet some of those ideas could even be recycled in future years.

Anybody reading this, if you have an an idea for a future challenge, please post it. I’m collecting all ideas in a list for consideration in future challenges. Mik invented several ideas that actually never got used as well, but which are still pretty good…

Oh, and if you have ideas for prizes or stuff to donate for prizes, how about thinking about that and letting us know wotcha got? For a start I have RR books that I could donate, fr’example, prolly other loot as well, I will be thinking about this this year. Your move…

Tks all. Cheers!