Article ideas, likes and dislikes

[Tom Haythornthwaite]

I am much more interested in articles about layouts and operation than rolling stock construction, but that only means there should be some of each.
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[B.Meldon]

Maybe to a few of the newer arrivals into the hobby who are not aware of the history/provenance of it, but to MOST of us, your series was and still is very much appreciated Brian. Please keep it going, it is an invaluable and also very interesting reference work.

Mick

More Eggerbahn please!

Mal

Definitely some more Eggerbahn please. I found those articles really interesting.

Ok I get the idea!!
I will start typing them over the next few days.

[engerth399]

Could a poll be set up with topics and for and against votes - suitably anonymised!!

[Graeme Dunbar]

Could a poll be set up with topics and for and against votes - suitably anonymised!!

If it comes down to a choice of what to put in and what to leave out, but I don't think that is the problem!

I think that within reason, the wider the range of subject and approaches to modelling the better. Ultimately though it comes down to the interests of members writing articles as it is 'us' doing the writing, not a writing team of 'them'.

I can't say if it is the case but perhaps there is an element of people imagining what is wanted is articles along the lines of what might be seen in commercial railway modelling magazines whereas I find articles like the Egger-Bahn and the Electric Mice ones fascinating. I'm not sure how one would devise a poll to encompass them.

[Stuart Taylor]

Ok I get the idea!!
I will start typing them over the next few days.

I look forward to receiving them :)

Stuart

[Stuart Taylor]

I can't say if it is the case but perhaps there is an element of people imagining what is wanted is articles along the lines of what might be seen in commercial railway modelling magazines whereas I find articles like the Egger-Bahn and the Electric Mice ones fascinating. I'm not sure how one would devise a poll to encompass them.

Graeme, I agree a poll could be quite difficult to achieve but I am thinking I will do one in a few weeks. What I'm not sure of is how many members visit the forum. I've highlighed the forum in the June issue to bring in some more people to the discussion.

Stuart

[Hobby]

I'm not sure there's enough to warrant a poll to give a reasonable idea of the overall membership's wishes, Stuart. Even if you included a voting slip with an SAE in the News I doubt you'd get all that many... Let us come up with ideas and then stick them in your editorial, hopefully that will be enough to get things moving!

[David Weber]

"There's a lot more than just 3D printing! Silhouette cutters for example may actually be more useful " thank you David.

I would certainly like to see an article on these cutters.

I think it really needs two articles; one to introduce the topic and one to describe a project using it. First draft for the first of those is done.

[engerth399]

Look forward to that in due course.

[Stuart Taylor]

Let me just say that your editor is enjoying this. In the past few days I have received several articles after a lull of a couple of weeks. Cause and effect?

[FSKeith]

My only dislike (and then only recently) is that the cover photograph has had no connection with any of the articles in the News.
A sense of disappointment arising in that the photo has led me to expect an article on the subject.....

[Stuart Taylor]

My only dislike (and then only recently) is that the cover photograph has had no connection with any of the articles in the News.
A sense of disappointment arising in that the photo has led me to expect an article on the subject.....

Yes, I have heard this from others. I will endeavour not to do it!

Stuart

[MickT]

My only dislike (and then only recently) is that the cover photograph has had no connection with any of the articles in the News.
A sense of disappointment arising in that the photo has led me to expect an article on the subject.....

I think that is a very good point. I appreciate that sometimes a cover photo may not be able to be a lead-in to an article in the News, for a number of reasons. One of these may be that the cover photo needs to be of as high a resolution as possible as it is a full page photo and the main suitable article in a particular issue may not have had photos submitted of a sufficiently high resolution or "framing" to make it to the cover - don't forget that most digi photos seem to be in landscape format, whilst the cover photo needs to be either in portrait or be able to be cropped from a landscape (ie wider than it is tall) to portrait (ie taller than it is wide) without ruining the main subject of the photo.

That is just one example, there may be many more. So, where there is a need to have a cover photo which doesn't directly connect to something in the content of the issue, then I would suggest that an extended caption is needed - to adequately describe the photo and acknowledge who submitted it, in fact this should ideally apply to all photos that appear in the News, not just the cover photo but in the context of the cover photo, then I think this would be essential if it doesn't connect to an article inside.

Mick

[clayliner]

While we're talking of photos, how about a (small!) picture of authors in the byline where possible (suitably Photoshopped and airbrushed, of course)? It might help us to put faces to names around the Society. The Hon. Editor has one, maybe the other Officers when they contribute, too?

David.

[Webmaster]

Like this one? :)