I have been a member of a specialist tropical fish association for 38 years. We had a monthly Journal up until a few years back when we decided to become bi-monthly. Some howls of protest but we had the same problem...lack of material from the membership. It was no longer sensible or viable to mail our our Journal each month with so little content. Even now our editor frequently has to source articles to re-print from like clubs Worldwide.
I think the art of composition has somewhat been lost, and lifestyles have changed so much that some struggle to find time to sit down and write in a style that makes good reading.
The editor of a Nationally available fishkeeping magazine once told me they have to discard around 50% of what is submitted for publication, as it's little short of gobbledy-gook or needs a lot of work put in to make a reasonable article of it.  Certainly when I worked in a college I was surprised at the lack of what I call writing flair amongst students. Perhaps it's a result of the text message era?

I'm sure there are increasing dilemmas for editors of all types of magazines. Our youngest daughter recently undertook some work experience in London, with one of the top titles dedicated to lets say, the more affluent properties. Whilst there she discovered they have been shedding staff. They are continually selling less magazines each month, and they put it down to people are increasingly finding what they want on the internet...so why buy a magazine?

Getting back to the N gauge Journal, I have submitted a short article in the last few days along with some photos to support it. This is the first time I have written something for the NGS, but felt I could respond to the call for articles.

Quote from: red_death on February 09, 2016, 11:17:08 PM
I think that at times people are reluctant to write up what they have contributed on online forums (to me both online and written offer different advantages - personally I find that I can contribute bits and pieces here and there online but that when I get time to sit down and write an article I try to collate lots of bits and pieces into a consolidated article).

Cheers, Mike

It does therefore seem that the Journal is maybe becoming increasingly out of place with the current methods in which we consume articles or information, which is largely based around the internet.

Thinking about it, having posted plenty of content of modelling in the workbench threads on various forums, I doubt I'd feel the motivation to encapsulate those posts in articles - in an ideal world it'd be nice, but once posted I would simply refer folks to those posts if interested, rather than an article.

So, the question is, should the NGS maybe be thinking about modernising, revamping the whole thing completely, and move the journal online instead? Surely this could work (in many ways better than the current paper journal). I'm sure that paper versions could be offered to those who desire also. Given that it'll already be generated on computer, is it too big a leap then to post it online? And save printing costs that could be channelled into other projects? Presumably, the big negative for this would be the need for greater commitment of web-volunteers to administer and oversee this, and additional bandwidth usage costs. But it seems to me like these are the thoughts and discussions that need to be made for the future, given the current state of contributions.

Thoughts?

Cheers,
Alan

Interesting Dr Al.


The tropical fish club I referred to a couple of posts earlier began to offer a pdf membership around 2 years back. We are able to offer this type of membership for half that of a printed and mailed copy. Our pdf version of membership is growing steadily. The pdf version is said to cost us next to nothing, so these membership fees are a great way of swelling our clubs coffers
Some will always want a printed copy and this option will be available for quite some time I would imagine.

Food for thought?

Quote from: Dr Al on February 10, 2016, 09:35:27 AM

So, the question is, should the NGS maybe be thinking about modernising, revamping the whole thing completely, and move the journal online instead?

Personally I rather like having a lump of dead tree with printing on it drop through the postbox every couple of months. I don't subscribe to any other physical magazines or newspapers but for this hobby it does add rather nicely to the information online.

For starters, the physical magazine format presents information to you in a very different way to the web by being linear. It's something to read through and gain knowledge that you weren't specifically searching for (half the skill of Google-Fu is knowing exactly what you're searching for ). So you'll end up gaining information and inspiration you didn't realise you needed.

There's also the aspect of the age demographic of NGS members. As they tend towards the older generation, there'll be a definite subset of them that doesn't have a lot of experience with the internet or even access in the immediate way that's useful when working on a project.

So keeping the journal, I think, is a valuable part of the society.

Having said that, the society should (and is) move towards having a lot more information online. The revamp of the shop to having proper online access is great. The resources required (in terms of skilled people with time on their hands) is fairly large for a big society like the NGS, so having a specific NGS forum for members only would definitely be useful in some ways, but given there's the NGF and other forums out there that have a big crossover of membership, it seems an unnecessary use of manpower.

What *might* be handy would be if the NGS could team up with NGF and RMWeb and authorise members only sub-forums on those sites. It would benefit the NGS by offering yet another valuable resource for its members without much manpower required on its part and would benefit these forums by bringing in new members and cross promotion. We're into potential 'political' territory here though and I'd recommend the NGS having a separate External Liaison Officer to handle deals with outside groups rather than lumping it all on the journal editor.

A PDF version of the journal would be a great option for members. Personally I'd be *very* happy with it in that format to save paper. Even if I'm paying the same amount for membership.

Living in the US, I would truly appreciate a digitally accessible version of the NGS magazine. It would almost certainly allow for a much lower cost for international membership (many clubs only offer digital memberships to international subscribers anyway) and be a great way for them to make a good profit (since so much of the cost of the magazine is tied up in printing it). That said, often the fear when offering a digital format is that the magazine will circulate illegally and for free. While there is certainly some of that that will happen, I would guess the amount will be marginal. Smaller magazines like this simply don't get the circulation levels necessary for them to be easily pirated. They could almost certainly offer an online version (free for paper subscribers) which would take in some extra cash and submissions and would potentially reach a wider audience. Honestly, at the present, it's prohibitively expensive to join up internationally unless you have kits you want to order. Moreover, I'm guessing they don't make any extra money off of international memberships (likely they make less) and a digital version would certainly be much more profitable for that demographic (though I would guess the total number of international members probably totals less than 50, but I may be completely wrong about that). If I lived in the UK, I would already have volunteered to help them figure out a way to do it, if they wanted (they seem more than happy to have volunteers at the committee/administrative level). Anyone living in the UK with a little tech knowledge who wants to volunteer to do that for them so I can get my digital copy would become my new favorite forum member

(By the way, for clarity, I am NOT advocating they scrap the paper copy at all; I'm simply advocating for a digital version in addition to the extant paper one as an option (either low cost or international only). There is nothing better than a hard copy of something you really want to sink your teeth in to and I wouldn't want to take that away from anyone, or myself for that matter! I just think it is a good opportunity for the NGS to make some extra money and reach a wider audience.)

So, if you don't mind me asking, where's your membership number? 

Quote from: Dr Al on February 10, 2016, 09:35:27 AM
It does therefore seem that the Journal is maybe becoming increasingly out of place with the current methods in which we consume articles or information, which is largely based around the internet.

Thinking about it, having posted plenty of content of modelling in the workbench threads on various forums, I doubt I'd feel the motivation to encapsulate those posts in articles - in an ideal world it'd be nice, but once posted I would simply refer folks to those posts if interested, rather than an article.

So, the question is, should the NGS maybe be thinking about modernising, revamping the whole thing completely, and move the journal online instead? Surely this could work (in many ways better than the current paper journal). I'm sure that paper versions could be offered to those who desire also. Given that it'll already be generated on computer, is it too big a leap then to post it online? And save printing costs that could be channelled into other projects? Presumably, the big negative for this would be the need for greater commitment of web-volunteers to administer and oversee this, and additional bandwidth usage costs. But it seems to me like these are the thoughts and discussions that need to be made for the future, given the current state of contributions.

I don't think the issue of paper vs a PDF of a mag is really the issue.  The issue (or at least the one we embarked upon!) is getting the content in the first place - you have given a great example of someone who can write well and has interesting content to add but who is happy to contribute to forums but not in an article format (which would be necessary whether we are talking about paper or an electronic form).

I don't see how moving electronic helps solve the contributions issue. Happy to be put right though!

Cheers, Mike

Quote from: Bealman on February 10, 2016, 10:23:18 AM
So, if you don't mind me asking, where's your membership number? 

It's hardly a requirement to list it ... if he doesn't want to (and many don't) that's his choice ...

Quote from: MikeDunn on February 10, 2016, 10:32:48 AM

Quote from: Bealman on February 10, 2016, 10:23:18 AM
So, if you don't mind me asking, where's your membership number? 

It's hardly a requirement to list it ... if he doesn't want to (and many don't) that's his choice ...

More of a case of forgetting we've got an option to enter it in my profile

Quote from: Bealman on February 10, 2016, 10:23:18 AM
So, if you don't mind me asking, where's your membership number? 

I am actually not joined up yet. When I started modeling the shop was closed and the posts on here were so vitriolic or made me so suspicious that it has taken me a long time to come around to forking over the 38£ for a first time international membership. Part of what has held me back was that I wanted to see what the journal and society would be like after the turmoil (which I'm still only vaguely clued in on but am ultimately unconcerned with) and partly because I didn't want to join up until I could actually buy items from the shop, which is the big draw for me. The reason I felt like it was appropriate for me to chime in is that the cost IS what has kept me from joining up and a PDF version with a lower price tag might help alleviate that initial cost for people who aren't sure about joining, like me. My suggestion about the thread doesn't seem to have been entirely inappropriate either as it has already been created and responded to by several members and seemed a more constructive way forward than where this thread was heading. If other NGS members feel that I shouldn't have stuck my nose in, I'll delete this post and my earlier one and not bother with it again. I certainly wasn't trying to create anymore animosity.

-Philip

EDIT: I just paid (it wouldn't let me order the binder :/ ). I'll post my number when they send me one.

Quote from: Zwilnik on February 10, 2016, 10:54:36 AM
More of a case of forgetting we've got an option to enter it in my profile

There is that too 

Quote from: red_death on February 10, 2016, 10:30:33 AM
I don't think the issue of paper vs a PDF of a mag is really the issue.  The issue (or at least the one we embarked upon!) is getting the content in the first place - you have given a great example of someone who can write well and has interesting content to add but who is happy to contribute to forums but not in an article format (which would be necessary whether we are talking about paper or an electronic form).

I don't see how moving electronic helps solve the contributions issue. Happy to be put right though!

I think having your input on all this (as someone closer to the NGS than most) is particularly valuable.

Thinking out loud, would the editor consider using internet posted content that he could then work into articles? Is that simply too much work? In some cases I'm sure yes, in others I'm sure it could be fairly easy to do -  I can think of a few threads where the pictures are there and the words could be plucked from successive posts without massive effort.

For my own content, if there really was interest in article-ising some of it, then I'd reconsider the possibility of doing so. I'd therefore happily openly invite yourself and/or the editor to read some of the content and decide if it'd be of value, and contact me if so. While you imply you'd be interested (thank you!), sadly I suspect the editor will not, but lets remain open minded.

On a different point - if an article is published by NGS would this preclude it (even implicitly) from being posted online at a later date, should the author so desire? I guess there's no issue of copyright etc, but would the NGS be a little bit miffed, or not bothered?

Cheers,
Alan

On the electronic vs paper issue, I spend way too much time in front of screens due to my job, and like to have something tangible I can read away from any internet-enabled devices. No objection to a PDF option, but for me I see the subscription as paying for the physical magazine, if it became just another PDF to squint at I'd probably let the subscription lapse (note to self: need to renew).

Quote from: Dr Al on February 10, 2016, 11:42:15 AM
Thinking out loud, would the editor consider using internet posted content that he could then work into articles? Is that simply too much work? In some cases I'm sure yes, in others I'm sure it could be fairly easy to do -  I can think of a few threads where the pictures are there and the words could be plucked from successive posts without massive effort.

There used to be occasional articles in the NGS Journal on various subjects entitles "From the Net".

I thought they were quite good.

Best regards,


Joe

Quote from: Dr Al on February 10, 2016, 11:42:15 AM
Thinking out loud, would the editor consider using internet posted content that he could then work into articles? Is that simply too much work? In some cases I'm sure yes, in others I'm sure it could be fairly easy to do -  I can think of a few threads where the pictures are there and the words could be plucked from successive posts without massive effort.

<snip>

On a different point - if an article is published by NGS would this preclude it (even implicitly) from being posted online at a later date, should the author so desire? I guess there's no issue of copyright etc, but would the NGS be a little bit miffed, or not bothered?

As Joe mentions, some of the content from the N Gauge Yahoo group was written up in the "From the Net" articles a few years ago. Unfortunately taking a blog or set of forum postings and converting them into a readable article takes more time and effort than a simple copy and paste. Even if Graham was to do this there would no doubt be negative comments about what was left in and what was taken out. Far better for the person writing the web content to do the re-write.

From my experience, the NGS is happy for content to be re-used elsewhere, ideally with the "as previously printed in the NGS Journal" by way of acknowledgement. There are several articles/projects that have appeared in the Journal that have been on the web prior to appearing in the Journal and then going on to appear in the commercial magazines. Similarly having "as previously seen on N Gauge Forum" shouldn't be a bar to publication in any printed magazine. It's a matter of courtesy.

Happy modelling.

Steven B.