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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by Fergmiester Any publication is only as good as the submissions it recieves. If we want to see what is of value to us then we will have to provide it. Not wanting to sound blunt about it but MR is by modellers for modellers. [/quote] I wi***his were true, but the more I contemplate the diminished informational value of the articles I read, the more I sense the oppressive hand of the editors. Case in point, the May 2004 issue's cover story: "Great Layout, Great Ideas". The subhead says that Dave Kotsonis tells how he built his layout. Aside from a bullet-list insert, the words are not Dave's. The body of the article is composed out of the same cookie-cutter phrases that seem to be the building blocks of any layout article, such as "set it in the late 1940's and early 1950's... so he could run a wide variety of locomotives..."; "he drybrushes the rock surface with lighter colored paints to hightlight the details"; "Though he builds some as kits straight from the box, most have been kitbashed or scratchbuilt...". Each of these could be explained a little more, perhaps demonstrated with a photo or two, but that kind of substance wouldn't have the high gloss of the photos they do print. Several times in the article, I read a reference to something which I'd really like to see, and went scanning the photos only to find it was left out. One whole paragraph described the memorable Old Man of the Mountain, a replicated piece of scenery, and scenic landmarks are so rarely faithfully modeled that I thought for sure there'd be a picture. No such luck. The scratchbuilt structures at the quarry, written about, are insignificant background material in one photograph, there is simply no opportunity to learn about quarries from this article, despite the research Dave put into it. And thre of the original freight cars he got started with 40 years ago are still in operational service? Show them to me! The insert, though, with Dave's tips in a bulleted list, is actually rather valuable. If we had been given 6 pages of just this list, fully demonstrated in the photos, I would have had an article worth the price of admission. The "Layout At A Glance" feature, which summarizes things, could theoretically replace all the generic schlock the pads out the article proper. My sense is that it is an editorial decision, to diffuse any of the possible depth or intrigue down to an acceptable-to-all, mild-cheddar-cheese generality. Which is odd, because clearly they want startling titles for the cover: "Great Layout, Great Ideas" came across as a competent layout, conventional ideas, even though I know the potential to live up to that claim is there. The same summarizes my feelings for MR as a whole: competent, conventional, but with the potential to return to their pioneering past.
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