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As a preface to the following I am not a bean counter. I prefer quality over quantity and attention to detail is of the utmost importance. I have read on this forum, Atlas' forum and others about MR mag's staff and the "drop" in popularity of the magazine. I know you can't please all the people all the time, however it is obvious that more and more MR readers no longer subscribe due to their feelings of lessor quality information being published. Kalmbach's current senior staff, should take a look at the staff changes made over the past few years vs. the decline in readers and make adjustments to improve their magazines quality and get back the "Best Magazine" status it once had. Here are a few things I would like to see added/changed. As it is said, "a picture is worth a thousand words" and I enjoy seeing the larger layouts built by a dozen or so people, it gives me ideas for things which I can add to my layout. However, I would think that most of us which subscribe to MR have smaller layouts in basements, a small space in the house/apartment or in the garage. I for one would like to, see/hear about, the small home layouts set up on a sheet or two of plywood. We're not all experienced writers and it seems that the articles accepted and published have been written by "the few" experienced writers that we hear from most of the time. Would it be asking too much to have MR add a small staff of 3 to 5 writer/photographer teams, somewhat like news reporting teams, dedicated to going out and helping those MRR enthusist that aren't experienced writers/photographers get their small "home" layout recognized. If they added a couple-three of these articles each month 30 or so great "small" layouts could be seen each year by the thousands that subscribe to MR. They could choose their reviews by reading this forum. Their are many of you here that obviously have great layouts and a lot of "how-to" knowledge. I would also like to see young modelers recognized. Maybe even adding a section to the magazine for the younger MRR enthusiast so we can hear from the "big name" modelers of the future. The young men and women deserve recognition in our hobby too. In the articles published, it would be nice to see more information on "how to" rather than just "look at me". Most modelers are very proud of their work and enjoy the "look at me" recognition of a published article. Along with "look at me" it would be nice to see sidebars on "how the modeler did this or that", with pictures and/or drawings, so the reader can learn new techniques and apply it to their layout. When a model manufactures new product is featured why not add the prototype manufacture's information, photos and simple engineering type drawnings to the article so for those of us that enjoy detailing we would have the data at hand to do so after we support your advertiser by buying the new product. I know that DCC is the wave of MRR future and find a lot of articles about converting from DC to DCC. However, from the polls I have read it seems as though the majority of MRR's still use plain ol' analog DC. As a DC/analog modeler, building a small home layout, I would like to see a DC section in MR with a technical article each month covering "how-to" add/improve "something" to your layout and/or "how-to" fine tune/modify "DCC ready" motive power to perform well on a DC layout. I understand that Kalmbach is in business to also sell books, however I won't spend 30 bucks on a book for a 2-3 page article that after I read it and apply the technique to my layout I won't open the book again. I would rather see them publi***his information in their magazines, or on their websites, providing us, the readers, the people that keep them in business, with better quality monthly products. I will stop here and climb down off my soapbox so this doesn't turn into a small publication of its own but would like to hear from other modelers on what they too would like to see added/changed in MR magazine to bring it back to its "Best Magazine" status.
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