The thread on the May issue brought this thought to mind...
My digital copy is pretty thin also - 80 pages. Could be they needed a break after all that effort they put into patting themselves on the back last month.
It seems like every month it takes less time to flip through and read the interesting content. For example, this month Jim Kelley shared the revelation that N-scale takes less space than HO.
I have the right to remain silent. By posting here I have given up that right and accept that anything I say can and will be used as evidence to critique me.
Printing appears to be tinier.
carl425 For example, this month Jim Kelley shared the revelation that N-scale takes less space than HO.
For example, this month Jim Kelley shared the revelation that N-scale takes less space than HO.
LOL. What is it we say to that? Thank's captain obvious?
Yes, I realize MR magazine is considered a magazine which, among other things, tries to appeal to new hobbyists - but really?
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
Over the years I have taken up the habit of "thinning" my magazines to save on shelf space. I tear out the articles of interest and eleiminate the other stuff I don't care for or don't think I will need. Yes, an MR can be reduced to a very thin magazine this way, but compared to the older issues it really isn't that terribly different in the amount of usable material. What made the magazine thinner? No big multipage ads from America's Hobby Center, from Hobbies For Men, and all those other massive ads. Further the classified ads actually used to be interesting and worth looking at plus they took up about 8-10 pages. The feature articles and layout visits seem about the same, maybe a little shorter. So we are getting almost as much "meat" and the model articles are better. They don't often explore and review modeling subjects like their "sister" magazine Fine Scale Modeler, but the are better than they used to be. FSM will occasionally run articles that include a survey of plastic cements, or comparing different brands of paint.
When I look at old copies of magazines, I find the ads and the "non-content" material to be as interesting as the articles. So, I like to save the whole thing. Of course, I'm one of those who looks at and even reads the advertising in MR. Every other magazine is full of ads for diet products, cars and clothing. At least there is one magazine where pretty much every ad is targeted at me.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
carl425For example, this month Jim Kelley shared the revelation that N-scale takes less space than HO.
Who who have thought? Of course a 1' x 12' N Scale ISL requires the same space as a HO 1' X 12' ISL..
The true difference is how much more one can have on a 1' x 12' N Scale ISL versus the HO 1' X 12' ISL.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
binder001 Over the years I have taken up the habit of "thinning" my magazines to save on shelf space.
Over the years I have taken up the habit of "thinning" my magazines to save on shelf space.
I don't think that's what is going on here. Ok, just kidding!
What made the magazine thinner?
That is the 64 thousand dollar question here. You have two choices, 1) Content, and 2) advertising. Someone would have to run a statistical sampling over a sample of current magazines and of past, say 1990's magazines to really answer that question. Anybody up for that mission?
binder001 Yes, an MR can be reduced to a very thin magazine this way, but compared to the older issues it really isn't that terribly different in the amount of usable material.
I acquired a group of back issues MR from someone who was giving them away. While it is interesting to see all of the old multi page advertisements (once), I prefer the leaner MR of today.
Last years May issue was 84 pages including cover. A small sampling of recent MR issues from the past two years has ranged from 80-120. The extremes were in the last 2 months.
Yep, then he goes into the explanation of why, and explains all the extra things that would have had to be compressed out of the scene to fit in HO scale. Useful to someone who is starting out and has not picked a scale, or is not deeply invested in any one scale. Yes it is an article for beginners, but MR tries to provide articles across many skill levels and interests.
carl425Could be they needed a break after all that effort they put into patting themselves on the back last month.
Maybe they wanted to celebrate the fact that they have been in print for 1000 issues? 8 of those extra pages were subscriber submitted answers to the "what is your favorite MR" question. Its quite an achievement to be around for 83 years.
Maybe you have not considered that the magazine takes MONTHS to prepare in advance and if you have a finite amount of time to work with, and only X number of staff members, and you decide to add more content to one magazine for a special celebration, either preceeding or folowing issues will end up a bit thin.
I'll make a comparison to something else to explain this better. Assume for a moment that this is 1925 and you are designing a new battleship for a world power. There are three big things to consider a triad if you will. Speed, armor thickness, and gun size. Due to laws of phyisics you get to pick 2. Fast forward to 2016. You are the editor of a magazine. You want to celebrate the 1,000th issue of your magazine that has been a cornerstone of a hobby for the better part of a century. Your staff must work continuously to make deadlines for each months article so that it can go to press. If you increase the size of the magazine one month, other things have to give (article quality or number of articles in months that bracket that extra long month) to conteract that a lot of time was spent putting together the special edition.
Unless you are suggesting that the editorial staff should have worked nights and weekends away from their families for free (cant raise cost and hire extra people) so that you could have 10 extra pages of magazine to read this month.
Personally I thought there were several good articles this month. I especially liked the cover photo and associated article.
Maybe you should write an article.
"Who who have thought? Of course a 1' x 12' N Scale ISL requires the same space as a HO 1' X 12' ISL.."
What is an "ISL"?
binder001 Over the years I have taken up the habit of "thinning" my magazines to save on shelf space. I tear out the articles of interest and eleiminate the other stuff I don't care for or don't think I will need. Yes, an MR can be reduced to a very thin magazine this way, but compared to the older issues it really isn't that terribly different in the amount of usable material. What made the magazine thinner? No big multipage ads from America's Hobby Center, from Hobbies For Men, and all those other massive ads. Further the classified ads actually used to be interesting and worth looking at plus they took up about 8-10 pages. The feature articles and layout visits seem about the same, maybe a little shorter. So we are getting almost as much "meat" and the model articles are better. They don't often explore and review modeling subjects like their "sister" magazine Fine Scale Modeler, but the are better than they used to be. FSM will occasionally run articles that include a survey of plastic cements, or comparing different brands of paint.
I do the same thing with the older magazines I keep and make the same observations. If you pare down the older magazines, the content isn't that much more than the content in today's mag.
Also, today's mag tends to use more pictures to describe theings and are less wordy. Since a picture says a thousand words, that cuts down the number of pages.
- Douglas
mvlandswWhat is an "ISL"?
Independant Short Line, I think.
This thread is "kvetch as kvetch can" - like may others.
C´mon, folks, let´s be fait to MR´s editorial staff and give them a break! If you think MR needs more content, well, pick up your pen and write an article!
Sir MadogIf you think MR needs more content, well, pick up your pen and write an article! Add Quote to your Post
Exactly
BMMECNYC mvlandsw What is an "ISL"? Independant Short Line, I think.
mvlandsw What is an "ISL"?
Industrial short line. I think Brakie (Larry) does these to get a lot of switching in, in a small space.
Paul
Larry is the ISL expert around here, but I'm pretty sure that ISL is short for "Industrial Switching Layout".
Ray
Sir MadogIf you think MR needs more content, well, pick up your pen and write an article!
That old cop out always comes up. You ignore the point that I as a subscriber pay for content. If I wanted to write it myself, why would I pay for the magazine?
Colorado Ray BMMECNYC mvlandsw What is an "ISL"? Independant Short Line, I think. Larry is the ISL expert around here, but I'm pretty sure that ISL is short for "Industrial Switching Layout". Ray
You might be right.
The new magazines just aren't the same as the old, and that is unfortunate. I find myself looking, and studying, the articles in the older magazines more and more. I would love to get the archives by itself because I don't have a whole bunch of years worth of magazines, but you need a subscription to get the archives. Therefore, I have neither.
But, I do pay monthly for MRVP.
Chuck - Modeling in HO scale and anything narrow gauge
BMMECNYC Fast forward to 2016. You are the editor of a magazine. You want to celebrate the 1,000th issue of your magazine that has been a cornerstone of a hobby for the better part of a century. Your staff must work continuously to make deadlines for each months article so that it can go to press. If you increase the size of the magazine one month, other things have to give (article quality or number of articles in months that bracket that extra long month) to conteract that a lot of time was spent putting together the special edition.
Fast forward to 2016. You are the editor of a magazine. You want to celebrate the 1,000th issue of your magazine that has been a cornerstone of a hobby for the better part of a century. Your staff must work continuously to make deadlines for each months article so that it can go to press. If you increase the size of the magazine one month, other things have to give (article quality or number of articles in months that bracket that extra long month) to conteract that a lot of time was spent putting together the special edition.
Not quite. Magazine size isn't determined by staff man-hours available. If that were the case, we could fill 20 pages with double-page-spread photos and knock off early each Friday. binder001 is closer to the truth. We allocate a certain number of pages for editorial in every issue. What makes a magazine thicker or thinner is ad count. If we have a lot of ads, that not only gives us more pages, it gives us the revenue to add more pages of editorial content as well. But we never drop below that minimum level of editorial content. And although our 1,000th issue did draw more ads than the usual because of the special nature of the issue, most of the extra pages in that issue were editorial -- which is why we needed to charge more for it on the newsstand. The extra ads weren't enough to pay for the extra editorial pages. Spring issues traditionally tend to be thinner, because advertisers concentrate their ad buys around the winter holidays and on the autumn-winter model railroading "season" in general. Come spring and summer, they pare back their ad buys, so MR slims down. That happens every year. You're only noticing the size of this May's issue because it's such a contrast to the extra bulk of the April special issue.
--Steven Otte, Model Railroader senior associate editorsotte@kalmbach.com
carl425 Sir Madog If you think MR needs more content, well, pick up your pen and write an article! That old cop out always comes up. You ignore the point that I as a subscriber pay for content. If I wanted to write it myself, why would I pay for the magazine?
Sir Madog If you think MR needs more content, well, pick up your pen and write an article!
And on the topic of MR staff man-hours -- we have ways of dealing with that. For one thing, MR isn't the only thing we work on. There's also annual issues like Great Model Railroads and Model Railroad Planning, usually one other special issue a year, a project railroad to build, taping videos for MRVP, etc. Each month, in addition to the articles for the regular issue, the staff usually prepares and edits one to three articles for what we call the contingency or "tornado issue." That's the group of pre-edited articles that, if a disaster were to strike like a tornado hitting our building, we could pull out and put together into a regular issue while regular operations were restored. Articles generally stay in the "tornado bin" for three to six months before being rotated into a regular issue of MR. In months where there's extra work to do, like crunch time for an annual or an extra-big anniversary issue, we work on fewer contingency articles and maybe pull more articles out of the contingency file for publication. We then replenish the contingency file in slack months.
You don't really need to know any of this, and it's not even particularly relevant to the topic of this thread, but I think people like to know these behind-the-scenes kind of things. And it keeps people from making their own erroneous suppositions.
"If we can use your article, we'll send you a contract to purchase the article and we will pay once we have received a signed copy of the contract rather than waiting until the article actually appears in Model Railroader. Our rate is between $75 and $100 per printed page in Model Railroader, depending on the content expertise. That rate includes drawings and photos. Our standard acceptance agreement specifies that Kalmbach Publishing Co. is buying all rights to publish the article. Contact us to arrange a different rights contract."
http://mrr.trains.com/magazine/about-us/contributor-guidelines/2010/03/submission-guidelines---model-railroader
Steven OtteBMMECNYC Fast forward to 2016. You are the editor of a magazine. You want to celebrate the 1,000th issue of your magazine that has been a cornerstone of a hobby for the better part of a century. Your staff must work continuously to make deadlines for each months article so that it can go to press. If you increase the size of the magazine one month, other things have to give (article quality or number of articles in months that bracket that extra long month) to conteract that a lot of time was spent putting together the special edition. Not quite. Magazine size isn't determined by staff man-hours available. If that were the case, we could fill 20 pages with double-page-spread photos and knock off early each Friday. binder001 is closer to the truth. We allocate a certain number of pages for editorial in every issue. What makes a magazine thicker or thinner is ad count. If we have a lot of ads, that not only gives us more pages, it gives us the revenue to add more pages of editorial content as well. But we never drop below that minimum level of editorial content. And although our 1,000th issue did draw more ads than the usual because of the special nature of the issue, most of the extra pages in that issue were editorial -- which is why we needed to charge more for it on the newsstand. The extra ads weren't enough to pay for the extra editorial pages. Spring issues traditionally tend to be thinner, because advertisers concentrate their ad buys around the winter holidays and on the autumn-winter model railroading "season" in general. Come spring and summer, they pare back their ad buys, so MR slims down. That happens every year. You're only noticing the size of this May's issue because it's such a contrast to the extra bulk of the April special issue.
Thank you for responding.
Steven Otte And on the topic of MR staff man-hours -- we have ways of dealing with that. For one thing, MR isn't the only thing we work on. There's also annual issues like Great Model Railroads and Model Railroad Planning, usually one other special issue a year, a project railroad to build, taping videos for MRVP, etc. Each month, in addition to the articles for the regular issue, the staff usually prepares and edits one to three articles for what we call the contingency or "tornado issue." That's the group of pre-edited articles that, if a disaster were to strike like a tornado hitting our building, we could pull out and put together into a regular issue while regular operations were restored. Articles generally stay in the "tornado bin" for three to six months before being rotated into a regular issue of MR. In months where there's extra work to do, like crunch time for an annual or an extra-big anniversary issue, we work on fewer contingency articles and maybe pull more articles out of the contingency file for publication. We then replenish the contingency file in slack months. You don't really need to know any of this, and it's not even particularly relevant to the topic of this thread, but I think people like to know these behind-the-scenes kind of things. And it keeps people from making their own erroneous suppositions.
I find it interesting.
Every time I move, I thin my magazine collection and mostly what gets kept are the articles about trains or specific rail cars that are historically useful to keep. It tends to be the stuff that is, to me, dated that gets tossed. The historical magazines I tend to keep are Trains, CTC Board, Pacific Rail New and the like, and the modelign magazines tend to be very dated and are more likely to get tossed. I expect to go through another round of thinning my magazines this year.
Sir Madog This thread is "kvetch as kvetch can" - like may others.
Do you really expect otherwise from the clientel here? The pattern is well established and isn't changing unless the kvetchers leave, like thats going to happen!
trwroute carl425 That old cop out always comes up. You ignore the point that I as a subscriber pay for content. If I wanted to write it myself, why would I pay for the magazine? YEP! I was about to write the same thing...
carl425 That old cop out always comes up. You ignore the point that I as a subscriber pay for content. If I wanted to write it myself, why would I pay for the magazine?
I dunno, because you're proud of your modeling and want to share it with the world?
But if you aren't, don't worry. We get plenty of articles from modelers who are to keep us going for many years to come.
Steven OtteI dunno, because you're proud of your modeling and want to share it with the world?
Regardless, the fact that I don't contribute is not a valid excuse for lack of interesting content.
It's funny you should mention "editing MRVP" as one of the other staff activities. How many useful videos could have been produced with the effort spent on all the self-congratulatory "memorable MR moments" videos? Then that's topped off with the MRVP 4th birthday? Who cares? We can tell from the workshop webcam that there's lots of Canadian Canyon video that you could be editing. How many "Ask MRVP" questions are queued up?
Don't get me wrong, I like the magazine and I like MRVP. I'd just prefer to like them more.
If everyone out there thought like that, what would you be paying for? A bunch of blank pages? Or about 4 pages, an editorial, a DCC page, a Operations page, and Tony's Trains of Thought? Note that you DO get paid for published contributions, so yeah, if you contribute, you aren't paying as much for the subscription any more.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I thinned my magaziens a long time ago - I got the 75 year DVD and purged everything older than 2007, except for the full set of 1944 I picked up at one time. It still works fine in Windows 10 and it's faster than the All-TIme Archive online when it comes to searching or even scrolling through the issues - and I deliberately did NOT install teh content to my SSD because it would use too much of the space. I can now purge more though, since i have the Archive access. When it's time to renew I will probably not renew print and go all digital. By the time someone starts commenting here ont he latest issues, I'll have finished it days before - no mail delays or "I never got my issue" any more.
Getting the DVD makes sense if you need still refer to content actively. I have found in the past 10 years I rarerly do anymore, what with internet and youtube and forums etc. Good for those who still read old content and want to shed the physical mass and volume of hardcopy.
carl425How many useful videos could have been produced with the effort spent on all the self-congratulatory "memorable MR moments" videos?
I found those to be useful, as they lead me to read some of those articles/issues of MR. Im guessing you didnt watch all of them. I didnt know about the Soo Line alien cover before. I found that one funny.
carl425Who cares?
I care. I found these videos interesting.
Chessie and George also found Neil Besougloff's video interesting.
I also re-watched Blazing Saddles that day...