You appear to be missing the point of my suggestion. My suggestion: With
the ease/availability/access (ie: cheap/easy/no hassles) to publishing
technology (eg: Word, PowerPoint, blah blah blah), RNV could be spiced
up (I believe I said "Tarted" - but that and "spice" go hand in hand
nowadays) by merely applying some built in features of the application.
I was not referring to bells and whistles (one of the reasons I
appreciate Railpage.org.au - ie: you dont waste my time with frivoulous
crap which chews up my bandwidth). Perhaps I should've elborated
further. I meant making more use of (say) MS Word Tables (should it be
done in MSWord) when dealing with (say) statistical info, rather than
using Newspaper paragraphs to outline
numbers/figures/definitions/descriptions. I make this observation not
only on making the magazine look more attractive/professional (and thus
more marketable), but to also to provide a service where information for
the newcommer or the casual railfan can be used by them without much
"hassle".
It's just my opinion, I may be wrong overall, but I know what "I" like
(and I buy RNV usually every month), but since we started dicussing
this, I may as well say what I have to say in the hope it may contribute
to a better publication. Please dont take these comments as adverse
critisism of the mag. It's a great mag, I just have strong feelings on
how things should look/be presented.
Earl.
David Bromage wrote:
>
> Earl Brimshaw (ebrimshaw@hotmail.com) wrote:
> >a very valid point, I certainly cant argue on that aspect. However, it
> >does still remind me of those old cheap B&W porn magazines from school
> >days! :-) With publishing technology as easy and sophisticated as it is
> >nowadays, surely it wouldnt be difficult to "tart" it up.
>
> Had you subscribed to RNV from the start, you'd know that a lot of changed
> have been made. It started as a simple newsletter, printed on a dot matrix
> printer and photocopied. Since then it's moved to proportional fonts,
> glossy paper, professional printing (including bromide photographs) and
> occasionally colour. If it was tarted up, it would just look just that -
> tarty. if you can't present concise reports of events in plain text (as on
> this newsgroup), tarting it up isn't going to make it any better.
>
> Pretty fonts and other fancy things is just going to make the mag more
> expensive. I'm sure Rod would rather be researching an article than
> tarting up the presentation of same. It's the actual _information_ that
> the readers want. I doubt many subscribers would be willing to pay more
> per issue simply because it's "prettier".
>
> It's exactly the same with RailPage. I haven't taken the time to add
> whizbang bells, whistles, flashy graphics and Java applets to impress the
> easily amused. Instead, I'd rather spend the time maintaining and
> improving the actual information at the site. I work in the KISS principle
> (keep is simple, stupid). Tarting it up would be a wombat (waste of money,
> brains and time).
>
> Cheers
> David