The new media

I've been pondering yesterday and today about the roll that blogs such as this one could play in the future sharing of information on modelling NZR prototypes. This is part of the whole wider discussion that continues on the Willbly-Wobbly-Wooo about blogging's place in current journalism etc.

As the only real prolific blogger in this field in the country what are my thoughts? Mainly that I see pluses and minuses to the whole thing. The pluses are that its easier to communicate information in real time. An evening at the bench with photo's can be communicated in 15 minutes, with as many pictures as you like. Problems and successes are delivered as they happen. Random useful tips for others can be explained.

Contrast this with a magazine (I'll lump them all in together, they have not really changed format since the mid 70's). the Articles are more thoughtfully composed and laid out. due to space constraints there are not as many photo's to illustrate the process. Some of the spontaneity is lost, and some of the stuff ups can get lost (would anyone admit in an article that they had superglued a Dx to their pants, or washed their paintbrush in their glass of pinot noir?).
In their favor, magazines do not require a power source and can be read anywhere, and I do love them for that.

Another thing would be writing styles. To write and article is reasonable formulamatic. I wanted to make a model of this, therefore I found a plan and some photo's, then made the model doing this, this and this along the way, and here's how it looks now its finished. This structure is not a bad thing as with a tiny bit of assistance anyone can write an article. Writing for a blog, there's virtually no filters short of the ones between your brain and the keyboard. Its free form, the are no set formulas other than a heading. Marshaling ones thoughts into a semi-coherent stream of text is actually reasonable hard to do. I've had written blog posts that I've tried to write, written 4-5 paragraphs but just tossed the lot as I was rambling and couldn't remember what my point was when I started. This leads to the most important thing; is what you are writing about of interest to others?

In the 11 odd months I've been writing this thing, I've also found that its handy to have a couple of mates to fill in when you are just not in the right frame of mind to do anything. Darryl and Evan have both stepped up to the late at odd times with very well written articles ( I wish I could write 1/2 as well as Darryl, I'd write novels) for which I've been quite thankful for. Also those who with a bit of badgering have shown what their current projects are to a wider variety of people.

So where to from here. I've been thinking about whether a specialised forum would work (something like www.rmweb.co.uk). My current thinking suggests possibly not. Another possibility I had been mulling would be to get the local group together and get them to write a short article every month or so about what they have been doing. Case in point would be the write ups in the journal about the Chch and Wairarapa groups meeting, but with some more pictures of the models and how they were made. I can read that 'Fairfax Snodgrass turned up with a delightful model of ...', but it would be nice to see a picture or 2 of these little gems to inspire the rest of us to have a go. The space limitations of a magazine mean it will realistcally never happen.

The biggest risk of all from blogging is that if we spend all our time writing and reading everyone else's, there will be no time left for modeling.
comments on the back of a postage stamp in large letters please.