Charlie, the PRR & B&O both have a long history of a very active and
very prolific membership, in terms of models and in terms of
articles. But, even more than that, in Society matters. There have
typically been more than a small cadre of people running the
show. They have been willing to delve into new technology and new
ideas as well, something that the BRHS is much slower at doing
(seeming the antithesis of the prototypes) - the reason for that may
well lie in the relative active percentage of membership.
That all said, as you ponder, it wouldn't have to be under the
auspices of the BRHS. There are two Rock Island related
quarterlies, one connected with the RITS, one not. There is no
reason that a group of interested people couldn't put something
together for the Burlington. In terms of an online magazine, the
usual stricture comes with expense. The expense of the web space,
URL name and such. With some of the discounters out there, that
aspect of things isn't all that much any more. What used to cost a
few hundred bucks a year, now costs quite a bit less. It depends on
access, bandwidth used, and space used. You can typically start
relatively small, and continue to grow as the situation warrants.
The actual creation of the graphics, web pages and the like isn't
rocket science and doesn't take that much time. If you can put
something in a text processor or a spreadsheet, it can be converted
to HTML and onto the web. Getting it slick to allow anyone to update
things takes more time and more energy though. There are tools
around that do it... The other aspect is assuring that only the
right type of things get uploaded - in other words, you wouldn't want
your new online magazine being used for porn images. That gets
handled with user names & passwords, all relatively easy stuff.
The bottom line is - yeah, it can be done. The BRHS is not likely
going to do it. And I'm not sure they should want to do it. It may
not be something they are interested in. So is there enough
interest in it? And is there enough to get it started?
At 11:17 AM 11/24/2006, Charlie Vlk wrote:
>The Pennsylvania and Baltimore & Ohio societies both have excellent
>on-line magazines that compliment their normal publications and
>allow more modeling content than is practical in a print medium.
>I would not support anything that disrupts the Burlington Bulletin
>in its current format, but agree that there is a lot of material out
>there that deserves to be published without waiting for complete,
>definitive works.
>The biggest problem for getting such a venture rolling is the amount
>of effort needed to make it happen. It would take 3 or 4
>knowledgeable, dedicated people to make it happen. Such an effort
>would not necessarily have to be under the auspices of the
>BRHS... I am not sure that it could happen with the state of the
>current organization since we can't even get online voting or
>membership renewal to happen.
>I can't volunteer to make an on-line magazine happen, but could be
>counted on for an article here and there to support it.
>Charlie Vlk
>
Bob Webber
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