TAG quality..

[Erik Olson <erik@thekrib.com>]

> From: krombhol@teclink.net (Paul Krombholz)

> I argued at the Nov. 2000 conference that AGA should move TAG to a less
> glossy, less expensive format, and that we should work harder to get
> articles, comments, etc. from more of the "non-expert" membership.

Well, first off, this was in the timeframe of merging or competing with
PAM.  The assumption was that we didn't want to have TWO color glossy
publications trying to compete, and with Dave trying to get all the
"experts", perhaps it could be better to concentrate on a different area.  
With PAM now out of the picture, this is no longer a problem.  We can find 
articles by experts and newbies alike.

I don't see that good production standards and articles for/by the layman
are mutually exclusive.  It is entirely in how the editor chooses to
solicit articles from the membership.

But more importantly, I disagree entirely that the direction to go is
lower standards.  Why, in this world where everyone can report their
experiences on the APD months before TAG comes out, would we want to try
and use TAG to compete with this?

Rather, the goal, IMHO, is to get articles from many levels of experience,
and present them in a manner which enhances them somehow over their
effectiveness in a forum such as APD.  This might include supplementing
with good photographs or other graphics, editing the content for
readability, etc.

> I don't think that the experts can produce enough articles to sustain TAG.
> The standards may have become so high, that only a few feel qualified to
> submit articles.

That is a stigma that Karen will have to overcome.

> By the way, how is the next issue coming along?

It's done and being mailed.  Karen's on her way here (Seattle) today, and 
can sort out what's going on with the checkbook.

By the way, on the whole multi-year memberships, I would assume that
unlike Dave's magazine, if we decided to fold the whole thing, we would
just refund everyone's money pro-rata.  

I do wish, though, that we would keep track of how many ISSUES remain for
each member, rather than what their "last"  vol/number would be.  This
would avoid the snafu we're having right now:  The last issue (the one I
put out) was not meant to be a double issue.  I don't know if it was
credited as such on the membership, but it was SUPPOSED to be volume 15,
number 1.  It was my intent to have never had a Volume 14, #3-4.  Karen's
was supposed to be Volume 15, number 2.  Instead, to keep up with the
numbering scheme, it was called Volume 14, Number 3-4.  But now we're just
blowing off the problem.  Karen's issue will be Volume 15, Number 1, but
it's the SPRING issue.  There was no winter issue.  At the end of the
year, we will have to content with the problem that there's no Volume 15,
number 4.

  - Erik

-- 
Erik Olson
erik at thekrib dot com