Re:thoughts on TAG woes

[Erik Olson <erik@thekrib.com>]

Thanks Paul for your good insight on this.  I have opened the discussion
and/or voting on the board/steering committee for this issue as of
yesterday.

I think the delimna is actually worse this time around than it was two
years ago.  But as David said in a recent e-mail, I am glad that things
happened with Dave NOW before we had made any sorts of committment to him
and his magazine.

I have sent mail to Mary asking her of her intentions on TAG, but have not
heard back.  Jack offered to find out what's going on as well.  My
preference would be to do a search for a new TAG editor from our
membership.  We didn't say anything on Sunday.  We didn't really even have
time to announce that the Incorporation has gone through succesfully.

   - Erik

On Tue, 13 Nov 2001, Paul Krombholz wrote:

> 
> I overslept Sunday morning and arrived at Breakfast around 8:30 AM, and
> didn't hear if an anouncement was made about TAG troubles, PAM troubles,
> and/or a call for volunteers.
> 
> 
> Dave Gomberg presented us with exactly the same dilemma he did two years
> ago when he wanted us to substitute PAM for TAG.  If we had done so then,
> or if we do so now, it would help Dave financially, but I think it would be
> a much larger financial drain on us. Even with the addition of our
> membership, PAM might still sink like a stone, pulling us down with it.
> 
> This trend towards more expensive magazines with more color is like those
> Chinese finger traps where you can move your finger further in, but it is
> hard to pull it out. The expense is astronomical, and so is the time
> necessary to run such an operation sucessfully. I think that the costs in
> time and money soon exceed the benefits to our readers.  What are the
> benefits to our readers?  We should consider this question carefully. What
> do they want?
> 
> 
> I question the value of the trend towards more professional authors.  The
> articles would be a lot slicker, but I am not sure that the information
> content would increase very much over what we have been getting in TAG even
> way back when TAG was mimeographed.  Despite what Dave G. says about how he
> likes to be the "cowboy" and round up writers, I still think that there are
> not enough professional writers to keep the supply of new and fresh
> material on aquatic plants coming indefinitely.  Pretty soon, the articles
> start being almost the same as older articles people remember reading
> before.  I am talking about _general_ articles, such as how to set up a
> tank, how to decorate, arrange, etc., substrates, CO2 equipment, lighting,
> fertilization, fighting algae, and so on.
> 
> 
> I think that we can entertain and inform our membership with more detailed
> and specific articles.  These could be articles about a specific species,
> or someone's experiences with a particular tank. One can do one article on
> the general principles used in setting up a tank.  One can do dozens of
> articles on how he or she set up specific tanks!  Specific articles can be
> written (with a little editing!) by AGA members who do not consider
> themselves researchers or writers.  It is important to keep our membership
> contributing.   I remember aritcles about individual experiences, such as
> "Here's Mud in Your Tank" or the one about using dead tree leaves long
> after I have forgotten all the general ones.
> 
> Another thing that the reader might like would be columns.  Everyone on the
> management committee could do a diary-type column in each issue on their
> thoughts, experiments and experiences with aquatic plants.  For that
> matter, everyone at the recent convention could do it.  TAG could be an
> inch thick!!
> 
> We should look for cheaper printing.  I think that photographs are very
> important in TAG, and, now that people are getting digital cameras,
> photographs are a lot easier to obtain.  However, the essential information
> provided by color photographs may be much less costly to print.  You can
> buy an ink jet printer for $200.00 that does quite a good job doing color
> photos on plain paper.  True, it would not last long if you tried to put
> out 900 copies of TAG, but there are more robust versions.  At Tougaloo
> College, we recently obtained for the science building a color laser
> printer that does fine color work.  I can't use it to do TAG, but perhaps
> there are commercial printers that could do TAG on one of these things for
> a lot less.  I have noticed that when we do color photos on TAG they are
> very small, and, therefore, very careful color registration is necessary to
> see the image.  If we had larger photographs, such careful registration
> would not be necessary.  Perhaps it would be cheaper to change our page
> format and do larger photographs with cheaper equipment and cheaper paper.
> 
> 
> 
> >From what I heard at the management meeting Sat. evening, I gather that
> Mary is greatly behind schedule and is being defensive about it.  The good
> side to that is that she isn't ready to quit yet.  I recommend we contact
> Mary McCaw and ask if we should try to find other volunteers to take over
> some of her editorial tasks.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Paul Krombholz, in dry central Mississippi, starting on our fifth week
> without rain and none in sight.  
> 
> 

-- 
Erik Olson
erik at thekrib dot com

  ------------------
  To unsubscribe from this list, e-mail majordomo@thekrib.com
  with "unsubscribe aga-sc" in the body of the message.
  Old messages are available at http://lists.thekrib.com/aga-sc
  When asked, log in as username is "aga-sc", and password "showy".