It's the British way of doing things

We bitch and moan, then conquer the world and start the industrial revolution

Having been using this site for a couple of years, the tone HAS changed.

There were a few rows that saw some regulars stomp off, but there was none of this assumption that the readers users, rather than the owners, of the website should have control. Certainly, I have been shocked by how ready some people are to 'shoot the messenger' – particularly that poor chap who, with little knowledge of model engineering, was told to promote social media and got lynched (virtually) just for trying to do his job.

Clearly there are some issues that do frustrate people – calling anything the 'Best of ME' is making a hostage to fortune, but have you ever come across a 'best of' or 'greatest hits' album that most fans of a band would say was exactly that? But as for the actual content, as far as I can see it was as described in advance. Equally, decisions of management haven't always been presented in the best ways.

For many, many years ME was referred to be readers as 'ours' and I suspect that a similar attitude still exists in some, and perhaps even more so for the website. Even so, I'm sure that Percival Marshall may well have listened to his readers, but would have had no truck with anyone who wanted him to cut back on advertising or change the paper!

I was going to enter a mirror image model of an A1, held to together by left hand threads, with all the colours replaced by their complementary ones and mounted upside down for the ME exhibition, just to give people something to moan about. With any luck this would cause enough negative energy for the real knockers to implode and give the rest of us room to relax!

I thought I could reply "why should scaling be the only valid transformation when you are making a model?"

Neil

I've never moaned about the website because it has always worked on my home Linux machines and the Windows stuff at work.

I have griped about the CNC content of MEW because it's something I don't have, can't afford, and don't learn any transferable skills from the articles, therefore it has little relevance to me so I complain

The griping and complaining on here is tame compared to some of my motorcycle forums. We are all invisible people in the ether hence why tantrums happen sooner and self opinionated tosh spouts earlier

Bah! humbug

John (49 year old grumpy git in training)

I have noted that threads of technical merit, shall we say, where a sensible question is asked and a string of sensible answers and suggestions follows, is, in the main, contributed to by a different set of people than those that prefer to contribute to the rights and wrongs of the new look website, the social media question and the quality of the special issue.

Thanks Neil for yet another sensible post above.

Just my observations …

Diane

I am a bit surprised by JS creating a thread which is itself adding to the negativity especially as some of the recent furore has already died down.

Its simply not true that there has been 'nothing but bitching and moaning' recently, yes one or two threads did get some heated responses but mostly it was actually justified. As a magazine subscriber and user of this forum I felt I was treated (by MTM) as a second class citizen. There has always been a forum section devoted to website comments but it seemed that no one from MTM ever took any notice of it.

Oddly the recent lively facebook thread was totally ignored for the first few days, in fact it was only after Diane bumped it that I saw it. I latched on to it because it seemed to me that MTM had suddenly taken an interest in the forum and maybe were actually going to improve its usability.

OK, some of the whingeing was not justified but most of the comments were meant to be helpful

Sergeant Pepper drew a line in the sand as regards music albums, I think this forum site will in future have similar turning point and I feel sure there will be a 'before' and 'after' Katy Purvis.

Ian P

Edited By Ian Phillips on 04/10/2013 13:41:47

It's the economy, stupid! Or perhaps:

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Surely it should be a 1A not an A1 if its a mirror image???

JS I look forward to the pram build so long as its not CNC based, takes up pages and pages with G code and all your drawings are spot on

J

Edited By JasonB on 04/10/2013 15:51:10

> .btw whats an A1?

Like an A4, but eight times bigger.

> Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Another CAMRA member protesting against food colouring in mild ale?

I'm a bit more cheerfuil now – 7 day beard and something on my chin was irritating, turned out to be about a thick white hair about 3/32" long and 20 thou in diameter! Pulled it out and I'm mellow old me again.

Neil

Negative? Nah, just funny – think Harry Enfield and the "Old Gits". Its my contention that there are a fair number of us "ole gits" around here. Live with it chaps – gitishness goes with model engineering like lamp posts go with dog p*ss.

Rik

Edited By Rik Shaw on 04/10/2013 18:51:35

As we used to say. When a 747 landed at at Mascot and the engines were shut down, the only whining one heard was from the poms.

Cu later * Danny M *