new climbing E-ZINE?? would you help?
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slack—line.
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Rodw
Due to the obvious dissatisfaction of many climbers (both readers and contributors) with ROCK magazine, an idea of a community EZINE has been raised. It would be aimed at the whole climbing community, with content that all climbers find interesting and can relate to.
For more info see thread on cragX
Rock Magazine or Climbers Cosmo Link?
http://bb.bbboy.net/cragx-viewthread?forum=3&thread=184
Rock seems to have become stale and repetitive, to prevent this happening to a new EZINE it has been suggested that each issue have a different editor(s) so that content is more varied. Also this would help keep the EZINE idea alive as it would prevent the “burn out” that surely must be associated with editing issue after issue. (maybe this is part of the problem at rock.)
A poll can be found on cragX
New ezine Poll
http://bb.bbboy.net/cragx-viewthread?forum=3&thread=188
Various formats and models exist for such a EZINE. please put your two cents in.
Remember to be a good read for all it would need contributions from all standards of climbers, from all around Australia. Bumbly to Gun climbers.
Would you help?
Logan
Rod,
It would be a better idea to aproach ROCK with the communities dissatisfactions and help them remodel their magazine as they already have the infrastructure and experience in magazine production. Part of ROCKs problem is that:
1: It is too short (Compare it to Climbing, Rock & Ice or especially The Alpinist)
2: It has the same people contributing (reason for repetetive type articles)
3: It has a focus towards grades and not the extreme (Dangerous/Adventurous Ascents).
4: Too much space is spent on the small crew we have climbing hard in Oz (related to 3).
There is no use complaining about this of course as there is not much they can do about it without the community pitching in (2: diff people). We need to submit more articles (1: make it longer and 4: dilute the only people who are submitting info.). Submit a wide range of articles (3: not just what grades we ticked on the weekend).
Producing another mag would most likely lead to its burn out and the effect it has on ROCK Magazine could led to its demise as well and then there would be nothing.
ROCK Magazine would probably love suggestions for improvement from its readers as they are the market that pays for there product.
It would be a shame to lose another climbing mag in Oz and especially ROCK which i think has done a pretty good job so far.
Suggestions for Improvement:
1: Aussie climbers overseas section.
2: Make it easier and more straight forward to submit photos.
3: Someone ticking grade 29/30 is not news! Happens all the time. 33-34-35 is. (This isnt the 80’s any more).
4: Have a spotlight article on a different crag every issue. Type of climbing, grade range where is it, etc. Could be for local areas not main areas such as blue Mts or Gramps.
hatman
valid points, however as has been discussed on other forums rock seems oblivious to complaints/sugestions.
It has even published letters to the “editor: from people complaining about the points you outlined and then made no reply or just brushed of the topic with no real answer or action.
I beleive that an done right a ezine would apeal to more climbers from every aspect of the sport. Something ROCK is probably not going to achive any time soon.
hatman
As for the “lack of contibutions” aguement
On cragX Simon Carter (argueably the worlds best climbing photographer) explains how he had huge problems with trying to submit to ROCK due to miss handling of his stuff and crazy regulations.
Now if you stuff up with a contributor of Simon’ level(who always sells pics to OS mags.), then what hope have others got.
John Knight
I still believe that it’d be better for ezine contributors to either submit to Rock (which they’re always asking for), or their state magazine (Western climber in our case). As much as I’m for trying new things, I know Rock and Western Climber are always hungry for articles, and it hardly seems fair to divert the attention somewhere else. My $0.02 anyway.
Logan
Those are good points.
Obviously ROCK really has to take this seriously and step up. They did go through a bad period with handling of material and i hope they are a more profesional outfit now.
Rodw
The problem is Rock isn’t taking the stuff sent into them,
Examples:
Photographers are constantly having phots rejected as they are not on slide film but rock only pays around $80 per picture on slide film and want to retain copyright of the pic.
Several climbers I know of have sent in articles and ideas to rock, one had it cut down to a version he didnt even recognised so was forced to pul the story, another just told him it had been done in a similar publication so wasn’t rock thing (That similar publication was chockstone).
It was hoped that with new editor for rock the situation would change…but it hasn’t, this the suggestion of the ezine.
Just becuase something was published in CAWA mag dosn’t mean it couldnt be published latter in the ezine to give it bigger coverage…unlike rock the ezine would be claim exclusive rights on anything it publishes.
Thats the idea anyway…Rock could easily knock the idea on the head by discussing problems it has rather than just ignoring it…which seems what we have going on at the moment.
rodw
The should read “wouldnt” retain copyright of any articles…sory my typing sucks.
deadbolt
In this day and age, why do we need “magazines” with profit-driven “editors” anyway? There is this one big magazine called the Web where you can publish whatever, articles, pics, etc. If it’s any good, Google will soon find it.(In fact the CAWA website could do with some extra features C.D., howz the baby?)
Bogan
As a climbing bogan who loves his climbing and also his his street machine V8 cars, can i suggest ROCK have a look at STREET MACHINE? They have several sections all related to the hobby such as how to’s and the like, as well as a very popular Readers section. This section allows hacks (like me) and Pro’s to send in photos of their cars. ROCK could have a similar section where climbers could send in shots of them bimbling, cranking and even coming to grief!!!
Not all of us have flash cameras and slide film to sell, but i’m sure we all have stacks of cool and comical climbing shots!
treasurer
ok
I hope everyone is aware that this discussion is taking place on a website paid for and run by a not for profit organisation which is, in turn, paid for by its members. CAWA has neither the inclination or ability to allow online publishing. At the moment. This may change. Meanwhile, anybody wanting to submit articles and pics are more than welcome to contact the Western Climber editor on [email protected].
CAWA would love to have your input! Maybe not as much as we would love you to join CAWA, but an awful lot, nevertheless. Any other involvement would be good, too.
deadbolt
…no inclination by CAWA to do online publishing? What abot the miniguides, all the crag info, photos, listings for gyms and shops and discussion boards? If that’s not publishing then what is? About the only thing that is missing is a page where people can load up stories, say in PDF format like the miniguides, or as MS Word files. It seems that what this fanzine bloke wants, somewhere to publish stuff unedited, i.e. for climbers by climbers.
treasurer
ok, I stand corrected. Perhaps what I should have said was recent and regular online publishing. A massive effort was put in with this website – by a climber for climbers. Unfortunately, such a big effort does not appear to be sustained or sustainable.
The CAWA committee will be looking into this, any volunteers please step forward!
rodw
You seemed to have missed my point so Ill try again….the new mag is designed to support groups like CAWA not be in competition with them…we are not asking for exclusivity (we will even print articles already posted on your site)…by this you will gain more exposure, we would direct people to your site /organisation and if it the mag works as intened provide yuo guys with an extra source of funds as we do intend when fessible to pay for contributions as we will also be nonprofit mag/setup…..so how what I am proposing a bad thing?
John Knight
Well that sounds better, we just needed that clarity. Something like a compilation of best-ofs from each state would be cool, and would encourage contributors to their local rag, plus the commentary on a national level that would come from this compilation would bring some articles in that wouldn’t be stolen from anything.
I’d like to see an article in Rock that doesn’t have the words ‘Grampians’, or ‘Blue Mountains’ in them. 😉
deadbolt
Altuistic intentions are great but the reason Rock is around after 20years is money. That’s it. It actually makes money, like many of those newsstand mags which are crappy and also driven by lowest common denominator. Don’t overestimate the average climber, we are a dumb and ignorant lot and think that if we do not know about it it is not happening. Fanzine: by all means go for it, CAWA should support anything that promotes climbing, this is what part 1 of the CAWA constitution says.
Toc
Hi Rodw and everybody else,
Yep, the constitution does say that CAWA’s purpose is to support climbing in this state.
We already have a website which has become a very important part of the local climbing community, but it is funded, supported and maintained by a small percentage of that community. If this sounds like a complaint, it’s actually just an observation. If someone wants something that does more, why not put up your hand and say, “Hey, I’ve got the will, knowledge and time to do this,” have a long discussion with Chris and then talk to the committee about your idea. There are all sorts of things a website could do, but at some stage someone has to pay for it, build it and then maintain it. Again, just simple observations.
Cheers,
Toc.
slack—line
A simple solution to expanding the web-site would be to add a wiki to it.
The best definition is probably http://wiki.org/wiki.cgi?WhatIsWiki (there is of course the highly popular http://en.wikipedia.org/). Obviously this would require some sort of management and organisation, and is also dependent upon the type of hosting that is currently used, and which wiki engine should be used (there are lots out there).
I have a few ideas in light of whats been written above (mainly about what it shouldn’t be i.e. repository for latest snaps, there are things like http://www.flickr.com/ for that, or a place for tick-lists see http://thecrag.com/, or a discussion board (what are you reading now :-)). But these are just my opinions and in light of whats been written above I think that before setting something up it should be opened to discussion.
I’ve emailed to enquire further.
slack—line (/Neil)
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