Re: ATM "The New S&T"

[Gary Seronik <gseronik@direct.ca>]

At 09:47 AM 5/29/97 +0000, Mike Marchand wrote:
>
> Let the so & so's at S&T drop TM'ing. The lifeblood of this 
>hobby lies in the hands of those who practice it and are willing to 
>share the wonder of it (using whatever vehicle they deem appropiate - 
>web pages, listservs, demos at star parties, small paper publications 
>like ATMJ, webchat, etc..). The future of TM'ing doesn't (and 
>shouldn't) lie in the hands of a commercial publication crammed full 
>of ads which (without proof) exaggerate their claims about how 
>wonderful their products are...
>
> Kalmbach dropped Telescope Making, so what if S&T drops their
>dinky column covering it too?
>
> They want to turn their backs on this topic, I say fine...
>
> Let the chaff fall to the ground! It would look good on the 
>"biggies" in the astronomy publishing business if the  
>next time they showed up to a star party like RTMC or Stellafane 
>looking for filler to "keep track of the pulse of amateur's" if
> they were barred from entry. After turning their backs on us, 
>I can't imagine any self respecting telescope maker wanting his work 
>depicted or featured in either rag from this point on!
>
>1) Tell them to either get involved or get lost !!!!!!!

You're telling them to do both.  Pick one Mike.

Ok Mike, take a deep breath and repeat: "Calm blue seas, calm blue seas..."

You don't need your flame suit for what I'm about to say, so...

Firstly, (why do I feel like I've written this a thousand times) it is far
from clear what S&T's intentions are with respect to their coverage of
telescope making.  Nothing indicates with any certainty that the coverage
will even change.  Now if you want to blow a fuse about what you think
MIGHT happen, that's your business, but I would suggest you're expending a
lot of energy unproductively.

Secondly, I am a "self respecting telescope maker" and am frankly proud to
have my work featured in S&T.  If it were again in the future I'd be very
pleased.  While you might prefer a more antagonistic stance, I can tell you
from personal experience that a piece in S&T does a lot more good for
ATMing than a lot of ranting about the evils of big magazines.  After my
piece ran, I received dozens of e-mails (in spite of the fact that my
e-mail address was not included in the article) from people who said they
were going to give it a go for the first time.  I think this is the value
of S&T.  It reaches a wide audience - the majority of which has little
contact with the idea of ATMing or ATMers.  Throw this away?  For what
purpose?  For what gain?

Thirdly, what is with all of you with this bashing S&T for having
advertisers?  Who cares if Meade has twenty pages of advertising?  What
difference does it make?  You surely understand that without the
advertisement revenues, S&T (or any other magazine for that matter) simply
wouldn't exist.  It's not as if a page of advertising takes away a page of
editorial content.  For my money, people who begin their critique with a
swipe at advertising in S&T completely blow their credibility.

I will come clean here a state that I like S&T.  I think it is an excellent
magazine and I look forward to every issue as I have since I was a boy in
1973 and received my very first issue.  There has been a lot of talk of
"dumbing down" (without substantiation of any sort) and frankly I don't see
it.  There are more articles aimed at newcomers to our wonderful hobby but
I don't see these appearing at the expense of the traditional in-depth
pieces.  Now maybe I'm just not smart enough to see this, but I refuse to
accept any assertion on the basis of heresay.

I'm sorry to sound off like this, but to be honest, my impression of the
members of this list has taken a rather serious negative turn over this
issue.  I used to think that we were a group of reasonable people capable
of rational discussion and FAIR criticism.  I see with too many this is not
the case.

I am disappointed to be sure, but I guess I'm now the wiser.

Respectfully,
Gary Seronik