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John G,
Drat, in retrospect I was worried after I posted the message that it might be misconstrued as hostile. My humble apologies if that is how you saw my comments. I guess a smiley face can only go so far. The accountant remark wasn't meant to be insulting. Guess it lost something there, smiley face or not.
Like you, I am a hardworking chap who is concerned with doing the best work for his pay. My remarks were to answer your questions as to the whys and wherefores AND give some more information about other things that are important to us here and what we are working to achieve. My comments are to show how we are advancing in the publication and what our mindset is when it comes to content and presentation. The comments about design problems were related to OTF only and not to C & C in any way. My comments focus on our efforts to improve and make a publication that is valued highly. Your comments were very important and I take them very seriously. They cannot be valued too highly. Thank you.
Another thing to be considered is readership. The age cross section for our respective publications is older, many of the readers being in their 50's to 70's or older. There is a problem that many of our older readers have passed on in the last decade and will continue to do so. Gaining younger readers is something that is of paramount importance for survival of our respective publications. With the advances in publishing technology and the proliferation of all types of publications as a result, you now have very sophisticated audiences in the younger age brackets. Presentation becomes more of an issue when you are looking to gain younger readers who read more commercial looking publications. Design must change to reflect that from time to time. Look at the first Cross & Cockade issues of the early 1960s. Content was good, but presentation reflected the times and the technology. Lonnie Raidor and George Cooke handtyped every page in the early days and for some years afterwards. (I'm glad I don't have to do that anymore!)
As far as the bios go, my feeling is that it isn't like by yanking them you are going to gain a whole page. If it was a word processing app, sure you gain space, but, in the layout it isn't going to gain much at all. It isn't a cummulative problem. It is a spacial problem. Maybe an add would fit in that space but not much else! There are a few occasions when a bio wasn't submitted and so an article went out without it. But, I usually hear about it later when that happens. Also, when an article is a translation of a piece with an author long since dead, we don't publish bios on them. Or if an author submitted more than one article we certainly aren't going to put that at the end of every one of them.
I have shelves full of Cross & Cockade International, which in my view is essential reading for anyone interested in WWI Aviation History. Shouldn't be without it. And, I'll also be taking a look at what our friends in the southern hemisphere are doing. Their publication sounds a treat as well.
With best regards and intentions,
Aviatik
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