Link to a discussion about the late, lamented Locomotive & Railway Preservation Magazine, and the past and future of RyPN (this forum's host), on the "Ahead of the Torch" Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/AOTTORCH/

I don't believe you have to be on Facebook to see this page/discussion.

Facebook believes you do need to be logged in, and it appears they win this round by being in charge of the gate.

What you do not have to do is be a member of the group. You can read, but not reply, without joining the group, as long as you're logged into Facebook in general.

If you want to post, you'll need to join the group, which, like most FB groups these days, requires moderator approval.

I can't (yet) comment on the interesting Facebook-hosted thread, but I wanted to chime in by offering a couple of opinions/idea.

A. Print is dead. Get over it.
B. The functionality of RYPN has been crippled for too long. It needs to return to being more than a discussion board or be succeeded by something that can be.
C. There is a lot of high-quality content out there in the form of excellent posts and articles that are distributed amongst the many, many blogs and newsletters of our various organizations. No new content would even need to be made specifically for RYPN or its successor. ARM's newsletter simply reprinted the articles of member organizations. Anyone remember the Google Reader site Tom Gears set up? It was great, but too much content.

RYPN's owners (I know, no one owns it) should update the site to a simple-to-manage Wordpress (or similar) magazine template. People would be welcome to write original content (for free), but the site could be a collection of select articles aggregated and shared from organization blogs and newsletters. Keep the discussion board as is. A number of editors would be needed to post some limited number of articles every week. Look at the Gawker empire of websites, or HuffPo. This is is the model for what I am suggesting, except even less original writing. Each post could consist of a photo, a summary of the topic, and a link to the actual blog. We could do the same thing on Facebook, but this would be more curated by limiting the number of articles that could be linked each day to a reasonable number.

Here is a Wordpress template I found within 30 seconds that has more features then we would need:

http://pixelgrade.com/demos/themes/?product=bucket

Just one idea.

Hear Hear........This is the best post of the year by far..................absolutely what we need and i would certainly contribute and read it. Several UK magazines are online now and thats the format that gets read....this site is very stayed and very stale...IMHO of course.
Mike Pannell

The "big picture" problem, to put it bluntly with all the subtlety of a two-by-four over the head, is not the details of what form a revived RyPN should take. That could be the proverbial "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic".

The bigger issue is who, legally, logistically, and effectively, "takes control" of RyPN, not simply as a moderator but as an overall "mission" administrator. In a moment of delusion, I suggested some ideas, others chimed in with other suggestions, and at the moment I would say that what is happening is that one principal is formulating a prototype reformulation of the overall website and mission to be presented as a proposal to prospective hosts, benefactors, and/or supporters.

Look frankly and neutrally at the overall situation. Who has a vested interest in promoting railway history preservation, to the point of soliciting somewhat minimal administrative costs? Prospective answers:
*The NRHS
*The R&LHS
*The ATRRM
*Another RR-related group, like Rails to Trails or some specific RR T&H society
*Some nationally- or internationally-focused railroad museum, here or abroad
*The National Trust for Historic Preservation
*A for-profit rail enterprise, such as Kalmbach or White River Publishing
*A railroad industry group such as the AAR, ASLRRA, or the publishers of Railway Age or the like
*Some for-profit travel or tourism company

Now, the list I just presented is a skeptical list of real-life possibilities. If you don't like some of those possibilities, then it's your job to present a viable alternative, and get the respective parties behind your proposal.

Print isn't dead....just small niche market hobby print is dead. many of us are not yet willing to deprive ourselves of the visceral pleasure of reading real books and I spend many happy hours with old pulp magazines from decades ago.

I'd love to see more articles in RyPN, but the last review I submitted never saw publication and I don't have technical articles to write since I'm only working in the industry by remote control at present. Still, those who are working on interesting projects could submit.....but to who and how? Somebody started a series about restoring a F unit (or was it an E?) a while back and only the first installment got on line. Did it ever get completed, and how?

Indexing links to articles in other online publications would keep a few people busy not only tracking them down and writing synopses, but getting permission to link. I get lists of articles from LinkedIn every week, I probably find about 5% interesting enough to check out. Something more targeted would be a much better time kill.

I'd opt for a foam filter first.

dave

Seems like we have this discussion repeatedly. RYPN has a section for articles, the most recent one was posted on May 26, 2008. There is nothing to prevent anyone from writing articles, but I recall we established the last time around that there is nobody left as a staff to post them for you. Meanwhile there are other organizations that would welcome your articles and publish them in print or post them to the internet, ATRRM being one of them. I also recall someone commenting a while ago that the NRHS was looking for content for their website.

I am aware of a number of other historical and preservation related organizations that have also issued requests for articles recently. With so many requests for articles, it is surprising that the impression persists in these discussions that lots of them are so easily and readily available. Who are these mystery authors that are turning out so many articles that we need more publication capacity at a time when many organizations don't have enough articles on hand to meet their publishing needs? Is there really a lack of publishing capacity? Is there a lack or authors? Or is the problem a lack of coordination?

As Dave noted, traditional print publishing has not died. For those who prefer the permanence and security of printed publication, there are many good organizations out there to work with, where your work will be preserved and appreciated. But to get into print you need to provide them with a piece of work that is not an "article kit" that the editor has to research and complete, and your product needs to fit within the boundaries of their editorial model. Several editors have told me that only about 15% of the people who write "articles" consistently produce publication-ready work.

Some advice from a webmaster: The internet remains a "free theft" zone. Anything and everything you post there can and will be copied and redistributed by others. If you are happy with that, fine. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and information.

PC

Print is not dead...as they claim. I have worked in the printing business for over 20 years and this has been the claim since I started. There will always be a need for print. Digital files do not last as long as print. I've had several different websites and digital format files over the years and many of them there is no trace of them anymore or I can't access them anymore. In my opnion print will outlast any digital file, you can pick up a book anytime.

That's just me 2 cents worth.

For this conversation's sake, here is a mockup I made as Randolph and I had the same thought.

As a result of the discussion, I think we may look into developing a refreshed RYPN "store-front" and creating a content calendar and seeing how it develops. Stay tuned (?)

Download the full-rez mockup here: http://lynchpincreative.co/wp-content/u ... ock-Up.jpg

Alex Mitchell --
Thanks for the link to that FaceBook page. I already
joined, but had forgotten about it. That is a
fascinating discussion they are having right now, with
around 150 replies to the original post on keeping track
of railroad preservation, by Rick Rowlands.

Kelly Lynch --
That's a nice effort, but -- it is very hard to read
words that are on top of pictures, and the text that
is below "IN SEARCH OF SIGNALS" and "RAIL
MARKETING 101" is so faint it is impossible to
read. I myself much prefer that there also be a
regular discussion board laid out like this one
where all the text is easy to read. We older folk
need more contrast between text and background
if we are to be able to read anything. Other than
that, that layout is eye-catching -- as it should be.

Everyone --
I, too, do not believe print is dead. It will long outlast
digital files, which are captive to fast-changing
technology, and thus become obsolete fairly quickly.
How many of us here still have a computer that can
handle and read 3-1/2-inch floppies?

Site admins --
Please do not change RyPN into a format where it
is hard to read and has no forum like this one.

Love that new format idea thats what i was talking about, you would actually i think get more people reading the whole thing than scanning headlines to threads that don't sound particularly inspiring.

I will assist wherever i can ??

Mike Pannell

It's a compressed file not at full resolution, which will explain some of the legibility. For a 20 minute Photoshop mockup though, I'm glad it gets the point across.

No one is proposing the forum go away -- I've got the Interchange bookmarked and almost forget that there are other pages/sections. I believe the discussion only pertains to ways to re-energize discussion and produce/distribute meaningful/relevant content.

KL

Deleted

Gentle recommendation:

Let the webmasters, and those with considerable experience in web design, sort it out.

It would be quite foolish to sacrifice mobile-platform legibility and accessibility just to cater to the folks that need larger type and can't/won't figure out the few keystrokes it takes to enlarge a display on a browser (in Firefox, all you have to do is hit Ctrl-+, or in other words hold down the key that says "Ctrl" at lower left/right and then hit that key that has an equals sign and above it a plus sign up near the upper right of your main keyboard block of keys.... then to reduce it back, Ctrl-"minus", the dash key to the left of the equals/plus key).

This proposed new website HAS to appeal to and attract the new railfans who walk around running into lampposts or off station platforms because they're constantly staring down at their smartphones and tablets. We have 2-3 professional web developers among the lurkers here, if we haven't driven them away. They're probably willing to tell us for free what they'd charge anyone else hundreds hundreds or thousands of dollars to tell them, IF we're oh-so-nice to them AND give them a worthy "cause' to which to donate their brain cells and efforts.

At its November meeting in Tyler, Texas, the ATRRM Board directed me to prepare a proposal for moving the Tourist Railroads & Railway Museums magazine online. It would basically fill the online niche left empty by the RyPN Articles section. Rather than being accumulated into a quarterly issue, new content would appear frequently, with the option of reader feedback.

A major goal of this change is to attract younger readers, who probably aren't seeing the magazine.

This transition is complicated by a probable backlash against losing the printed magazine by those who are older and not online, and by others who simply prefer print to digital. So far the options seem to be:
1. Continue only with the quarterly print magazine.
2. Go online only.
3. Do print and online in parallel.

I'll be bringing a cost comparison to the ATRRM Board, which will decide how to move forward.

If any of you are TRRM readers, I'd like your feedback on those options. Bear in mind that ATRRM has limited funds, and Option 3 is the most expensive.
Aaron Isaacs, editor
Tourist Railroads & Railway Museums