In the last few months, we've begun to feature, within the News Section, the 'Print' Magazines. The New Section will now be known as On the Newstands and the first 'Official' Report can be seen:

http://armorama.com/news/6519

Any and ALL suggestions for future subjects gratefully received!

Hi Jim. I remember the discussion a few years back where Jim S, yourself, myself and others talked about Armorama becoming more like an online magazine, and the benifits of this. This new addition is most welcome, as I dont buy magazines regularily anymore (except AFV Modeller), but welcome this development so that I can be made aware of upcoming individual mags, that I would be interested in. Hopefully more magazines follow suit, as this would be a great resource and Im sure appreciated by many modellers.

I also think its time to consider a lay-out change again. With all these new news items ... many of which are posted in several forums, the first page is full of news items and modelling threads are getting pushed back very quickly. How I see it, neither the news or modelling projects win in this situation, as they fall away so quickly. New items will only add to this situation.

Somebody suggested ... not so long ago ... that news items gets its own forum, where those interested in "whats new" will have a full list, while others are surfing ongoing and finished projects can find more subjects on the same page. I personally don´t have time to surf through several pages looking for these projects anymore, and as the site´s overall content is still growing, it feels right to change with the times. I fully agree with this idea.
As I think its great that Armorama broadens its approach and welcome the new content, my first interest is in modelling and seeing new and ongoing projects take shape. To get the latest news is a great resource, but not the main reason I come here. Im only speaking for myself, but maybe others feel the same?

As do I. The problem is that the Site has become SO big and traffic at an all-time high, we DO need to take a decision. Things are falling off the edge of the Forums and the News Section so quickly we DO need to consider all possibilities for future directions. Thanks for the comments..

Hi JIM,

This will be a good adition as Frank says, getting a preview of what's in the mags is useful as like Frank I tend to buy the ones I see that have articles of interest to me rather than any particular magazine.

On the news page, I think that is also a good idea, althouhg we have a News Tab at the moment listing all the latest so not sure how that would link in, but it would reduce the fast turnround on the AFV page.

One thought would be re-ordering the tabs above.

Homepage, News, Reviews, Forums, Features, Campaigns, Photos, Events

This gives Forums Centre Stage so to speak.

Al

Jim,

Hi - I hope you don't mind comments from a relative newbie! The idea of magazine reviews is good, but it really needs brigaded into a separate heading on the News page (like AFV kits, plastic figs, etc already have in that grey box). Then, there's the issue (no pun intended!) of what happens next month - how will you separate the current mags from the ever-growing archive of past issues? You could either dump the previous ones each month or set up some kind of dated archive, but that would be a major undertaking that might best be left to the publishers. And harvesting new contents each month will be a big chore - you may want to get volunteers for different mags to spread the load.

As for the whole issue of things dropping off the page so quickly, I still think it would be great if each Forum page had a title search box in the header that would search the thread titles for key words typed by the user. There is the site search box in the black banner, but it picks up stuff from all over the site when perhaps I'm just trying to find a particular Campaigns thread. Or, if the user could rejig the display to reorder by title text rather than date of last posting?

Just my thoughts - hope they help!

Tom