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                            DO WE NEED DIVERSITY?
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The following thoughts  came to my mind after reading the suggestions at the DHS
BBS about merging the 3 existing diskmags on the Atari Scene into one.

I already expressed a few of my thoughts on the BBS right in that discussion but
while thinking about this topic, again, I found out more and more views onto the
things.

At first, let's focus a bit onto the todays Atari diskmag scene.

Right at  the moment  there  are still  3 major  magazines  released  that cover
especially the  demo scene, Alive, Chosneck and UCM. I don't  know  if there are
still more  magazines around  but I hardly  doubt that, at  least  diskmags that
cover  the scene  itself. Many  of  the "ordinary"  magazines  with topics about
everything  as well as  language specific  magazines died over the last time, as
they were run off topic and readers.

If  you  compare  the  current  magazines, Chosneck is, while  using  the Falcon
hardware  completely, the  high  end  publication  on the  technical  side, easy
comparable with actual diskmags on PC and Amiga.
Alive and UCM are using  the same shell  on the Atari ST that is already 5 years
old now but got some major bug fixes over the last months.
This makes both  magazines looking  quite similar. But  is this enough to say we
don't need two of them?! I hardly doubt that!

To back  up this view  we have to step some  way deeper into the business. Let's
turn back the wheel of time a bit.

1998... We  had  also 3 major  diskmags, Maggie, Toxic and UCM. Since  Toxic was
published in  french language, it  was already  loosing its ground and so we had
two "number one contenders". Both of  them changed  a lot over the last time, so
Maggie  was  turned  inside out  by the  heavy  support of  the  Reservoir Gods,
including the creation of a new shell on Atari Falcon and UCM was turned into an
english and mainly scene oriented magazine short before.

Since all 3 magazines  were around  already quite a long time, they all formed a
quite impressive own  writers staff and formed all their very unique feeling and
style. While  Toxic  was  already falling  out  of  competition  because  of the
language  barrier, Maggie  and UCM  both had  a big  bunch of fans and groupies,
because of their  special style. The colourful and funny of Maggie and the dark,
sarcastic and gloomy of UCM.

1998... Yes, it  was the  year of  the  diskmag war  between Maggie and UCM that
brought both magazines to new hights and left the Atari scene cooking like hell.
But somehow  all was running a bit out of order and now, 5 years later and a bit
more mature (arf) this war just brought only loosers to the scene.

The ongoing material battle needed a big ammount of work on the mags and because
of several reasons  the driving heads behind both mags weren't able to offer the
needed time to hold up the standards that were set in this battle anymore and so
1999 the scenery suddenly changed a lot.

Maggie was  left  alone  by the  Reservoir Gods  or better  by Mr.Pink  and this
knocked the magazine some way out. And I, moondog, left as well  and STsurvivor,
former main editor of Toxic, took over the job being the main editor of UCM.

This brought  new problems  as both magazines  weren't able to hold their former
standard, not  because  of the writers  and  editors, but because of the changed
style. The  war  campaign suddenly  ended  up as  the war  drivers,  Mr.Pink and
moondog have  left the ring. The  topic was  some kind  of "back to business" or
"back to reality"...
While UCM was  kicked out  quite regular  and was living from the quite constant
writers  staff, Maggie  was suffering  quite hard, but  after all both mags lost
their former quality. Maggie didn't matched it to be released that often anymore
and the  issues of UCM were  going smaller  and smaller  as also several writers
left the staff as they didn't felt at home anymore after I left as main editor.
Just a word at the side... Toxic died as diskmag too at this times...

2ooo... the rapidly  falling quality  of Maggie and  UCM called me back onto the
plan and I started to check out if there would be a need for a new magazine.
This was  the  mysterious  InSTabil  project. And I  have to  admit, there was a
bunch  of people around  that liked this  idea as Maggie and UCM came closer and
closer in  their style. The idea to take over UCM by storm was left out to start
no new quarrels, but suddenly there was no need to do so anymore.

In autumn 2ooo Maggie  and UCM both  were given up to form Alive, the new and at
this time only scene diskmag left on the Atari scene.
Alive was  running right  from  the start  under a  good sign  as it  had a very
powerful team  of editors. This  merging brought the mag very good possibilities
to survive but took away every diversity at the diskmag scene as all reports and
reviews were  taken just  from one  point of view, if you don't count the single
writers points of view.
This was laying in  the fact of the quite moderate style of the two main editors
and the writers  that were left  of the former  teams and merged in  too, but in
fact Alive was running under the touch of UCM as it gathered parts of the former
UCM writers team as well as the UCM shell.

2oo1... The fact of  having just one  magazine left covering the scene stuff was
calling back some  names onto the screen. My  InSTabil  project was jumping into
the hot phaze and Grey, also a former UCM writer, came back to live.
And suddenly, and  also because  of the  heavy demand  by many people, two "new"
magazines popped up  again. InSTabil was dropped as name and UCM was reactivated
and with Chosneck another -real- Falcon magazine was released.

And the people  really liked the  new situation, to have -again- the possibility
to  enjoy  completely  different styled  magazines  and  to  read  a  completely
different kind of  views. Alive and  UCM both were using the same shell but it's
still mainly about the contents that counts.

Unfortunately there were new problems coming up. As Alive gathered a part of the
former UCM posse, many  former UCM writers were still around but gave up writing
articles, and  finally Grey was also an old  UCM writer, the "market" to recruit
new writers was (and is) damn small.
Furthermore I  think all the former  quarrels have  left a bitter  taste to many
people so that they decided to stop writing things at all.

While Grey was trying to form a new team of writers (that interestingly gathered
also reactivated former UCM writers) and seems to have a little success with it,
all tries to create a new and stable writers team for UCM fucked up.
Also the  fact to  release  UCM under  the label  of .tSCc. didn't matched it to
reactivate  new possible writers, for example coming out of the group itself. My
tries to  get old writers  back into the ring, that were very hard supporters in
the past, fucked  up and new  stable  writers  were not  found  so  far... a bit
problematic  was even  the fact  that the  support  from  the  group  itself was
shrinking with every released issue.

But as much  as many people liked the come back of UCM that much the critics are
rising with the time because of the mentioned  problem above. Interestingly they
are coming at first  from people that were  stuck in the UCM team before and are
now writing for Alive for example and then from people that are doing nothing at
all. In fact  everyone can write for what publication he wants, I see no problem
in this but it seems as some people are overstretching this position a bit...

In fact it  isn't easy to hold  a magazine alive  nearly without  any support on
articles. But isn't it the major point that  it IS still alive?! Don't you think
it can't be the reason of missing writers and so missing diversity in a magazine
itself to stop producing it?

You as readers should  be really lucky about  the fact that we still have 3 mags
on the Atari scene, esp. 3 mags that offering such a different  style in the way
they are written. Sure, it  is hard for  every existing  magazine on Atari and I
doubt it will be easier in the future. But asking to  merge things into one that
are able to survive in  their own  style, at least  at this special moment, is a
bit killing something. Sure, we  could merge  the remaining  magazines into one,
but take a look  at the papermagazine  market. They merged as  long as there was
something to merge and mix together, but if THEN  the magazine quits, nothing at
all is left. If  one of the existing  diskmags would  quit, at least  two others
would be left and the NEEDED diversity would survive.

After all, at last point, it is quite  demotivating to read such  suggestions as
it seems  all the works you stuck  into making  the magazines  running are a bit
wasted. I just wonder  why the  complaining ones  don't kick  their own asses to
support the remaining magazines a bit more. It isn't only OUR, the editors, job,
to entertain you all. Originally it was thought that anyone  can share his ideas
and thoughts about the scene and its works in the magazines but today only a few
people still get this point and overall use it.

Obviously bulletin boards and forums are more catchy as to write down some stuff
for a magazine. Esp. if you  look how much work  and ideas are  put into all the
long (and often senseless) discussions on the several BBS's you start to wonder.
On the one hand  there are 4 main editors  that fighting to keep their magazines
running, and main editor doesn't  means to write all the stuff alone, but to put
all the stuff together  and to work out  the surrounding  and regular stuff too,
and  on the other hand you  have many, many  people flooding bulletin boards and
forums, speaking  there about  everything and nothing  and after all those guys,
that are fighting to keep their  mags alive are the ones that are blamed for the
fact that their magazines are loosing ground, aren't that filled anymore and are
released in an unregular way...

Something is going  wrong here  and I doubt we, the  diskmag editors, are on the
wrong trip  as we do our best to support  this scene, as  diskmags belong to the
demo scene like the  salt into the soup... And would  you only  use one spice to
make your meal tasting better?! Take three, Alive, Chosneck and UCM...

_.tSCc.__________________________________________________________moondog_o5/2k3_