Hmmmmmm, maybe I got out of bed the wrong side of bed yesterday or something, hence the tone of my initial post in this thread.
I did not mean to piss anybody off (Sid / John) but as Matt (Rancid) mentioned, I do get a lot of people giving me **** about this, again and again and again...........you get the picture I hope ?
Sid, as for you holding a different opinion to mine, that's fine as long as you can back up that opinion with a reasoned argument and relevant facts.
Now if you cannot, then please don't ask me to respect it.
There are two conflicting dynamics that explain the ongoing nature of this argument.
Firstly, is the feeling from a vociferous minority that perhaps their corner is not being represented well enough in the magazine.
Secondly, is the economic and readership imperatives we at the magazine have to adhere to if we all want to keep paying our mortgages (And I unfortunately have two).
And there you have it, the grey area between the two opposing camps is the battleground for the sometimes informed, sometimes outrageously ignorant points of argument that straddle this board.
Now it seems ludicrous that these interests do conflict because if we (PGI) are to uphold our end of the publishing bargain then we have to take into account, the points of view of our readership.
So how do I reconcile this and still remain on the 'right' side of this debate.
The minority who criticise us have different interests, their expectation is not of money in the bank, it's not to satisfy the majority of readers, it's a self-interest that we all have.
It is the nature of people to voice their disapprovals and it is also the nature of people to remain relatively quiet when things are cool.
So, we have a few pissed off people with what they se as a valid point up against not only us at PGI but also the silent majority.
And I think that majority needs to be contextualised because the people who are moaning are probably something like 0.4 % of the tournament players of the UK who in turn are less than 1% of the readership.
Now I ain't stupid enough to think that the only people in the UK who may be pissed off with us are the only people posting on this board, I am sure there are more out there but believe me, they are still a very small minority of the UK players.
Likewise, I also believe that silence (from the rest of the readership) doesn't always translate into approval of what we do.
All that said, we do listen to you guys, that I promise, and we do take it all seriously, that I also promise.
The problem arises (for me at least) is when I have to keep making the same points, to the same people over and over again.
Now if we were failing, in any way, in any of the debates we have had on this subject, believe me I and the others at PGI would recognise our tenuous position.
That has not happened yet !
We really do work hard at PGI to give all our readers the best possible coverage of all aspects of our sport and I suppose we should expect this from time to time.
What is undeniable is that, as paintball has evolved to become more international and more professional, a parallel path has been taken by PGI, we could no more ignore paintball's evolution any more than we could continue concentrating on UK coverage.
We are all part of a sport that has come further down the road than a lot of us could have ever thought, I for one am glad to be part of an international where Sid from Scotland or John (Sad)from wherever, can get their asses into an international magazine if they blow away a couple of the top Yank players when they come up against them in one of the prelim games.
Try and think of another sport or publication where you could see that.
I love this sport of ours, I love this magazine I work for, perhaps that is why I get over-involved sometimes, to put it mildly
I'm outa here.
CYA on the field guys, coz let's face it, that's where it's at for all of us
Robbo
