Camp Chase Gazette and the Watchdog

[coastaltrash]

Re: C/P/H and The Watchdog

Craig,
Again, for probably the fourth time in this thread, no one is attacking the Watchdog. Your choice to associate and combine with a piss poor magazine is what many here have an issue with. I believe the reason that so many people supported the magazine in the early days is because of the product reviews, but above that, it was around at the start of the campaigner movement. It was Camp Chase and the Watchdog when I started coming around the Campaigner Movement in 2001. When I picked up a packet from the guy who helped me along, inside were 3 books and 4 old issues of the Watchdog. I don't believe anyone collectively cares how many people think that watering down the Dog by joining with the other rag is a good idea. I also know as the other members do that CWH was started by a really good Living Historian and the position was filled by an equal in many peoples eyes. CWH also donates a portion of its new subscriptions to CWPT.

Placed my order for back issues last night, with money hitting the mail today. I still urge anyone who wants a great article to pick up some old Watchdogs, but the new path is one I won't venture down personally nor recommend.

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: C/P/H and The Watchdog

Some of you have expressed disappointment. Let me disappoint you some more...

1. If you are a subscriber to The Watchdog, the decision we made about no longer self publishing the magazine has been communicated to you, as well as your options. If you are not a subscriber or a customer, and most of those posting here are not, then while we value your opinion I do question your motivation. What concern is it of yours? Kevin O'Beirne in particular...a writer and researcher whose work is respectable, but who cares what you think about The Watchdog?

Craig,

This is a public forum where ideas are exchanged. Once in a while those ideas are regarding a reenactor periodical--whether "The Watchdog" or "CWH" or "CCG" or something else. You sustain this and other discussions on this forum when it suits you, but when someone questions what the periodical you work with has become, you snippishly reply to the effect of "no one cares what you think" and more--not terribly professional.

Editors are focal points for controversey and are the figurehead of their periodical. Get used to that. They get the same, or greater, flak as the people who write controversial articles.

Personally, I think the Dog's decision to associate itself with Lakeway Publishing is regrettable. It's unfortunate that, as publisher of "The Columbia Rifles Research Compendium" 2nd Edition, the Dog is now associating itself with the very entity that has blatently plagarized the CRRC2 multiple times and to this day continues to avoid settling the matter. At one point the editor of the CRRC2 and I were informed of a rumor that the Dog had given CCG permission to reprint CRRC2 material: if that's true, please take this as my public statement that no such permission was ever given by me for my work.

You know, in years past I defended the Dog to reenactors who decried the publication's straying from its roots as early as about 1998. While I will not attack the Dog, having no reason to, I am also free to say that I discontinued my own subscription to it some years ago, along with most folks I know, because I felt it simply wasn't worth the price anymore. I'm not an expert on Civil War material culture and originally subscribed to the Dog to learn more about it as it related to originals that the repros were/are supposedly copied from.

Lately you are stating multiple times on this forum that preservation causes are your primary concern. If that's the case, then you can make a larger impact in ways other than the Dog. If, however, you care about the original reasons why the Dog was founded--that being, to shed some light on the claims of makers of repro wares (regardless of who the purchaser is)--then refocus the publication on that and maybe I'll resubscribe. If however, you continue to focus on "mega-events" and being visible, at the expense of the stuff that I wish to read about, then I'll continue to abstain from subscribing.

I'm not telling you to change "The Watchdog"--as editor, with the publisher, you and Bill will do as you feel right because it's your periodical. I just don't have to subsidize it with my money, and can certainly support preservation in other ways to boot.

And I think that cozying up to CCG is a grave mistake for the Dog.

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: C/P/H and The Watchdog

For example, all the layout and editing work on the CRRC2 was donated by me. It amounts to well over five hundred man-hours and that doesn't count the time spent filling and shipping book orders.

Kevin:
The CCG did not knowingly allow your articles to be plagarized. They may have been sloppy in their selection of the articles, primarily because the new editor had never even read your original articles. It is curious to note that this forum allowed the plagarizer to almost become a pop icon before he was booted. I can certainly understand your feeling of violation, but I do not believe that the CCG acted with malice. I was guilty of printing an article based on one in a publication that I had never read. We worked out a proper resolution without resorting to lawsuits and incriminations

Bill,

I think your first paragraph above implies that no editing was done on the CRRC by anyone but you, which is incorrect. I certainly wish someone had let me see an publisher's proof of my chapters so I could have corrected the numerous errors inserted into my articles; these errors were not present in the original text. One the earthworks article I stopped counting the errors when I reached the sixth one by page 3 of the article. I've found errors in other chapters I wrote as well--again, that were not present in the versions I submitted. I'm not sure who "edited" that stuff, but several folks had a hand in editing it.

Regarding Lakeway Publishing, they plagarized again AFTER they received written notification of the first, outrageous incident of plagarizing my work. While I don't feel it's the AC Forum's place to settle this matter, I disagree with your assertion that the Forum allowed the person that I believe is the principal plagarizer to become a "pop icon" (I have no idea on what you base that statement). Of course, the principal responsibility for what is published in Lakeway's periodicals is Lakeway's and their employees. Lack of knowledge of the rules NEVER is an excuse for breaking the law.

It's my understanding that Lakeway struck some type of deal with "The Watchdog" for advertising after the first instance of plagarizing my work. If that's true, it's great that yet someone else has profited from the theft of my work--lots of folks are seeing the value of that, I guess. If that story is not true, then I apologize for the remark.

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: C/P/H and The Watchdog

A particularly grating aspect of the dialog here (for those reading between the lines) is the lack of support or gratitude by the two members of the Columbia Rifles in particular after the enormous investment of time and money The Watchdog put in to publishing the Columbia Rifles Research Compendium 2nd edition. Bill said he put in five hundred hours laying it out and editing it? As well as thousands of dollars that had to be invested, a good portion of it borrowed, so that the CR book could see the light of day. CRRC 2nd ed is a very good book that like The Watchdog, did not enjoy enough support from whatever we want to call "our part of the hobby" to cover the costs of publishing it. The book ultimately re-couped its costs and the first run is about to sell out, but not from the support of the EBUFU crowd, the CRs or the vocal minority (1%). Now, put in that light reconsider the commentary in this thread about the relative merits of The Watchdog from those quarters. There are some names for characters like that, they aren't very respectful...but they are honest.

Craig,

You're starting to piss me off.

In case you were not aware, the CRRC was self-published by the Columbia Rifles, Inc., in its first run. I am certainly aware of the effort and cost to publish, edit, and mail it, having been part if it to the tune of 1,200 copies of the 1st Edition. I was not privvy to the particulars of the deal about publishing the 2nd Edition regarding who approached who. "The Watchdog" has, in recent years, published more than one monograph for reenactors, including Pat Brown's book on Federal sack coats.

Don't get me wrong. Being in the book publishing business is a drag that is not what I or others in the CR got into reenacting to do. Speaking as one of the writers and as former President of the CR, we are grateful for "The Watchdog" taking on the task of publishing and selling the CRRC2. That said, the book was a large effort by numerous folks--while patting yourself on the back for it, don't forget to credit those outside your small circle who also made it happen.

"The Watchdog" was the publisher selected by the Columbia Rifles. It was not the only publisher interested in it. We liked "The Watchdog" because it had a good record of publishing reenactor books, and we know the publisher and have worked with him before. Most of the other publishers interested didn't have that level of familiarity going for them with us. Your post almost implies that we were unable to find anyone else except "The Watchdog" to publish it.

Your assertion that the CR has not supported the publishing of the book is, shall I politely say, "erroneous in the extreme", given that there'd be no book to publish without the CR, and the CR supported it with quite a number of initial sales. I personally posted on the forums, without being asked by the publisher, to "get the word out" about the publication of the 2nd Edition--maybe, among other things, you haven't noticed that my signature line on Szabo's Forum has had a link to the CRRC2 website since before the book was physically published. You may be better off telling both sides of the story.

Y'know, I'm wondering what the heck the CRRC is doing being a topic of discussion--brough up by you--on a thread about who "The Watchdog" is working with these days.

Finally, when there's a bit of criticism about your periodical, it's content, and who it's elected to associate itself with, don't get to pissy in public. Doesn't reflect terribly well on either the publication or you.

[paulcalloway]

Re: C/P/H and The Watchdog

Bill -

Regarding the assertion that the plagarizer was allowed to run amuck here - that isn't what happened and I don't think it's a fair criticism.

The AC admin has been under a bit of a transition since the system crash last fall. I came back to the AC having been away from the hobby and this website for almost two years. It took me a little while to get back up to speed.

Can anyone seriously say that I didn't act on the plagarizing situation with enough vigor? As soon as Craig Barry brought it to my attention, I promptly contacted the user in question - obtained copies of his articles, and as a CRRC 1st and 2d ed owner, I compared the articles and after sharing and consulting with Justin Runyon, we made an immediate decision to ban the user.

According to my records, Craig brought it to my attention on August 1 and by August 6th we had banned the user and notified the userbase on the 7th that we would not condone this sort of behavior.

How much faster can we act than that? If you see something here that isn't right - alert us and we'll act on it. Don't alert it and we may not see it.

[flattop32355]

Re: C/P/H and The Watchdog

How many participants were at Mill Spring? What was the registration fee? What was the spectator fee?

The reenactor registration fee was $10 until June 1, $15 from June 2 to Sept. 1, and $20 for walkons.

I believe I saw a sign at the entrance that said the spectator fee was $20; not sure if that was for the entire weekend or just per day. I don't think that was per carload/family, either.

According to Mike Ventura on the NSA website bulletin board, there were approximately 1200 reenactors (apparently including civilians) and 20,000 spectators over the weekend. I know that, at certains times of the day, the Federal camp was swamped with very attentive, very appreciative spectators who weren't afraid to ask questions or linger to talk with the men.

[John E. Tobey]

Re: C/P/H and The Watchdog

Kevin: Although Bill did provide some proofreading assistance (along with others), any editing errors in the CRRC2 are mine. I'm very sorry it happened, and a disappointed to have to read about it here for the first time.

Also, the statement made about the CCG writer having permission to use CRRC articles came from the plagiarist himself -- you know this, as I shared the email in question with you. It wasn't a rumor, it was the scallawag's lame attempt at self defence. Absolutely no credibility can be attached to his statement.

Craig, and others: It's true that there has been a lack of vocal support of the CRRC2 by the CRs, particularly on this forum. This is a reaction to censure after promoting the CRRC1 -- we were told to tone down the music. Here's a true "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.

John Tobey

[paulcalloway]

Re: C/P/H and The Watchdog

Craig, and others: It's true that there has been a lack of vocal support of the CRRC2 by the CRs, particularly on this forum. This is a reaction to censure after promoting the CRRC1 -- we were told to tone down the music. Here's a true "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.

John Tobey

Eh? Who told you that?

[Craig L Barry]

Re: C/P/H and The Watchdog

I am out of town, using a hotel lobby computer with internet access.

John:
In the case of "damned if you and damned if you don't", let's take "damned if you do". The whole Camp Chase involvement resulted from our need to continuously advertise CRRC-2, you can go back and read the posts. The serious participants did not support the effort. IE: I believe out of over 5,000 members here we pre-sold maybe 275 copies and then it stalled out, many of those to Watchdog subscribers not affiliated with the A-C Forum. The mainstream (whatever that is) did support it in a big way. As Curt Henrich Schmidt wrote in that thread:

Hallo!

By way of discussion...
Is this just a pre-publication lack of interest that will pass when physical copies can be found at vendors and perused and browsed, before purchasing- or are the low numbers more "indicative" of other thngs?

Meaning, if there are 3,000-4,000 "members" of the AC Board why are there only 275 orders??

Curt
__________________
Curt Schmidt
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why indeed? As far as the other material posted, as Caesar said "Ala Jacta Est" (the die is cast). It will work out okay for The Watchdog or it won't. Not much to be done about it now. To all interested I say this:

Camp Chase or Lakeway does not own or operate The Watchdog. Camp Chase is publishing the articles we submit in "our section" of their magazine. Camp Chase is not a living entity which is either good or evil. Separate the deed from the doer. It is an inanimate object, a magazine. You either like the content or you don't. If you don't, then don't read it. And if you subscribed to The Watchdog and liked it, chances are you still will. It's not going to be dumbed down. However, the one message I am getting loud and clear from this corner of the world is that The Watchdog did not meet (some of) your expectations, and had not for some time and hence for this and other reason the magazine failed and the articles had to find a new home. Good enough? Based on a six month trial run, the feedback from Camp Chase readers was overall very enthusiastic and supportive. They wanted more. We can't continue to publish the magazine ourselves. We knew of no other options.

Next point. The books have been relatively successful, extremely successful compared to the magazine, so we are going to concentrate more of our efforts there. If you liked the CRRC-2 (the couple hundred from here who bought it seem happy enough), or the Civil War Musket, or For Fatigue purposes...these are called niche market books. We think books like this, not magazines, are the future of the hobby. All of the magazines struggle now.

What has been made clear, and what is now very obvious to me is that The Watchdog magazine missed the boat somewhere. I've heard that from Charles Heath before, by the way more than once...but so what? Even a broken clock is right twice a day. There was a paradigm shift and the make-up and interests of the hobby changed. The same dynamic in place fifteen years ago is not in effect anymore. As Linda Trent points out (paraphrasing), "I want my information now, not in a quarter of a year". We are clearly not connecting with whatever you want to call this part of the hobby. Clearly there are splinter groups like the 1%-ers within the broader segment of Forum members.

We aren't going to worry about that which is simple fact. We are what we are. The Watchdog is moving forward on our pending book projects, musket raffles and we will attempt to offer articles to whatever segment of the community wants to "Get It Right" (old school style) and support battlefield preservation. Being an approved vendor means we are supporting you, not the other way around...and we certainly do not intend to change what we do well to pander to the fringe element. You have a magazine that does that very well already. Most of you are not aware of the nickname for it in publishing circles, but trust me on this one it is somewhat derogatory. The thrust of it is that the quality of the writing and the editorial standards are on par w/ Camp Chase, but the pictures are glossier. Don't tell me your feelings about that because that is a shot at me as well. I've published a few times in there myself. However, just as with Camp Chase Gazette, that magazine does not need The Watchdog (which is still separate and autonomus) to apologize for or defend them, and we are not about to. We too go back a few years with the editor who is our friend and comrade, and who has proven more than capable of defending his own interests. If any magazine makes support from these quarters part of their business plan, they can expect to struggle.

The silent majority feel differently about The Watchdog. My email and PM count is now running 30 to 1 in favor of The Watchdog published by CCG decision. Folks know where to find us and how to order the books. If this is starting to piss you off, you are wasting your time telling The Watchdog team about it. This is an internet forum made up of many members but with very few actual participants and no shortage of opinons. Freely share them among yourselves. The Watchdog wants everyone to be happy here, but we don't care if you're not. We volunteer our time, money and energy in the interest of improving things such as we see it but primarily preserving battlefield land. Let it go and move on.

[paulcalloway]

Re: C/P/H and The Watchdog

Craig -
Your numbers are out of whack, we have about 2000-2500 active users.

[Cfarrell]

Re: C/P/H and The Watchdog

The authentic population is not 3,000-4,000 members strong. I hate to say that but its not. Many people visit this site from both mainstream and progressive units alike not only authentic. We all know that!

Regards,

[Craig L Barry]

Re: C/P/H and The Watchdog

Paul:

Thanks for the clarification. My bad, I thought AC just had a little back slapping session when the Forum passed 5,000 members. No? Is the distinction then "active" vs "inactive"? Whatever the case the point is pre-selling 500 copies in the epicenter of the authentic movement should not have been an overly ambitious goal for a book like CRRC-2. A big disappointment, and the first of many for The Watchdog.

I have to say though, I have enjoyed the on-line banter for the most part and without trying made some lifelong friends. All the politics just isn't particularly in my area of interest. I believe I joined in the A-C Forum in 2004, never posted until maybe a year ago. Feel good about it, believe I did some good and helped some guys out with their muskets and one fellow who was desperate for a canteen a week or two back. Raised some money for battlefield preservation. That's all good.

Bill Christen is going to be tending to The Watchdog business and answering inquiries on our behalf here. I'll leave my account open a while longer as I still get a few musket related defarbing inquiries and so on. Maybe I will drop in and opine from time to time, but it is really not in my area of interest. I only post here to support The Watchdog books and battlefield preservation. Since we don't "fit" here, this makes my decision very easy. To paraphrase Bill Adams from the foreward of The Civil War Musket "the folks posting on the internet forums continue to freely share their ignorance". He means this forum. You can sure do that without The Watchdog, or at least this editor.

I once wrote that the diversion this hobby provides saves some participants the cost of a pyschiatrist. What I know now is that a few of you should go ahead and pay the difference.

[coastaltrash]

Re: C/P/H and The Watchdog

I don't think anyone was saying anything negative at least not to the point that your response warrants. Even though I attempted to correct you several times the jabs were mostly on your end. What it appears to be is you did not get the answer you wanted, people asked why you wouldn't come out to a good event 45 minutes from your home (as a participant, not to sell the magazine and at least test the waters) but instead, you sit with your self righteous tone, judging us over a question you asked. Charles has a talent that I frankly lack, I am unable to give hidden meanings in the comments I make, and sometimes the blunt nature confuses people.

I didn't see any great back slapping over the 5,000 mark and hopefully people don't take that as a real number. I'll take that as a real number when 5,000 show up at a GOOD event (as in EBUFU). I personally don't think that CWH is any great contributor to historical facts. It's a good magazine for the hobby, but that's about it. There have been some good preservation articles, some good examinations of original artifacts but at the end of the day, it's a magazine for reenactors- and reenactors (living historians whatever) have a stigma in the real Historian world, and it damn sure isn't a good one.

Craig, as with the choice of CCG, your participation on this forum is not up to us. I think with someone like you and Curt giving answers on guns there could have been about a hundred "How do I defarb my enfield" questions answered. But practice what you preach on doing it right, pick up the gear you guys review and give an authentic event a try in the future. We're actually doing a Living History at Stone's River next year.

[paulcalloway]

Re: C/P/H and The Watchdog

To paraphrase Bill Adams from the foreward of The Civil War Musket "the folks posting on the internet forums continue to freely share their ignorance".

Craig -
If that's how Bill Adams feels about this forum then thats regrettable - but he clearly specializes in a form of ignorance of his own.

You're openly insulting our membership here based upon the comments of a few - you're openly insulting the administration of this forum... a lot of who put in longer hours on behalf of this hobby than any of you on the WD editorial staff.

There are a lot of good people here who aren't directly involved in this discussion, who work hard, who research, who write and who bought that damn book, including me. And you've just insulted them, and it's not the first time in this thread which you've insulted them.

Whatever the case the point is pre-selling 500 copies in the epicenter of the authentic movement should not have been an overly ambitious goal for a book like CRRC-2. A big disappointment, and the first of many for The Watchdog.

Well I'm sorry we couldn't deliver. Who do I make the check out to for the missing 225 copies? Does that go to you or Bill?

[Watchdog]

Re: C/P/H and The Watchdog

. . . that the Dog had given CCG permission to reprint CRRC2 material: if that's true, please take this as my public statement that no such permission was ever given by me for my work.

You know, in years past I defended the Dog to reenactors who decried the publication's straying from its roots as early as about 1998.

Kevin,

Before any material from Watchdog Quarterly, Inc. publications is reprinted, permission is obtained from the author (the copyright holder). Nothing written by you is being considered for reprinting.

Change is inevitable. I guess as the editor, I thought I was free to change the direction at anytime. In reality the heading my have changed or the course altered, but the destination has always been the same--presentation of accurate information about the social and material culture. Perhaps it was more of that the readers have changed course or found other formats from which to get there information.