MeFi Mag #3 is here for a visit June 3, 2011 9:37 AM   Subscribe

MeFi Mag#3 is now available! Join us after the jump for more information on this issue, how to follow us online and open staff positions.

ABOUT THE ISSUE:
With the global community in mind, and with summer approaching, it made sense to pick a Travel and Place theme for this issue.

We have stories on how the land shapes narrative (pg. 20), on what proximity means for relationships (pg. 12), and on whether you can ever really leave (pg. 8). Of particular note is our first centerfold model for this issue, a beautiful graph on comments about AskMe "travel and transportation" questions.

No good trip is without some tangents, and even as place stretches into landscape (pg. 18) and travel turns into journey (pg. 7), or you just get covered with a bunch of ants (pg. 4), we've included enough detours and rambles to be worth at least one trip to the beach.

GETTING THE MAG
The issue is available both as print publication or downloadable PDF. Here's your options on how to get it:

1. Buy the print magazine from Magcloud. It's US $6.40, but that's just for cost, there is no profit involved with that price.

2. Download a PDF and avoid Magcloud if you wish.

Note that there is a slight difference between the print and digital version and it concerns the center spread. The print version has the graph about AskMe questions across the full center spread. It's large and you have to turn the print magazine sideways to read it and the explanation of the graph

The digital version has that same graph on a single 8.5x11 page, with the explanation of how to read it on the onjoining page of the spread. This makes it easier to read onscreen or print out on your home printer.

STAYING UPDATED WITH MEFI MAG:
Want to keep in touch with how the mag is doing?
See our website for updates and annoucements: http://www.mefimag.com
Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/MeFiMag
Friend us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002399125136

HELP WANTED:
Currently we're looking for copy editors, print designers, web designers and web developers. Those interested in copy editing should contact klangklangston. Designers and developers, contact Brandon Blatcher. The production cycle happens towards the end of the month. We use Indesign (CS3-5) for print and the ExpressionEngine CMS for the website.

NEXT ISSUE:
It's all about work baby! Got an interesting story, quote, essay or photo or art piece about work? Send it our way! Deadline is June 17th for publication in the July 2011 issue.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) to MetaFilter-Related at 9:37 AM (71 comments total) 22 users marked this as a favorite

I totally forgot to contribute because I was to busy traveling.
posted by The Whelk at 9:56 AM on June 3, 2011


Oh yeah, about that graph that's on the center spread? There's an online version of it!

Mefite -jf- created did the data wizardry. If you're using IE, view the java version. All other browsers can use the Javascript version.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:57 AM on June 3, 2011 [2 favorites]


Man, another fantastic looking issue. Thanks for all the work on this everyone, it looks terrific and I can't wait to dig into the stories.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:57 AM on June 3, 2011


Afro —

None of it fit the theme, but they're being held for future consideration.
posted by klangklangston at 9:59 AM on June 3, 2011


We'll look into Afroblanco, apologies!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:00 AM on June 3, 2011


Oh good, klang is conscious.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:01 AM on June 3, 2011


Yeah, it's the best yet.

I wish there was a better way to keep the costs down in terms of MagCloud, but since it charges per page, it is what it is. Last time, I had a promo code because I'd taken a survey about how we use MagCloud for business (which was totally noise for their data collection, even though I answered honestly).
posted by klangklangston at 10:02 AM on June 3, 2011


Yay! I guess since I'm actually in this, I should spring for a print copy.
posted by juv3nal at 10:12 AM on June 3, 2011


Yay! I'm excited to read everyone else's contributions and see how the print mag looks.

(Oh, and you guys managed to spell my real name wrong in two separate ways, one of which I've never encountered before, which is quite a feat, let me tell you;-)
posted by DestinationUnknown at 10:15 AM on June 3, 2011


Aww, butt. That's my fault then.
posted by klangklangston at 10:28 AM on June 3, 2011


Aww, butt.

Yes?
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:30 AM on June 3, 2011 [6 favorites]


Mefi Mag is awesome. the layout is beautiful, and the pictures are great.
posted by garlic at 10:32 AM on June 3, 2011


I was really honoured when Brandon Blatcher asked if he could use one of my photos for the magazine. After claiming to have looked through about forty albums which span years of travel, he chose this awesome one. Problem is, it's from the only gallery which has photos that I didn't take (attributed at the top of the album). Fuckin' deflated I was. I explained that it's a buddy's photo in the hope that he'd be like, 'oh okay, I'll just choose another one'. Nope. He asked me to ask my buddy Ryan if they could use it. I got permission and thought 'oh well, that was that'. Perhaps he could sense my disappointment because I soon received an email from BB about another photo he was thinking about using instead. I open up the URL, only to see that it's a photo I took of my ex. So, out of hundreds and hundreds of photos, first he chose one I didn't take and then one of a girl I had a bad breakup with. Anyway, glad to see it's on the back and not the front. I do love the one you chose for the cover. Nice job, boys.
posted by gman at 10:55 AM on June 3, 2011 [2 favorites]


I would like a (volunteer) job as a copy editor.

courtesty?
posted by carsonb at 11:17 AM on June 3, 2011


he chose this awesome one

Actually, it was this one from the same set and was going to be a wrap around cover. I will find a use for this other one though.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:24 AM on June 3, 2011 [1 favorite]


Or this one. It's perfect for something, just don't know what yet.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:29 AM on June 3, 2011


Aww, butt. That's my fault then.

Or possibly my Mom's - I emailed her the link and she said "Maybe I should have named you Joan."
posted by DestinationUnknown at 11:29 AM on June 3, 2011


Fantastic work! It looks beautiful. Can't wait to contribute to the next issue.
posted by Lutoslawski at 11:31 AM on June 3, 2011


courtesty?

Oh that was probably me, not klang, last minute thing typo.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:38 AM on June 3, 2011


It's his.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:48 AM on June 3, 2011


Since I'm off to Kenya (last issue) for work (next issue) on sunday, I'll keep an open mind in case i run across something interesting for the next issue.

I have some questions however -

-are these under our real names or can we choose to go by our Metafilter names?
-is it simply a submit and catch as catch can or is there an editorial board I can do some back and forth with if an article length story comes up? for example I'll get a chance to meet some interesting people
posted by infini at 11:54 AM on June 3, 2011


Hmm, I was under the impression that all the content came from MeFi threads. Instead, it seems as long as one is a Metafilter member, one can submit a variety of things? How about a blog entry link if the main thing is a piece (or pieces) of artwork? Or would it be best to submit the actual artwork in a jpeg or whatever file? (Was thinking the former would clog things up less.)
posted by Glinn at 12:11 PM on June 3, 2011


"-are these under our real names or can we choose to go by our Metafilter names?
-is it simply a submit and catch as catch can or is there an editorial board I can do some back and forth with if an article length story comes up? for example I'll get a chance to meet some interesting people
"

—Preferred style is MeFi Name (Real Name). In cases where people aren't comfortable having their real name attached, MeFi Name only is used.

—The "editorial board" is mostly me, Brandon and occasionally Limeonaire, as she's pretty awesome and has good ideas and I like to run things by her when they come up. But you can talk to me about article ideas and I'll work with you — we've run a couple of things that were revamped after discussion. (Which reminds me, I've gotta write a note to Msalt asking him to expand an article he submitted earlier.)

"Hmm, I was under the impression that all the content came from MeFi threads. Instead, it seems as long as one is a Metafilter member, one can submit a variety of things? How about a blog entry link if the main thing is a piece (or pieces) of artwork? Or would it be best to submit the actual artwork in a jpeg or whatever file? (Was thinking the former would clog things up less.)"

Some of the content in the first two issues was basically rewritten and expanded comments. When I see something cool mentioned by a member while I'm reading MeFi, I try to drop them a note and ask them to flesh it out. Some folks respond, others don't. Since we have rolling deadlines, I do need to do another sweep of folks who said they'd totally write something but haven't gotten it in yet.

The Submissions form tells how to submit, but yeah, we take artwork and prefer it in jpeg form (or really, it just has to be printable, so we have some guidelines on file size).

One thing to note about blog entries — because this is a magazine, I try to direct the copy editors to keep things tight (and myself try to edit things to be tight), and I've noticed that a lot of blog entries tend to be a bit rambly and over-written, so when you're submitting something you've published as a blog entry, it's often worth looking at it and thinking about how it will read in a magazine. Most blog entries are first drafts, even though they're live-edited. Having a second draft is usually way better.

(I'm totally rambly too, as you can tell from my comments here. I also overuse the em dash and tend toward eliding conjunctions. If any of you end up editing my stuff, feel free to be brutal about that, since I won't notice until I read the final version.)
posted by klangklangston at 12:27 PM on June 3, 2011 [2 favorites]


This is SUCH a gorgeous magazine. Congratulations, you guys. You do amazing work!
posted by lagreen at 12:33 PM on June 3, 2011 [1 favorite]


each issue gets better and that is the mark, it has edge and a theme, good lay out and good material...perhaps expand with a poem or comic. This is really fine work and keep it the fuck up for a i will offer my editorial services.
posted by clavdivs at 12:38 PM on June 3, 2011


Thank you Klang, I do have some story ideas on work related stuff but I'll wait till I'm there to see if there is any meat in the sandwich before emailing you.
posted by infini at 12:39 PM on June 3, 2011


Hey, the hyperlinks in the pdf are pretty schweet! The whole thing really looks great, again. I'm honored to even be considered useful for filler.
posted by Devils Rancher at 12:53 PM on June 3, 2011


*sets a wordpile of letterblocks before clavdivs, backs away slowly*
posted by carsonb at 12:58 PM on June 3, 2011


LOVE MeFiMag! That said, the lines around the links are my ONLY complaint about MeFi mag. Is there a way to hide them? Using Preview.
posted by terrapin at 12:59 PM on June 3, 2011


Wow, that's awesome.
posted by Jahaza at 1:03 PM on June 3, 2011


Don't make me bandy ISBNs'#
waves to heyho all the while feeling like an ass.
posted by clavdivs at 1:06 PM on June 3, 2011


This blows my mind every time it comes out -- well done everyone.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:23 PM on June 3, 2011


Hey, anyone know how to fix the floats on the MeFi Mag webpage? The copy should be running against the photos, not underneath. Hope us, you're our only help!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:41 PM on June 3, 2011


Wow, this is spectacular. Great work!
posted by deadmessenger at 1:48 PM on June 3, 2011


The first entry is missing a closing > on the <a> tag, first of all. Second, try adding a style attribute to each img tag like this one: style="float:left;". I don't see any float attributes anywhere in your source...

IANAWD, IANYWD
posted by carsonb at 1:49 PM on June 3, 2011


Weird. It moved. The images were aligned left like normal an hour ago.
posted by Devils Rancher at 1:50 PM on June 3, 2011


Oh, and as long as you're at it, you should add a right-border to those image style attributes as well so the text is offset from the edge of the image a bit.
posted by carsonb at 1:50 PM on June 3, 2011


All the images should be wrapped in a div now, "coverthumb". Here's the code:

coverthumb {
float: left;
width: 193px;
margin: 10px;
background: #241F1B;
border: 2pt solid black;
}

Still no satisfaction. Any idea?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:07 PM on June 3, 2011


Yeah, and somebody smack me if this is stupid, but try moving each first (word, even, of the accompanying) sentence 'above' or before the image tag.
posted by carsonb at 2:32 PM on June 3, 2011


In other words, embed the image ref within the block of text.
posted by carsonb at 2:32 PM on June 3, 2011


*one bean, two bean, three....*
posted by infini at 2:34 PM on June 3, 2011


In other words, embed the image ref within the block of text.

Hey, that worked, thanks! I thought that was bad form though, to write it in the code, as opposed to a div.

Took the float code out for the moment, it's needs a bit of work before going live
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:42 PM on June 3, 2011


I think you're just missing the period before the class name. Anyway, when I save it and make that change it works fine for me.
posted by -jf- at 2:46 PM on June 3, 2011


Also, I'm honored to have provided the magazine's first centerfold.
posted by -jf- at 2:50 PM on June 3, 2011


I think you're just missing the period before the class name.

Yep, that did it, thanks. Will fix up the code later tonight/tomorrow.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:50 PM on June 3, 2011


You guys are terrific!
posted by Mister_A at 3:37 PM on June 3, 2011


Cool! I'll have to order up a few hard copies for those members of my family who I wrote about in this issue. Thanks to klang and everyone else for tightening up the whole thing in the edit – not to mention publishing it in the first place.

Oh, and I just remembered, there's a (photo of a) photo of my uncle Gerald here.
posted by Len at 5:27 PM on June 3, 2011


This is really good you guys. I hope to contribute something soon.
posted by Sailormom at 6:15 PM on June 3, 2011


"Also, I'm honored to have provided the magazine's first centerfold."

Without taking your clothes off!
posted by klangklangston at 7:05 PM on June 3, 2011


As far as you know.
posted by -jf- at 7:09 PM on June 3, 2011 [2 favorites]


Yay! I'm delighted to have a piece included in this issue—it's such a handsome magazine. Thanks a bunch!
posted by hot soup girl at 7:35 PM on June 3, 2011


This is excellent, what a lovely surprise to read.

In regards to criticism, I think the internal design and content of the magazine is excellent. but you could do with better work on your website and cover design. The covers (and logo) in particular seem to currently be at a lower design standard than the interior of the magazine. I would try to find someone who is capable of taking that up a level because at the moment they "hide" the content somewhat rather than presenting it in the best possible light.
posted by Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory at 3:25 AM on June 4, 2011


Excellent magazine and thanks to you all for the obvious effort to pull it all together.

Len, I loved your contribution - a great story well written and very observant of the depressed central belt in the 1970s. It also bubbled up many memories of my childhood - my gran lived in Uddingston so I've been to Blantyre more times than I'd like to remember, and my childhood in the '70s comprised of a blur of travel to middle and far eastern countries as my parents escaped an economically challenged Ayrshire. And did my parents beat their 'Exterminating Angel Syndrome'? Well ... they're now happily retired and living 30 miles away in Kirkintilloch. You judge.
posted by KirkpatrickMac at 6:56 AM on June 4, 2011


-jf-, that graph is totally great. I love the obvious striations from year to year as the (North American?) travel season cycles.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:12 AM on June 4, 2011


Thanks heyho, but we should leave Mr. Salts office as we found it.
posted by clavdivs at 8:16 AM on June 4, 2011


Also, I'm honored to have provided the magazine's first centerfold.

I really do read the magazine for the articles. Good work y'all.
posted by arcticseal at 8:32 AM on June 4, 2011


/me tosses clavdivs a wh, an le, a comma, an and, and a shift key (and a friendly smile).

Many are called, few are punctuated.
posted by y2karl at 9:37 AM on June 4, 2011 [1 favorite]


Thanks, cortex. Yeah, I'm glad this issue's theme was travel & location. I've looked at graphs for the other AskMe categories, and many of them aren't as interesting.
posted by -jf- at 10:12 AM on June 4, 2011


Damn this looks good. I'll be tucking into this shortly. (Thanks for the non-magCloud link)
posted by From Bklyn at 12:57 PM on June 4, 2011


Great job. And I happen to think the name spelling was EXCELLENT in this issue.

To generalize, Afroblanco's question -- if we submit something for one issue, can we assume it's in the hopper for future issues? Or should we resubmit when it seems to fit a future issue theme?
posted by msalt at 12:20 PM on June 5, 2011


Yeah, basically. You can also resubmit, especially if a little bit of rewriting makes it fit a given theme better.
posted by klangklangston at 2:07 PM on June 5, 2011


Yay! My photo got in! and boo...my name was misspelled. (50/50 it was my own fault though)
posted by nile_red at 9:02 PM on June 6, 2011


Just wanted to pop back in and say that mrs arcticseal read it and was very impressed, looks great on the iPad.
posted by arcticseal at 5:55 PM on June 7, 2011


In regards to criticism, I think the internal design and content of the magazine is excellent. but you could do with better work on your website and cover design. The covers (and logo) in particular seem to currently be at a lower design standard than the interior of the magazine. I would try to find someone who is capable of taking that up a level because at the moment they "hide" the content somewhat rather than presenting it in the best possible light.

If someone would like to redesign the cover and/or logo, feel free to do so and we'll see about incorporating them into the mag.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:30 AM on June 9, 2011


Great job on the mag, everyone! I'm planning to submit a piece for the upcoming work-themed issue, so you'll hear from me soon.
posted by velvet winter at 1:12 AM on June 10, 2011


How not to do headlines: "Rock Breaks European Tour Duck in Italy"
posted by msalt at 9:19 AM on June 12, 2011


Stupid rock, paper is your true enemy!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:27 AM on June 12, 2011 [1 favorite]


Yank Rag Brit Hed Style Nick Move Troubles
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:58 AM on June 12, 2011 [1 favorite]


rilliant. Wot? BReminds me of a judge in a palindrome writing contest who complained about the "telegraphic barking" it all sounded like.
posted by msalt at 11:03 AM on June 12, 2011


NEXT ISSUE'S THEME: COOL

Whether temperature or temperament, we encourage you to explore what "cool" means, how it's constructed and how to get it, for our August issue.

Have a cool story, tip or idea? Send us a note: letters@mefimag.com

Likewise, have a response to anything in the most recent issue? Send us a letter.

SUBMIT HERE.
posted by klangklangston at 11:50 AM on June 27, 2011


I don't know if I'm ready to submit, to any one particular writing system, but i'll have my draft of work after seeing nairobi out to you by the weekend.
posted by infini at 11:37 AM on June 29, 2011


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