Red Faces at Scale Aircraft Modelling

[Whofan]

I could 't help but chuckle as SAM goes all Grauniad in its new issue, September 2022 Vol. 44 issue 7.

 

Source of my amusement?

 

pages 54 - 58, Colour Conumndrum; Daylight camouflage for aircraft of the RFC and RAF 1917 - 1918 part 1.

 

The captions to all the pictures are the ones for the August issue Colour Conundrum Duck egg blue and Battle of Britain.

 

I think I'll keep the September issue in case the error makes it a valuable misprint !

 

Seriously, I'm sure this kind of error is easy to make these days, I'm confident that the magazine will correct this in the next issue.

Edited August 20, 2022 by Whofan
PunctuPunctuation

[Graham Boak]

The joys of time-saving computerised magazine production.  But as with too many other (if lesser) cases, it shows that proof-reading is a lost art.

[Whofan]

1 minute ago, Graham Boak said:

The joys of time-saving computerised magazine production.  But as with too many other (if lesser) cases, it shows that proof-reading is a lost art.

I have fallen victim to this kind of error at work in the past, which did on one occasion cause severe embarrassment for me. Funnily enough, I never made that mistake ever again!

[Pigpen]

32 minutes ago, Graham Boak said:

The joys of time-saving computerised magazine production.  But as with too many other (if lesser) cases, it shows that proof-reading is a lost art.

Oh don't get me started. I was a hair's breadth from sending a recent copy of that new Phoenix journal back with all the mistakes annotated in felt pen. How hard is it to read a piece of copy out loud on a computer and notice the grammatical mistakes never mind using a spell checker? If you are paying attention to stuff being read aloud they feel like being hit across the face with a halibut.

 

I've just sent 13k words to my boss for review and the expectation is that it should have zero mistakes. It will then go through another two stages of QA before it makes it to a website. And that's a government report that we are not expecting people to pay for.

 

Grrrr.

 

Mind you after all that quality control we still managed to publish "there were no facilities to allow staff to wash their hands between shits" (shifts) 🤦‍♂️

[KLN]

I did contact Gary at SAM yesterday morning and he sent me the following:

 

Upper surfaces of the scheme as applied Colour Conundrum Capions

 

illustration 1

Sketch of Camouflage (Scheme 7) as applied to Bristol Scout from Orfordness report D/62.

The disruptive pattern as applied to the upper surface of the bottom plane and sides of the fuselage are not shown in the original diagram. It would appear that the pattern on the upper surface of the top plane was repeated on the bottom plane. The under surfaces of the bottom plane, fuselage, and tail plane are assumed to have had a clear doped linen finish.

 

illustration 2

The upper surface of port top plane of Armstrong Whitworth F.K.3 A8103 as far inboard as the inboard inter-plane struts.

Unfortunately, not all of the upper surfaces can be seen in the photograph on which this illustration is based thus preventing the entire scheme being illustrated. The hues of the khaki green, reddish earth, light buff and Vandyke Brown are representative only.

 

illustration 3

‘Aeroplane BE.2E’ drawing - port side

This camouflage scheme as detailed in Orfordness Report E/30 was applied to the two B.E. 2es serial numbers A562 and B4520 that were sent to France for operational trials. Colour swatches of all four camouflage colours remain on file at the UK National Archives.

 

illustration 4

‘Aeroplane BE.2E’ drawing - starboard side

As with the port side illustration this scheme was applied to the two B.E. 2es serial numbers A562 and B4520 that were sent to France for operational trials.

 

illustration 5

‘Aeroplane BE.2E’ drawing - top side

to the two B.E. 2es serial numbers A562 and B4520 that were sent to France for operational trials.

 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

16 hours ago, Whofan said:

I have fallen victim to this kind of error at work in the past, which did on one occasion cause severe embarrassment for me. Funnily enough, I never made that mistake ever again!

 

I've done it numerous times on my website illustrations. It's usually after someone or something distracts me from my work process after copying over a previous artifact of the correct format / font size etc to be altered and it gets forgotten about.

 

I also spend a lot of time drafting technical responses to Invitations to Tender as part of my day job. I have done for many years, mostly because there aren't so many people who understand design engineering who can articulately describe it in industry so this work tends to always fall to the same rather small number of people. That's not to say I enjoy it, because I don't.

 

In either case, unless the person proof reading is truly cold-eyes to it but also technically familiar with what you're doing the errors are generally not noticed. Your average proof reader will notice a word spelled incorrectly or incorrect grammar. They won't pick up that a correctly written and formatted technical error. Almost never, in my experience.

[pigsty]

20 hours ago, Whofan said:

Colour Conumndrum

Oh, if only they'd proof-read that article ...

[Whofan]

2 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

I've done it numerous times on my website illustrations. It's usually after someone or something distracts me from my work process after copying over a previous artifact of the correct format / font size etc to be altered and it gets forgotten about.

 

I also spend a lot of time drafting technical responses to Invitations to Tender as part of my day job. I have done for many years, mostly because there aren't so many people who understand design engineering who can articulately describe it in industry so this work tends to always fall to the same rather small number of people. That's not to say I enjoy it, because I don't.

 

In either case, unless the person proof reading is truly cold-eyes to it but also technically familiar with what you're doing the errors are generally not noticed. Your average proof reader will notice a word spelled incorrectly or incorrect grammar. They won't pick up that a correctly written and formatted technical error. Almost never, in my experience.

And got distracted again. Failed to notice I hadn't selected edit.

Edited August 20, 2022 by Whofan

[pigsty]

 

20 hours ago, Pigpen said:

I've just sent 13k words to my boss for review and the expectation is that it should have zero mistakes. It will then go through another two stages of QA before it makes it to a website. And that's a government report that we are not expecting people to pay for.

You lucky, lucky basket.  I work in a different part of the public sector where we issues instructions to front-line staff.  We have even more layers of approval than that and armloads of mistakes still get through.  And it's not just typos; it's ambiguous, meaningless word salad that leaves people not knowing what they should do or even whether they should do it.  Then I take over responsibility for this cobblers as my job, and every week I have to field calls from the front line that amount to What does page 20 mean?  And then I try to improve it, and the same umpteen layers of approval won't let me because it's "not how we do things" - in other words it's direct, clear and unambiguous, which they seem to think is the same as rude.  I wouldn't mind, but I'm quite sure people have died as a result.

[Mr T]

What I want to know about SAM is how Ernie Lee is reviewing books from the 'Other Side'.  Does Mr Hatcher have a ouija board session every month. 

Proof reading does seem a lost art in all sorts of areas,  although the much maligned Guardian does seem better these days.  

[Latinbear]

Speaking of errors, did anybody notice that the one page review of the recent Special Hobby Ki-54 Otsu gun trainer that featured on page 20 of SAM's July issue was repeated on page 78 of the August issue? 

[Dave Batt]

Trouble is (or was, thirty years back) that it was the page designers who took the lead because they dealt with the exciting colourful images that would attract the browsers' attention, while the editors 'just' focussed on the boring drab grey areas that the designers were compelled to shoe horn between the dramatic stuff.  Telling designers they'd have to reposition and resize a couple of images to get the captions in the right place to make sense would see near-tantrums, which is why Editors may now only see 'proofs' after the separations are done (i.e., it's too late to make changes).

Edited August 22, 2022 by Dave Batt
gramar 'n' spelin

[ckw]

On 20/08/2022 at 14:50, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

In either case, unless the person proof reading is truly cold-eyes to it but also technically familiar with what you're doing the errors are generally not noticed. Your average proof reader will notice a word spelled incorrectly or incorrect grammar. They won't pick up that a correctly written and formatted technical error. Almost never, in my experience.

The problem is that as readers we are very good at seeing what we expect to see rather than what is actually on the page  ( have a look at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/jumbled-words-letters-puzzle-cambridge-a6889811.html)

This makes proof reading difficult. A long time ago I had a part time job proof reading theses (not a lot of fun!). An old hand passed on a tip to me - read it backwards! Because the words are then out of context, you can't read what you expect to read so typos become much more obvious.

 

Cheers

 

Colin

[56134]

'Egg on face entirely mine (thoroughly cooked to a crisp in the heatwave) and apologies to author, artist, and all readers for the faux pas. Correction to follow and in the meantime if anyone contacts me on the editorial address I can email the correct information, although thanks KLN for posting it above. Off now to shoot the other foot'

[Jon Kunac-Tabinor]

58 minutes ago, Dave Batt said:

Trouble is (or was, thirty years back) that it was the page designers who took the lead because they dealt with the exciting colourful images that would attract the browsers' attention, while the editors 'just' focussed on the boring drab grey areas that the designers were compelled to shoe horn between the dramatic stuff.  Telling designers they'd have to reposition and resize a couple of images to get the captions in the right place to make sense would see near-tantrums, which is why Editors may now only see 'proofs' after the separations are done (i.e., it's too late to make changes).

Hi David, proofing nowadays is done on screen using press-ready PDFs and has been for years. Most artwork goes straight to plate when it's time to print, so colour-separated film doesn't exist anymore.
Our designers are always happy to make layout and typo changes, and indeed do - all the the time. But sometimes, as Gary says, we make mistakes and they get through. It's annoying (and believe me we don't like it when we make them) but we will always apologise and make good.

cheers

Jonners
Assistant Editor, SAM.

[Dave Batt]

On 8/22/2022 at 11:00 AM, Jon Kunac-Tabinor said:

Hi David, proofing nowadays is done on screen using press-ready PDFs and has been for years. Most artwork goes straight to plate when it's time to print, so colour-separated film doesn't exist anymore.

Good point to bring us (well, me, who started with hot metal) up to date!

[Whofan]

On 22/08/2022 at 10:32, 56134 said:

'Egg on face entirely mine (thoroughly cooked to a crisp in the heatwave) and apologies to author, artist, and all readers for the faux pas. Correction to follow and in the meantime if anyone contacts me on the editorial address I can email the correct information, although thanks KLN for posting it above. Off now to shoot the other foot'

Dear Editor,

 

I hope you didn't mind my pointing this out, it gave me a little chuckle at the time and now the corrections are known we have all been given a lot more information on proof reading by you and Jonners!

[SleeperService]

Sadly this is becoming a common issue, at one stage I sub-contracted to a relative who proof read which involved use of a red pen and devious markings. It was slower to get to press but, at the time, poor grammar filled the postbag soon after publication. Fast will always be the enemy of the good but people seem happy to pay for what's on offer so it must be good enough.

As we relied on the post I'm sure a 'peer-review' process could be done via the Interweb, a handful of people who go through an issue leaves the editor to collate the responses, in my experience not a huge job. 

 

Part of the problem in the public sector is many, many desk jockeys needing to justify their ego. I worked at a major employer where everything intended for the shop floor had to be short, focused, and relevant. The briefers added local colour and the message got home. Cheap, fast and effective meant more resources available for really productive work, It's a job that needs a natural communicator but, too often, a company employs a graduate type who is bored rigid by the job. 

[John R]

When my daughter worked for the local council any press releases had to be cleared by the legal department. One piece that she had written came back with the terse comment 'Who wrote this?' My daughter replied 'I did - why?' Back came the comment 'because it scans and it is spelled correctly. This is not as common as you might think'

[Robin-42]

Who fan, thank you for you decent response to the problem, we seem to have become a society where we try to pump our self esteem by ridiculing others. No doubt if you had titled it “SAM no longer even proofreads their own work.” , we would have seen some people piling on attacking SAM. You saw it for what it was, simple human error and closed with a positive comment. For me, ridiculing is reserved for politicians- hardly a difficult target and close friends who I know can take it and are free to fire right back at me.

 

This post was edited four times by me, still terrible english, but I try…….

 

 

[Vingtor]

At least you should be lucky to have got the September issue. I just received the August issue a couple of days ago, some 5-6 weeks after it was published in Britain. Of course I expect a slight delay for delivery overseas to Europe. The flight from London to Oslo takes a couple of hours. The envelope was however post-stamped in Uzbekistan, of all places !!!?? No wonder shipping took so long. Possibly the cheapest alternative for the publisher, but not good for the subscribers. Seems that proof reading is not the only thing they are cutting down on....

When it comes to proof reading for the August issue, the book review section had a book cover incorrectly repeated for another book.

 

I do edit a magazine myself, so I know a bit about it. Although errors are unavoidable, some effort should be done to minimize it.

 

Nils

[Whofan]

On 25/08/2022 at 10:52, Robin-42 said:

Who fan, thank you for you decent response to the problem, we seem to have become a society where we try to pump our self esteem by ridiculing others. No doubt if you had titled it “SAM no longer even proofreads their own work.” , we would have seen some people piling on attacking SAM. You saw it for what it was, simple human error and closed with a positive comment. For me, ridiculing is reserved for politicians- hardly a difficult target and close friends who I know can take it and are free to fire right back at me.

 

This post was edited four times by me, still terrible english, but I try…….

 

 

@Robin-42, 

 

thanks for your comments.

 

I would never have tried to ridicule the team at SAM, or indeed any other modelling (or other magazine) for such errors, as I pointed out I've made some in the past that have caused me serious embarrassment!

 

I'd agree with you wholeheartedly, too masny people are too full of it.

 

Yes indeed, the ridicule we express for our closest friends and colleagues, like my ex colleagues I met on Friday who fired everything back, is affectionate; but politicians?

 

(The following rant was removed by Britmodeller proof readers on the grounds the Mods would delete the whole comment)

 

 

 

[stever219]

"We all make mistakes" as the randy but myopic Dalek said dismounting from a dustbin (trash can for the Western Colonials😆).

Edited August 28, 2022 by stever219