Digging up a bit of VHL history

[Victor 10,946]

The VHL magazine forum has been hidden for a while which seems a shame as that was a pretty big part of the VHL back in the day - so influential it even got its own 20 in 20 article and ended up with 340 editions up to late 2017 (+4 in an aborted 2018 revival). So I've decided to stick them in the publicly available VHL history forum today.

 

You can see what they looked like from edition 328 to 340 as the rest seem to have been destroyed by Dropbox - unless @STZ has them stored away somewhere.

 

In case, they can not be resurrected, I have also brought back the Articles Submissions forum which has all the raw copies. Regardless if they don't look pretty and in mag format I think it's right for them to be in the public domain as this is a fair few years of articles from some of the VHL's best writers which would otherwise be in the Media Spot archive.

 

In a similar vein, the VHLM magazine submissions are also now in the HOF (I don't think any of the actual magazines can be retrieved): https://vhlforum.com/forum/51-vhlm-magazine/ That ran for about 3 years and 100 editions in the previous golden age of the VHL/M.

 

Shameless tag of some of the past contributors of both magazines and other old farts: @diamond_ace @Banackock @InstantRockstar @Da Trifecta @Smarch @sterling @Advantage @MubbleFubbles  @CowboyinAmerica @Toast @OrbitingDeath  @BOOM @JardyB10 @Doomsday @Ahma @der meister @Baozi @eaglesfan036 @Phil @Knight @Frank @jRuutu @Beketov @frescoelmo

[der meister 3,197]

I was thinking a few days ago that I miss the VHL magazine 

[Ahma 1,430]

did I write something for the magazine, or did you tag me for funsies? pretty cool nonetheless

[Victor 10,946]

8 minutes ago, Ahma said:

did I write something for the magazine, or did you tag me for funsies? pretty cool nonetheless

Apparently you did! https://vhlforum.com/topic/479-rookie-watch/page/3/#comments

 

[frescoelmo 1,276]

What we need is more Forum Content!!!

[Victor 10,946]

12 minutes ago, frescoelmo said:

What we need is more Forum Content!!!

more VHL magazine, more content

[Ahma 1,430]

18 minutes ago, Victor said:

Apparently you did! https://vhlforum.com/topic/479-rookie-watch/page/3/#comments

 

wow! i do not remember writing it at all lol

[eaglesfan036 4,603]

bring back chat

[STZ 5,360]

I have Editions 222-327 on my current computer. The ones I was Editor for 155-222 would all be on my old lap top that is long gone. I have them in inDesign files, so I would have to reupload them as pdfs, and in doing so all the graphics and Magazine Covers will need to be reuploaded or the resolution would be pretty bad. Luckily I think I did the majority of the Magazine Covers at the times, so I could probably track them down as well.

 

If there was an actaul interest in this, I could potentially upload these somewhere, but it would be pretty time consuming. So, not sure how reassuring that is, but it's some of VHL History that isn't completely gone..

 

Note: The first random Magazine Edition I opened had a little write up about Victor as he had just stepped down as Commish.... weird.

[Victor 10,946]

30 minutes ago, STZ said:

I have Editions 222-327 on my current computer. The ones I was Editor for 155-222 would all be on my old lap top that is long gone. I have them in inDesign files, so I would have to reupload them as pdfs, and in doing so all the graphics and Magazine Covers will need to be reuploaded or the resolution would be pretty bad. Luckily I think I did the majority of the Magazine Covers at the times, so I could probably track them down as well.

 

If there was an actaul interest in this, I could potentially upload these somewhere, but it would be pretty time consuming. So, not sure how reassuring that is, but it's some of VHL History that isn't completely gone..

 

Note: The first random Magazine Edition I opened had a little write up about Victor as he had just stepped down as Commish.... weird.

I wouldn't force you into that especially given the articles are there in the submissions forum, albeit not all pretty and glossy. Maybe someone should offer you TPE for it

[Mysterious_Fish 386]

Lets bring back the Magazines!

[Gustav 6,428]

On 1/7/2024 at 5:12 PM, Victor said:

Maybe someone should offer you TPE for it

Sounds like a @v.2 /updater thing to figure out. I wouldn’t heavily pressure anyone into this and I kind of doubt that anyone (including me) would read everything intently, but I’m also curious enough that I’d check out what I could. 

[Enorama 2,038]

On 1/7/2024 at 7:23 AM, Victor said:

In a similar vein, the VHLM magazine submissions are also now in the HOF (I don't think any of the actual magazines can be retrieved): https://vhlforum.com/forum/51-vhlm-magazine/ That ran for about 3 years and 100 editions in the previous golden age of the VHL/M.

 

No love for the revived version in S62? Still got some graphics from a couple issues.

 

[Victor 10,946]

9 hours ago, Enorama said:

 

No love for the revived version in S62? Still got some graphics from a couple issues.

 

Any idea where it was posted?

[Enorama 2,038]

7 hours ago, Victor said:

Any idea where it was posted?

 

Can't find the forum posts after a cursory search, but I found the issues themselves: https://issuu.com/vhlmmagazine 

[LucyXpher 1,420]

Forgive me, I’m a noob so I don’t know much about the history, but why did it stop? (Lots of work?) And could it ever come back?  I would be so down to contribute to a project like that!  It was really cool reading through some of the articles, so thanks for digging this up.

[Victor 10,946]

3 hours ago, LucyXpher said:

Forgive me, I’m a noob so I don’t know much about the history, but why did it stop? (Lots of work?) And could it ever come back?  I would be so down to contribute to a project like that!  It was really cool reading through some of the articles, so thanks for digging this up.

League went through a significant dip in activity around 2017-18 - few new members, older ones pretty tired. Culminated in contracting 2 of 10 teams in S58 before recruitment picked back up shortly after. That's the simple answer for why it died. As for why it hasn't managed to be revived...

 

That was a bit of a watershed moment because other changes were made including, essentially, making it easier to earn TPE. Before the S50s you didn't get multi week media spot claims when you wrote a longer article and you only got TPE after it was graded by a different member (previously two). It wasn't actually a ridiculous bar to clear and to get 6 TPE but it maintained a higher standard in writing and those that stuck around were more willing to grind for the TPE.

 

In that context, writing for the mag was attractive as you got 1 extra TPE (7 a week) for a shorter article than you might have written as a MS, and you didn't have to wait for graders. You still had to maintain quality but that was second nature if you were an active writer in the league back then. And because Media Spots were a weekly submission, you got used to working to a regular Sunday deadline so it wasn't an outrageous ask of the writers.

 

Basically, it's a difficult one to recreate because we have attracted more members now but in part because things aren't as strict as they used to be. And despite being from the older generation, I am happy with how things are now, it's a lot easier to pump out one big article a month than 4 weekly ones, but that's not conducive to contributing to a weekly mag.

 

The VSN is sort of the modern equivalent of the mag - content comes out based on when it's convenient for the writers so it's sporadic and the articles are stand alone as opposed to 7 in one weekly edition. With where we are now on how people expect to earn TPE and how much effort they expect to put in, I struggle to see how we can incentivise restarting the mag. I'm sure there are enough people willing go the extra mile for a few editions but not necessarily for 340 straight weeks.

[LucyXpher 1,420]

7 minutes ago, Victor said:

League went through a significant dip in activity around 2017-18 - few new members, older ones pretty tired. Culminated in contracting 2 of 10 teams in S58 before recruitment picked back up shortly after. That's the simple answer for why it died. As for why it hasn't managed to be revived...

 

That was a bit of a watershed moment because other changes were made including, essentially, making it easier to earn TPE. Before the S50s you didn't get multi week media spot claims when you wrote a longer article and you only got TPE after it was graded by a different member (previously two). It wasn't actually a ridiculous bar to clear and to get 6 TPE but it maintained a higher standard in writing and those that stuck around were more willing to grind for the TPE.

 

In that context, writing for the mag was attractive as you got 1 extra TPE (7 a week) for a shorter article than you might have written as a MS, and you didn't have to wait for graders. You still had to maintain quality but that was second nature if you were an active writer in the league back then. And because Media Spots were a weekly submission, you got used to working to a regular Sunday deadline so it wasn't an outrageous ask of the writers.

 

Basically, it's a difficult one to recreate because we have attracted more members now but in part because things aren't as strict as they used to be. And despite being from the older generation, I am happy with how things are now, it's a lot easier to pump out one big article a month than 4 weekly ones, but that's not conducive to contributing to a weekly mag.

 

The VSN is sort of the modern equivalent of the mag - content comes out based on when it's convenient for the writers so it's sporadic and the articles are stand alone as opposed to 7 in one weekly edition. With where we are now on how people expect to earn TPE and how much effort they expect to put in, I struggle to see how we can incentivise restarting the mag. I'm sure there are enough people willing go the extra mile for a few editions but not necessarily for 340 straight weeks.

Thanks for the detailed answer, Victor!  That definitely makes sense and with the VSN I can see why the appetite isn’t necessarily there the same way for a magazine . Doing one weekly, as you said, likely wouldn’t  make a lot of sense.  
 

Still think it would be neat to see it return again in some capacity, though perhaps on a seasonal basis, or maybe even as a yearbook type project. Anyway, thanks again for your response and for sharing some of that history!