To write about formal reviewers is pointless in my view. That job comes with a lot of baggage so as we all know anyone reading formal reviews must excersize a small dgree of healthy scepticism. I know it has always been my habit to try and read between the lines in those type of reviews and see what the reviewer is really thinking. Because we know you can't bite the hand that feeds you; but there are ways to do the end run around that.

At local shows it would; i assume, be in bad taste to flame someones efforts; but we also know some are not so great. If you as the writer find yourself praising a piece that seems to be universally panned by others; but it belongs to a friend then what and how do you handle it?

"Cooperative alliances whereby one party posts about another so that product announcement rules can be circumvented are prohibited. If we see these kinds of relationships develop, we will consider the parties to represent one another, whether a financial relationship exists or not. In other words, if you consistently support a particular person or company, we will view you as a representative of that person or organization even if you're not currently on their payroll.

The things that are essentially being traded in many of these informal cooperative relationships are goodwill and credibility, things that have an actual value even though no money may have changed hands. These kinds of cooperative relationships are actually pretty common between certain individuals, dealers and manufacturers. We encourage your participation here, but please realize that these alliances can unfairly disadvantage others. We hope that you will share your views openly, but please be careful to refrain from the temptation to advertise."

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One place I personally felt conflicted about this was on the GPAF write-ups. Some there are ART sponsors, others aren't. But everyone at GPAF got a banner ad and a write-up. It's truly a grass-roots event that's there to allow folks to show their gear without cost. It allows new small manufacturers and hobbyists the same ability to show as larger companies, and it lets the public have a chance to interact with them. The problem is that non-sponsors have no association with ART, yet sponsors do. So in order to prevent giving non-sponsors an advantage to sponsors, I wrote up each of them. But I did try to make each write-up pretty basic, just introduce each room and describe its contents. Others were able to comment in more detail.

I'm hoping next year some of this will get delegated to others. It's a lot of work to arrange the event, do the press releases and set up signs, take photos and do write-ups afterward. I am thankful that so much enthusiasm has been sparked and I think next year some of these tasks will be delegated to others.