Site History

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This site has been created with the objective to further interest in the model engineering hobby by providing links to reference material of interest to model engineers worldwide. As well as providing the club and supplier listings, a major component of the site is the lost models directory.

Motivation

The idea for this site came to me while reading a copy of Model Engineer in late 1998 when I noticed that several models have been stolen over the past few months. I wondered what would happen if I lost my own models through theft. In particular:

Who would I inform?
What information would they require?
How far would the information be disseminated?
What would be the prospects of getting them back?

I realised that the mechanisms that my local police force or I might employ may well differ from those in other areas, and may be more or less effective than "best practice". The most critical requirement to maximise the chances for a safe return seemed to me to be widespread publicity, in particular:

Providing accurate information concerning the theft - date, area from which stolen, model description, photographs of distinguishing features, police reference, contact information.
Such information to be made available as quickly as possible following the theft so that any prospective and unsuspecting purchasers can be alerted. There was also the prospect that such fast dissemination might deter would be thieves since they would know that the hobby would have a nearly instantaneous reference point to check.

Unfortunately, using publications such as Model Engineer and local Club Magazines loses the immediacy of other delivery mechanisms. In most cases the closing date for editorial is some months before publication and there is a delay in subscribers receiving their copies due to postal lags - particularly overseas. As well as the delay in publishing, magazines have a limited space they can allocate for such information. In practice one might expect them to make room for a single photograph of the model and some short descriptive text.

It occurred to me that the World-Wide-Web would offer a substantial improvement over this limitation. Publication is nearly instantaneous and there is room for effectively unlimited pages of text and photographs. Access to the Web is available in virtually all the countries in the world so the scale of geographical reach is wider than any other medium. I decided to prototype the bare bones of a central register for lost models on the Internet and see how it might work.

September 1998 - A Suitable "Home"

As I investigated the Web in greater depth I noticed that there did not seem to be a central site that was a focus for model engineering. Sites have distinguishing names that an individual, company or charity etc. may register. I chose the then unregistered name MODELENG.ORG for a Model Engineering Web site. The purpose of the site is to act as a "clearing house" for Web users that want to find a comprehensive list of Model Engineering Clubs, Societies and other resources initially in the U.K., and subsequently even further afield. I registered the name in September 1998

With the site registered, I sought some advice from friends and colleagues within the hobby as to how the information that I planned to publish could best be presented. As a result of a recommendation from Gerry Collins of BHSMLE & SMEE, Mick Funnell of BHSMLE and a subsequent discussion with Ted Jolliffe of Model Engineer, I got in touch with Myke Baigent of Guildford MES. Myke had some experience of such a venture before when his daughter Helen set up a directory of lost models on the internet as a project at university. Since her work was soon to be taken off the net we agreed to transfer the information there on to the new site to preserve it properly.

October 1998 - First Publication

The first layout of the site was created and published on 6th October 1998. Since then the format has been modified slightly to make the site more viewable on lower resolution monitors and some of the photographs have been re-scaled.

November 1998 - Updates

Following some intial user feedback I have:

made the home page less focused on the lost models part of the site;
added the discussion group section;
added the books section.

February 1999

Although the site is becoming more popular through word-of-mouth, I have attempted to gain further publicity through "click-through" banner adverts on other sites. The penalty that we pay for this is to have to host banners for others on our site too. I have added only one banner (on the home page) and I hope that this is not too intrusive.

March 1999

Model Engineer Vol 182 No. 4089 carries the first of two articles on the site - THANKYOU

Model Engineer Vol 182 No. 4091 carries the second article.

May 1999

Added the search engine to make it easier for casual visitors to find what they want quickly.

June 1999

Added the software section with the first suites from Bill Hall and Duncan Webster.

Added the discussion group on Health and Safety Issues.

I am encouraged by the feedback that I have received to date - thanks for all the constructive comments. I hope that this site will fill a need for many of you. Please let me know if it does!

Andy Clark