The Rejects get a Facebook Page

Many friends and fellow gamers know myself and Ray from Posties Rejects through our Blogs, but we aren't the only members of this group. So after a long delay the Rejects have finally embraced Social Media by setting up a Facebook Page. This will give us a convenient place to post pictures of our games, make announcements of events and chat with our many friends on facebook. It will also give the non Blog owning members of the Rejects a chance to engage with the wargaming community and our many friends in online. 

Facebook isn't for everyone (I'm a long time user and even I have my reservations) but if you have an account take a quick peek at our page and maybe grace us with a 'Like'. We'd love to hear from you.

Drowning in Emails

OK, time for a little seasonal rant about one of my pet hates, Marketing Spam. 

My email address is pretty important to me, I use it all the time and consequently I rely on it. Its my link to friends, family, fellow wargamers and yes a handful of selected wargames companies. On the whole I guard the distribution of my email address as much as I can. Whenever I order online, or am required to enter an email address to register with a website I always make sure that I deselect myself from receiving marketing emails. These things have a way of snowballing out of control and before you know it an email address can become unusable from the sheer volume of marketing spam being sent to it (I've lost two email accounts that way), and that's just the legitimate stuff and doesn't including when your address gets passed on to 'third parties' beyond your control. But some big high street retailers clearly don't value your personal space as much as you do. 

So when I started receiving marketing emails from GAME in mid October I was initially surprised because I know I had deselected myself from their newsletter and other marketing material when I placed an order with them online. Fortunately most companies now include an Unsubscribe link in their emails and I quickly did just that and thought the matter over and done with. Then I received another marketing email from GAME, and another and another. 

As Christmas has approached the amount of Marketing spam being spewed out by GAME has increased to fever pitch and I am now receiving daily mailings (sometimes twice daily) for products I am not interested in and do not intend on buying. Every single time I have hit the unsubscribe button and read the same pointless message "Are you sure you want your email address to be removed from all future GAME marketing emails?" [my emphasis]...well duh, yes I @&*$#!% do!

According to a report that came out before last years Christmas rush Marketing emails accounted for 70% of all spam complaints! Seventy percent! And the vast majority of this is being vomited out by legitimate High Street companies, not by criminal gangs operating out of Russia or some other jurisdictional black hole. In October this year the consumer magazine Which? said that in a recent survey it found the the average person is receiving more than 100 marketing emails per month. Even someone who guards their email address obsessively like myself receives in excess of 60-70 per month, so what can you do to mitigate this inrush of utterly pointless rubbish? 

• First and foremost try not to give your email address out of you can. If you have no choice, when registering with a site for instance, make sure you opt-out of email newsletters and third party promotional emails or you will be flooded by spam. Once it starts its hard to stop. 
• Sign up to the Email Preference Service which is run by the Direct Marketing Association - The irony of having to visit the website of the organisation set up to promote email spam to get it stopped isn't lost on me, but its worth a try. It won't stop a lot of the so called permission based spam (where you have to enter an email address to use a site and aren't given a choice to opt out of emails) but it may filter out some of the mail from 3rd parties. 
• Most - but sadly not all - marketing emails have an unsubscribe link. I religiously unsubscribe from 'legitimate' marketing spam and sometimes it is acted upon promptly by the company involved...GAME have a lot to learn about this! However it's important to add you should avoid responding to spam emails if you have any doubts about who has sent them.
• Here's a crafty trick...set up a junk email address only to be used when you suspect you'll receive shit loads of spam. The marketeers can spam to their black hearts content and you won't have to read any of it. 
• If you have a spam filter on your email account, activate it and Block Addresses for mail you don't want to get. 

Of course the only sure fire way to avoid Spam altogether is to delete your account, throw out the computer and revert to a simpler way of life where we communicated using drums or smoke signals or something. However I have adopted an even more radical approach, Spam the bastards back! I've started my own campaign and have started to send as many complaints as I can to GAME's Customer services team. If they are going to abuse my email address then I might as well take full advantage of the two way link...I know its a moskito biting an elephant but it gets some of the anger and bile off my chest!

Vigilant, Fastidious & Diligent

I've been getting a lot of Spam lately (Spam as in junk mail not Spam® as in the canned precooked meat product). I've always received a certain amount of spam comments on BLMA but until recently this was a handful each week and easily eradicated. All part of the rich tapestry of the Internet, filtered by Blogger and easily eradicated without it ever reaching the eyes of my readers. But just before Christmas the volume of Spam received on BLMA jumped and has now reached annoying levels. 

Spam Comments are an everyday occurrence for most bloggers and (in my experience) are largely from that ubiquitous Internet user 'Mr Anonymous'. Some are comedy gold having clearly been written by a computer and then translated from Chinese or Russian into a bizarre version of English that has to be read to be believed. But no matter how funny some of these are they all have a sting in the tail, a link that isn't what it appears.

Most of the Spam I have had recently seems to be associated with Internet Gambling sites rather than porn, but very few of the spam comments are honest in their statements. None say "Visit my roulette website here..." and the only real intention of this unsolicited mail is to improved the page ranking of their website by scattering the Internet with back-links. Blogger automatically applies the "nofollow" tag to all comments, so back-links receive no Page Rank boost, but of course that doesn't stop the spam-bot from dumping in your comments folder in the first place. 

A wealth of words! 

My Spam is still largely being filtered and deleted before it reaches the public pages of BLMA but the volume of Spam has increased enormously over the last two months. I now regularly receive a couple of dozen Spam Comments per day and although for the most part it is still being caught by the filters built into Blogger its taking longer every day to eradicate. Despite this I'm not about to activate further security measures just yet. My views on Captchas are well known and I would only resort to these if large amounts of spam were getting past the filter's to the front pages. 

I'll remain "vigilant, fastidious & diligent" and will of course continue hitting the delete button as long as the spam-bots pursue their pointless business of clogging up the Internet with cr*p. But just in case I accidentally delete a genuine comment (thankfully this has only happened a couple of times) please bare with me and re-send your thoughts in. I still value genuine feedback and the vast majority of the conversations that take place on BLMA are conducted by living, breathing gamers with something worthwhile to contribute.

I'm a Geek and I'm proud

This week is Speak Out with your Geek Out week. It's an online initiative to share our collective enthusiasm and love of our geeky hobbies. It's a chance for us to say we are proud of of our interests and that far from being anti-social or negative our hobby interests are a positive thing.

I've written several times [Here, here and here] about my conscious decision not to hide my hobby interests from friends and colleges. Far from thinking of my hobbies as a stigma I have been able to turn them into an asset and something to be proud of. I have a keen interest in history, science, politics and art and have developed skills in photography, computing, painting and writing; all directly related to my so called 'geeky' hobbies.

As Gaming writer Jess Hartley wrote on her blog...

"...This is about sharing with the world that geekery is awesome, that it transcends the common definition, and that we are not ashamed of who and what we are. Every person who participates is amplifying that message and adding their own unique voice to it."

However for me this campaign has highlighted another very relevant and topical subject; that of internet bullying. Most gamers, painters or hobby enthusiasts will have either accessed or contributed to an online forum or Blog at one time or another and will recognise the sense of 'community' that one feels taking part. But we will also all recognise the 'troll' who's main enjoyment seems to come from ridiculing or insulting other commentators in an apparent quest to start a 'flame war'. Sadly this isn't restricted to the geek-o-sphere and as a recent BBC News article shows it can have distressing consequences.

Even amongst the non-troll gaming community its not uncommon for one sub-group or another to be ridiculed by another group. This is a shameful self inflicted wound in my humble opinion, as if we don't have enough stigma to overturn without fighting amongst ourselves as well. I think we - the nebulous and varied 'gaming community' - should take on board the words of Monica Valentinelli  (Author, Game Designer and Founder of Speak Out):

"I feel this is our chance to prove that - once and for all - to each other,  that we can inspire and uplift. That tolerance is possible, provided we remember to be tolerant of other people. That our emotions are what bind us together and labels are what keep us apart."

Regardless if you're a roleplayer, a wargamer, a computer gamer, a trekkie, a larper, sci-fi buff, a comic book fan, a reenactor, or anything in between, then its time to stand up and be counted. I don't care if you can speak Klingon or can recite the first edition DnD rules by heart. It doesn't matter if you own a Jeep, collect star wars figures or have every set of Magic the Gathering cards. So-what if you paint miniatures, write a hobby Blog and battle across a tabletop with toy soldiers. It doesn't matter whether you're a geek, a nerd or a dork. You're cool, you're hobbies are awesome and I guarantee that you are a more interesting and rounded individual than you would be without them.

I'd like to thank the Academy

I've been nominated for the Stylish Blogger Award by Joe at Lead, Paint and the General. This peer to peer award has been doing the rounds for the last few weeks and has been featured on many of my favorite blogs... and now it's my turn! Thanks Joe, I appreciate it.

The rules of the award are simple; Thank and link back to the person giving you the award (done above); Share seven things about yourself; and Select 10-15 blogs who you think deserve the award. Well here goes...

Seven things you never knew about BigLee

1. I have an Honors Degree in Environmental Politics.
2. I met my wife at School when I retrieved her tennis ball from a neighboring garden.
3. My eldest daughter was in TV Series The Sorcerers Apprentice on CBBC a couple of years ago.
4. I've been asked to collaborate on a book as the Photographer.
5. I have something in common with Hitler, but at least I'm not as bad off as Goebbels.
6. I have traced over 200 direct line ancestors on my Family Tree.
7. I once stood on a mans chest while he lay on a Bed of Nails!!

10-15 Blogs who deserve this award (in no particular order) Some may have already been nominated by others, but thats because they are excellent!

• DJK's Fantasy World
• Stokesbook
• The Angry Lurker
• Don't throw a 1
• Model Dads
• Johns Toy Soldiers
• WWPD
• PhD Leadhead
• Dampf's Modelling Page
• Iron Mitten
• Roundwood's World
• Carmen's Fun Painty Time!
• Lair of the Uber Geek
• Grognardia

If you've not been nominated don't despair. You'll be amazed how hard it has been to come up with just 15 when I regularly read over 100! All the blogs I follow are fantastic and I do my best to read them all and leave comments where possible.

And just in case you didn't believe me when I mentioned the guy and the Bed of Nails....

I love the look on the faces of the two women to the left of the picture. Horror, sheer horror!

Lyme Regis here I come!

The kids break up for the Easter Holiday today and tomorrow we are driving down to Lyme Regis in Dorset for a weeks vacation. As usual I won't have access to the internet for the week I'm on holiday. Aside from the fact that we are staying miles from the nearest internet hot-spot, I probably won't have the time (or the energy) to do much writing. However I do have a plan. I have prepared several posts for the coming week and post-dated them to maintain the regular schedule while I'm away. So hopefully you shouldn't notice much difference at BLMA. However there will be one change while I'm away and I'm quite excited about it.

I recently reactivated my old Twitter account and I'm using it exclusively to tweet about painting and gaming related items. Basically if I would write about it here on BLMA then I'll also be tweeting about it on @BigLee. And while I'm exploring Dorset and Devon I'll try to keep the 'twitterverse' updated with anything interesting I discover. You'll be able to follow what I'm up to either on twitter or by coming here to BLMA where I've put a Feed at the top of the site. If this proves to be a popular feature I may keep it permanently, but for now the imminent holiday is as good a time to test it as any.

We are not beach people on the whole (If I lay on a beach, Greenpeace come along and try to drag me back out to sea) and we certainly can't sit by a pool and 'vegetate'. We tend to squeeze in a lot of museums and culture into our UK holidays - much to the annoyance of the kids! This year will be no exception with the Tank Museum at Bovington high on my hit list. In fact I have been promised a visit to Bovington as a consolation prize because I will unfortunately be missing Salute at Excel.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyones pictures from the show and I'm sure I'll be green with envy for a month afterwards! On the plus side I'm hoping to come home from holiday with a load of interesting pictures of my own to put on the site. Sorry folks, more photo's of tanks!

March Poll - Finding BLMA

Time for another poll and this time I'm asking the question, How did you first 'discover' BigLee's Miniature Adventures? Even if you're not a follower and this is your first visit I'd be interested to know how you landed on my blog. In effect I'm asking you the readers to help me identify the best way to promote and grow this blog in the future.

This weeks I've spoken to several other bloggers about the benefits of the 'online community' and the interconnectivity of our sites. I suspect that many of the sites followers first stumbled on BLMA through a link on another sites blogroll. This is why I keep a blogroll in the sidebar of this page, as I think its a great way to build connections and meet new gamers.

Another tool I use regularly are hobby forum sites like The Miniatures Page or the Lead Adventure Forum or even the Flames of War Forum. I'm definitely a lurker of these sites most of the time (not enough hours in the day to write on every site regularly) but now and again I post comments or 'advertise' my site via a blog update announcement. Its easy to overdo this route so I keep such posts to a minimum and target selected forums depending on the nature of the announcement. This approach certainly generates a lot of traffic on my blog and its quite likely this is the source of first contact for many of this sites readers.

Of course the main way people find most sites is via search engines like Google or Ask. This is where high traffic utility posts come in useful. These have lots of keywords and links in them and are the worm on the end of the hook drawing new readers to the site. Hopefully these new readers don't recoil in horror when they land on BLMA and maybe they stay a while and look around before moving on. I use Statcounter to record site hits but it also records visit duration statistics. When I first started BLMA up to 75% of new visitors only lingered on the site for less than 30 seconds. That percentage has dropped to 40-45% meaning when random visitors drop in they are finding something of interest to keep them around longer.

Another important source of site hits - and hopefully new followers - are social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon, Digg or Delicious. I've been using these myself for years now and found several interesting sites through this route. This pathway has been made easier by the fact that most sites (my own included) provide fast and easy links to bookmarking sites and to social network sites like facebook.

They may be other ways that readers arrive here, and I'd be interested to learn what these are. As always your comments and discussion are very much appreciated and of course I'll post the final results in the comments section below after the poll closes.

Can of Worms

Why oh why did I venture into the subject of scale?!? I must have been out of my head. Thus far pretty much all of the feedback I have received on Mondays Guide to Scale has been positive and informative and I have learned a lot. But I have also come to truly understand the complexity and intangibility of the whole subject. Crunching the numbers and deciding which assumptions to adopt and which to abandon is giving me a headache. Whatever I do It will be utterly wrong for some people...and they will be completely right to think so.

I work in an industry who's unwritten motto is "Assumption is the mother of all muck-ups" (or something like that). Scale, as defined for gaming purposes, seems to be built on a huge foundation of assumptions built on top of different definitions which in turn rest on a sandy beach with the tide coming in!

Firstly, what is the average sized human? Height varies between ethnic groups, between the sexes and over time. So whatever height a manufacturer (or blogger) settles on as 'average' is by definition a compromise. I have based my table on the height of the average man being 5ft 8inches and the height to eye level as 5ft 3inches. The only reason I have done this is because it seems to correspond to average heights for European males and because several other sources online have chosen the same height. Its a compromise and an assumption, but its a firm point from which to start calculating scale.

Another big problem is that manufacturers and most gamers measure height in different ways. It seems to be an 'industry standard' that model height is the measurement "to eye level". However this isn't always the case and its impossible to definitively state that all manufacturers use this method when clearly some measure to the top of the head. One change I'm planning on implementing with my original table as posted on Monday is to add a second height column showing the theoretical height to the top of the head. The current height listed is based on the assumption that height is measured to eye level.

I think the biggest misnomer however is the idea that our models are a particular 'scale' and persist in referring to the height (such as 28mm) as a 'scale'. To be utterly pedantic about this that is not the correct definition of the word. One definition I found online says that scale is "A proportion used in determining the dimensional relationship of a representation to that which it represents". Now I'm no linguist but that sounds a lot like the Ratio or Fraction (eg 1:72 or 1/72nd scale) rather than a vague height to eye/scalp/hat level.

For me - and this is just my opinion, not a statement of right or wrong - which definition we use doesn't matter. I'm not a scale modeller, I'm a Gamer and slight variations in size don't bother me too much. For some gamers this is utter blasphemy and I wouldn't be surprised if a whole group of readers un-followed this blog immediately! [Please stay, I promise to behave in future] What I am most interested in is can models from different ranges and manufacturers be used together? and that is a much more difficult question to answer.

50 Followers!!!

Yesterday this Blog hit something of a milestone with its 50th Follower joining our little community. Welcome Joe and all the other new recruits that have become followers in the last few weeks (Robert, Andrath, Berman, jmilesr & others). I'll try not to let you down. Please feel free to comment on anything you read. Feedback is always helpful when deciding what to write about, and it's always nice to know I'm not talking to myself.

The Big Idea of 2009

Its been a hell of a year. I normally enjoy roller coasters but there have been so many 'ups and downs' this year that I'm looking distinctly green around the gills. But one of the big positives to come out of 2009 has been my 'discovery' of the bloggosphere. It's definitely changed the way I view my hobby.

I've always (well for the last 10 years or so) been a heavy 'web surfer'. Over the last decade I have developed a web presence in several online forums and social networking sites. From the beginning my aim has been to increase my coverage and participation in the wider gaming community. But it was my decision to start a blog earlier in the year which has taken things onto another level. I'll be posting some site statistics next week when the site reaches its 1st Birthday but trust me when I say I never expected to generate so much interest and to be involved in so many discussions as I have this year. Its been a blast.

In becoming a blogger myself I have also come to appreciate the role of other peoples blogs as a source of information and inspiration. I'm a bit of a web cynic and hold to the idea that 99% of the stuff on the web is pointless rubbish... but by tapping into the bloggosphere I seem to have found the mother load of genuinely talented people and useful sites. Its been a genuinely transformational experience.

All of which is my way of saying, thanks for reading my blog and thanks to you for the amazing variety and quality of the blogs that I read every day. Your daily efforts keep me sane... pretty much.

Finding Players

I recently stumbled upon a new website specifically designed to help you find new players. Game, Setup, Match! which aims to establish a nationwide gaming community in the UK. I recently discussed how to introduce new players to an established group but of course that depends on you being able to find a new player in the first place! Often word of mouth is all you need but if that fails there are several 'player finders' on the Internet. Here's a selection of my favorites.

• ENWorld.com also has a Gamers seeking Gamers section.
• If your a member of The Miniatures Page there is also a Player Finder option available.
• If Flames of War is your game then you can use the Battlefront websites Club Finder to locate a nearby game.
• Similarly if your a Roleplayer then go no further than UK Roleplayers and their club finder.
• Pen and Paper Games has an excellent Player Finder as part of its forum. You can search by proximity, genres and whether they are a player or GM. The best bit is the use of a navigable map that makes identifying local players easy.
• For Call of Cthulhu gamers Yog-Sothoth.com's Players Directory is an excellent searchable database of players.

This is by no means an exhaustive list but they represent sites that I have either used myself or had recommended to me at one time or another.

BigLee on Warboots TV

It seems my SELWG video has been picked up by Warboots UK TV. Warboots is an online tv channel for wargamers which is non profit making and offers free advertising to clubs, events or companies (Just e-mail Paulreid28@hotmail.com). You can view the channel at the link above.

Tinkering with Tech

I'm a bit of a tinkerer... if there is such a word. I like to play around with technology and in particular web based stuff like social bookmarking and of course blogging. In fact I recently realised just how much of my life is spent in 'cyberspace' and the answer was "a lot". In the coming post apocalyptic world where all technology is lost I'll be going crazy from boredom.

Anyway the point of this post is I'm testing out a google app that makes it easier for me to make short posts to my blog...hense this rambling missive.

So here goes...press the send button and.... ZZzzzpppz! Aaaarrrgggg.....

The Birthday has Landed

To be more accurate, my Birthday present has finally been delivered. My new laptop has arrived and this is my first blog entry on it. I've been spending the morning configuring my machine how I want it, setting up my wireless network and email accounts, and transferring files from my older machines. I'm taking five minutes out to write this while I copy files from my defunct laptop and ancient desktop. What a geek!

AddThis now...added

Sharp eyed readers of this blog will notice a new feature at the end of every post from now on. I have agonized (honest, it rearly hurt) over the HTML code of this blog to add an AddThis button. You can now bookmark articles you like in Facebook, Myspace, DiggIt, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Bebo, Twitter and dozens of other Social Bookmarking sites. This is a great way for you to share articles you like and benefits this blog by helping to stimulate more visitors and more feedback. Have fun!

Convention Calendar 2009

There are a few events each year that I never miss and usually a longer list of events I’d like to attend. My wish list for 2009 includes Wargames shows, RPG conventions and living history events. As in previous years I'll attend, digital camera in hand, and will post pictures here and on my Facebook Page. Aside from being fun days out these are the events that replenish my Lead Mountain, refill my painting supplies and provide inspiration and ideas for future projects.

28th March : Salute 09
London Excel Centre - The biggest one day event in the gaming calendar. Display games, loads of traders, a painting competition and lots more. This is my favourite event of the year and on my 'must not miss' list.

31st May: Firepower 2009
Woolwich Firepower Wargaming Event - Staged in association with the South East London War Games Group this is one event that I keep meaning to attend and always end up missing.

28th June: Rampage 09
All Saints School, Terling Road, Dagenham - This event includes Trade stands and a Bring & Buy stall. A small show but its local to me so I usually try to go along.

4-5th July: Bovington 2009
The Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset. - Run by Battlegroup South this is a show that I have long wanted to attend but always seem to miss.

25-26th July: To the Redoubt
Eastborne Redoubt - The 25th Anniversary show run by Redoubt Enterprises. I attended this show for the first time in 2008 and had a great time. Worth making the effort to attend.

29th-31st August: Military Odyssey
The Country's Largest Multi-Period Living History Event with a huge collectors market and hundreds of traders. Something here for everyone on the lookout for inspiration and ideas.

Oct: SELWG 09
This event has been off the calendar for a few years while Crystal Palace underwent a refurbishment (and removed Asbestos). The dates have yet to be confirmed but its usually mid October.

28th November: Dragonmeet 09
Kensington Town Hall, London - This is always one of the big events in the UK RPG calendar, with trade stands, panels, etc. I try to tie attending this event with a shopping trip to my favorite model shop in central london.

Dave Stokes Sketch Blog: Seven Pounds

Check out my mates blog. His artwork is AWESOME!

The Future of the Hobby

Let’s get this straight from the beginning. I’m and old fart. Pretty soon I’ll be 40 something, I’m overweight and most of my friends are in cyberspace. That makes me a Geek/Nerd/Dork (delete as applicable) of epic proportions. In fact it’s become something of an in-joke that all gamers (and by extension miniatures painters) are middle-aged fat white blokes. Which leads me to wonder what the future of our hobby might be?

Well I’m an optimist. I go to a lot of games conventions here in the UK and one of the things I’ve noticed over recent years are the increasing number of children (and in particular girls) at these events. It seems all those middle aged gamers finally found time for a family and now they are introducing their kids to this great hobby. And I’m one of them. I’ve already got my eldest daughter interested in D&D and Mini Painting and now I’m working on my little’un.



I don't think she's quite ready for complex techniques like drybrushing, highlighting or Washes, but who cares. Of course the downside was the paint she got all over herself.... the table... the floor... the WALLS! But its a small price to pay if this is the start of a new generation of gamers and painters.