How do we define “Rivet Counter”?
Is it someone who is simply a perfectionist and anything less is un acceptable?
Or is it someone who is elitist and lets the whole world know it?
Is it Attitude or simply a Standard?
Regards
Fergie
Proprietor
Musquodoboit, Eastern Shore & Sydney
the M.E.S.S. [:)]
It’s an attitude.
There are perfectionists who aren’t rivet counters, and rivet counters who can’t build blue-box kits.
It’s simply those who must always find fault with the work of others, no matter how good.
That sums it up pretty well. One can be obsessed with one’s own level of skill but not really be concerned with how others do their modeling (though sometimes what a detail freak considers merely a helpful suggestion can be misinterpreted as criticism by another, and a less detail-oriented modeler may take as insult.) Then there are folks who don’t even have layouts, and, as mykroft mentions, aren’t even great shakes at modeling themselves–they’re such perfectionists that their ego won’t even let them start building a layout for fear that it won’t live up to their own standards. This is a frustrating thing–and often that frustration expresses itself in criticism of other people who have layouts in the real world, and thus vulnerable to real-world flaws like limited budgets or less-than-encyclopedic research.
It’s the person who tells what is wrong with your model instead of saying something nice about it. These are the same people who hold a model contest and decide none of the entries is worthy of first place (I’ve acturally seen this reported). Personally, I find nothing wrong with researching your own building efforts to achieve as much accuracy as you want. But let’s face it, at some point you have to compromise or the second model never gets started. I just try to do a neat job with each project at a level of detail that portrays the spirit of the prototype.
Enjoy
Paul
simply put: a nitpicker
I define rivet counters as people so busy counting the rivets on other modelers’ work and shooting off their mouths that they don’t have the time to actually build anything themselves. I do not consider all strict prototype modelers to be rivet counters. It’s definitely in the attitude displayed towards fellow modelers. The demand for high standards by prototype modelers has resulted in beautiful models being offered by a variety of manufacturers. Prototype modelers are responsilble for quite a bit of available prototype photos & information, not to mention their work with historical socieities. Prototype modelers offer constructive criticism, as well as alternative methods for modeling something. Rivet counters are only responsible for annoying sarcasm and useless twaddle. I definitely, in my mind, make a distinction between prototype modelers and rivet counters. I learn all I can from prototype modelers and avoid rivet counters/nitpickers if at all possible.
well let’s see, back in the day when Rivits were the preffered way to attach 2 peices of metal together (before welding became the norm), there was a guy who’s entire job was to walk around and count the number of rivits on the Object in question (in our case Locomotives). If there weren’t enough rivits, the rivitor was fined and forced to redo the work. everynow and then, you’d hear some riviter say “watch out, here come the rivit counter, bet you missed one!” to fellow riviters.
well soon, the poor guys who’s job it was to count rivits started getting a bad rap, he was ostrisized from the group and generally ignored outside of work as well. Over time, as riviting became less and less used, the legend of the Rivit counters was formed. so now when you hear rivit counter, you already know it’s a bad thing.
Poor Rivit counters, destroyed for eternity by prejiduces.
Jay
Note: preceeding story is fictional and is not based on any factual events.
Ya got a laff outa me, Jay. Good story.