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160 DIY articles now

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Reply to
meow2222
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Reply to
Weatherlawyer

this post.

Since so much effort has gone into putting some great content into the wiki (John Stumbles and NT being by far the busiest contributors), I think it would be reasonable to make it a permanent feature. I'm quite happy to leave it hosted where it is currently hosted, and will not remove it. The server is backed up nightly, so the chances of accidental data loss are very low.

It would be useful to get a link from the main FAQ pages to the wiki - how do people feel about this?

Reply to
Grunff

What Americanisms where?

NT

Reply to
meow2222

sounds good to me

NT

Reply to
meow2222

Yup, links both ways would be good.

Reply to
John Rumm

Hey, looks good!

The following caught my eye:-

floor. An hour of repeated washing is very effective, paint >spots can often be scraped off, and spot sanding can be used to >remove the infamous black stuff without removing any noticeable >bulk.

Erm... I was just about to sand the floor in the living room because I dont see the point in the carpet being dirtied by people coming in and I was going to use a sanding machine. Is the above article honestly saying that I dont need to, just by cleaning them?

Reply to
Jason Hallway

A big concern I have is that lots of it needs peer review. This means it isn't the group's collective wisdom, unlike a thread here or an article in the main DIY FAQ. I would be concerned if it was promoted on a level footing as it currently stands. That's not to knock the contributors in any way who've clearly been working hard -- it's just that there aren't enough of them working on each article, and until there are, it isn't the group's collective wisdom and mustn't be promoted as such.

Having spent some time correcting one article and adding appropriate safety precautions which were missing, I was somewhat pissed to find most of that stripped out. It's very unlikely that I (or others) will waste our time if that sort of thing continues.

I would also get rid of all the empty articles which contain only links to Google. After you've bounced off a few of those, you can easily get the impression the Wiki is completely empty.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

This is a very important point.

I just went in there and could have altered or deleted anything I wanted without any reference.

There should be an access hierarchy of registered editors.

Reply to
EricP

This is exactly the thing I hate most about wikis, and why I was hesitant to use a free-for-all wiki rather than an access controlled CMS.

Tend to agree there - an article containing nothing but a link is of little value.

Reply to
Grunff

We had a discussion about this at the outset, and opinion was split, but there were definitely more voices in favour of an open wiki.

It can work, and the prime example of this is Wikipedia - on the whole the content is high quality, but you do get the occasional edit war.

Reply to
Grunff

There is of course a history of the edits, you can compare revisions to one another, I don't know easy mediawiki makes it to revert changes.

Reply to
Andy Burns

Perhaps the fact that the FAQ is peer reviewed is something that out to be spelled out in the introductions to both the FAQ and in a (non editable) intro on the wiki?

One of the other difficulties is there is less visibility of where changes are being made. If we publish a FAQ section here, then it has high visibility for all readers of the group. With the wiki you need to actively go to find the stuff and are less likely to encounter it unless you are specifically looking.

This seems to be a general problem with the wiki format. You only need to look at wikipaedia where the people with genuine domain knowledge get shouted down by a more vocal majority with consensus "knowledge" rather than actual expertise.

Reply to
John Rumm

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Reply to
John Rumm

I think thats something that takes time. The wiki is right at the beginning. I'd assume most readers know what a wiki is and isnt, but if that isnt so there could be a link at the bottom of pages explaining what it is. I see there already is, but people could be forgiven for not clicking on it.

Are you referring to the clothes dryer article? If so I spent enough time trying to find material to back up what you'd written, and simply could find nothing to back it up, only various reasons to believe the opposite.

Just so we both understand each other's position on what went on there, when adding another information section I removed bits that were incorrect, incorporated bits that were fair views of yours, even if I didnt entirely agree, and added info addressing the issues you'd raised. I also returned a small number of valid points you'd removed.

This is a basic weakeness of wikis in that there is not much opportunity to discuss to clarify the points people make in articles. I did invite some information on what you'd written on the talk page, and waited a while, but none was forthcoming.

What we need is either to use the talk pages to communicate and understand the different points presented, or to bring differences of opinion here to discuss.

In this case I removed a fair bit because I could simply find nothing anywhere that indicated it to be right, and only found the opposite. As I'm sure you do have reasons behind what you wrote, why dont you expain some of it here on ukdiy, and we can move closer to some concensus.

I wish it were as easy as 'I say so' but its not. I've had mixed feelings about a wiki approach because good material will get removed and work undone, but I think when that occurs it means that if the info is to be presented and stay there it needs to be explained, backed up with references or calculations, etc.

The Wiki concept is about finding common ground, addressing more than one view, and backing up what views are presented. So I invite you to discuss your input to the clothes dryer article.

NT

Reply to
meow2222

I've given floorboards a good scrubbing and been surprised by how well they come up. It might be worth trying a patch before spending money on a sanding machine and filling the house with dust.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

I agree too. I feel happy delving into the FAQ for information and acting upon it, because it's been well peer-reviewed; likewise if I post a query on uk.d-i-y, I'm usually OK about going with the answers I get, because if someone posts a 'wrong' answer then someone else will be along shortly to shoot it down.

However, with the wiki as it stands, I don't have that level of confidence. Eg, I just looked up a random article 'Cement mixing'... no disrespect intended to the author at all (it looks fine to me!) but firstly, I've no idea who originally wrote it - ie, was it written by someone whose judgement I generally trust? Secondly, AFAICS it hasn't ever been edited by anyone at all, which could mean that the article's perfect, but also that nobody else has passed a critical eye over it. Thirdly, what happens if I'm feeling like a malicious prat and decide to make some catastrophic alteration which causes someone to blow up their cement mixer... if nobody's monitoring the page, and everyone and his wife has edit access, then how long is that 'bad advice' going to stay 'live', and how many cement mixers are going to get blown up?(!)

Just my two penn'orth

David

Reply to
Lobster

It's very easy to do so (see the 'discussion' page of the main page).

Reply to
John Stumbles

Yes, the kind of mass sanding og domestic boards that has become fashioinable just isnt necessary in almost all cases. The method has been copied from its use in public halls etc, where enough wear occurs for sanding to be needed, but in a house that doesnt happen. Its surprising how well dark boards come up looking like new. However if you encounter the famous black gloop, sanding is the only way to get that pff that I know, but a hand held sander can do it in limited areas without removing large amounts of wood and sometimes ruining the floor.

Trying the mop wash method only takes an hour or 2. Just mop it, wait a few mins, mop again, and keep repeating. Its much quicker and easier than sanding, so even if youre not convinced its worth trying.

NT

Reply to
meow2222

Agreed: I've added a comment about this to the main page but if we have a link to the wiki in the weekly FAQ post and the FAQ itself it needs to be pointed out prominently there. (It would help to point out that readers can contribute, even if only to say "this isn't clear" in an article's discussion page.)

However links from the main FAQ and weekly posting could help to get more people contributing to the wiki and raising the quality of its content.

Reply to
John Stumbles

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