Re: RFD uk.d-i-y

Several comments.

2) There are several news agent programs with search and filter capabilities whereby people can filter areas of interest. There is also a very good archive search in the form of Google Groups.

4) Quite often topics fall under multiple categories - e.g. heating involving plumbing and electrics; tools relating to woodworking and metalworking and so on.

In conclusion, I think that it should be left as a single group.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

A mechanism used quite successfully on other groups is one of "tagging" whereby topics of a particular nature are tagged at the front of their subject line.

Using the above as examples:

and so on.

Obviously it relies upon people's co-operation, but it's a simple change to an existing charter, and if the wording "encourages" people to use it, shouldn't cause too many ruffled feathers as it's implemented.

Just a suggestion.

Paul.

Suggestions to split uk.d-i-y have been made a number of times - most current posters seem to feel it's fine as it is. Dividing it up into a number of different groups would lose some of the lively 'cross-fertilisation' which makes the group so useful.

It's quite easy to simply ignore threads in which you have no interest, and watch those which appeal to you.

Sheila Mackay Viemeister

I concur.

To be honest I found the following online forums only today, might be of interest to others who want to discuss something a bit more focussed than general DIY:

PoP

IMO one of uk.d-i-y's biggest strengths is the vast depth of cross-dicipline knowledge available within the group. The vast majority of threads end up being cross-dicipline.

I believe that splitting the group up into sub-groups would risk fragmenting the huge and very valuable knowledge base.

I'll second that.

It's UK (mostly) It's diy (mainly) It's fine as is (me too) Never seen a post from the OP in the NG so why the suggestion?

Toby.

just another voice to add to those against this proposal, for reasons voived in this thread and in previous discussions.

"Andy Hall" wrote in uk.d-i-y [and uk.net.news.config - removed] | Andrew Hodgson wrote: | >Originally posted in UN; FU set. | >alex.sh@w in : [snipped] | >>uk.d-i-y is a very successful group regularly attracting 150 plus | >>postings a day. I am often interested in a particular area of d-i-y | >>and find it time consuming to sort through all the messages and would, | >>therefore, like to suggest the creation of the following groups: | >>uk.d-i-y.construction | >>uk.d-i-y.decorating | >>uk.d-i-y.electrical | >>uk.d-i-y.gardening | >>uk.d-i-y. joinery | >>uk.d-i-y.plumbing | 4) Quite often topics fall under multiple categories - e.g. heating | involving plumbing and electrics; tools relating to woodworking and | metalworking and so on.

I agree; the categories mentioned above are not the ones into which most regulars would wish to see posts sorted. I would in jest suggest:

uk.d-i-y.combis.and.thermal.stores uk.d-i-y.who.owns.britain.and.the.evil.of.planning.policies uk.d-i-y.only.corgis.can.do.gas.work uk.d-i-y.excuses.for.buying.a.new.power.tool

More cynically, we might as well have two main subdivisions:

uk.d-i-y.things.the.government.have.stopped.diyers.doing.in.their.own.homes uk.d-i-y.things.the.government.are.going.to.stop.diyers.doing.in.their.own.h omes

maybe we could even have

uk.d-i-y.nostalgia

that might develop into its own hierachy of

uk.d-i-y.nostalgia.pargetting uk.d-i-y.nostalgia.creosote

Owain

In message , Andrew Hodgson writes

This has surfaced a number of times. The general consensus has always been to keep it as one group

bear in mind that:

There is quite often useful input to a thread from people who might not look in the subgroup of interest

Topics quite often cross boundaries

people pick up useful tips which might not be of direct use to them at the time but useful later

While the number of posts varies from time to time, I don't think it's of a level where the advantages outweigh the disadvantages

In message , PoP writes

In total there are 10 users online (1 Registered, 0 Hidden and 9 Guests) Most users ever online was 49 on Tue Mar 18, 2003 7:40 pm

It's not a very high usage forum

In article , Andrew Hodgson writes

It seems eminently sensible to subdivide in this way if necessary, but is there any evidence that

1. each of the proposed groups will carry the traffic worthy of its creation, and
2. that the groups will be sufficiently distinct to avoid any major crossposting?

I suspect that a daily total of 150 posts is insufficient to support so many subgroups. The creation of all these groups would increase traffic only because posters would feel an increased necessity to crosspost.

I would expect that Andrew has some breakdown of the sort of subjects currently dealt with on uk.diy, however wouldn't uk.d-i-y.gardening be stomping on uk.rec.gardening? There is also the possibility that groups such as u.d.electrical and u.d.plumbing, for instance could become choked with trade adverts. If that's not the object, write it out at charter stage.

and IMO too

Seconded, thirded, and fourthed by all my posting personalities. (Aeiiee, it's true - I *am* IMM ;-) A d-i-y'er is by definition *not* a specialist, and is typically undertaking a *whole* job: it may have one discipline as its major component, but may entail redecorating/keeping redecoration to a minimum, and benefit from hints-n-tips on 'while you've got access to do task X it's worth doing tasks Y and Z as well'. For all these reasons, Grunff's belief that

is one which I heartily share. And as others have said, the 150 posts per day don't represent excessive volume, especially as most posters are sensible enough to offer a specific title for each basenote rather than a daft thing like "Question". (You *do* all use real threaded newsreaders, don't you? Non-threading newsreaders are timewasting devilspawn!)

Stefek

Certainly not too bad if you use a reasonable newsreader.

Absolutely. Splitting it up would be a real PITA.

And some things defy categorisation...

Splitting us up seems to get proposed every few years, usually by a non-regular.

It isn't broken. Don't fix it.

David

Andrew Hodgson wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Which will result in a trap for the unwary - everything worth posting will remain here - hence the others will have a few questions and very few answers.

Leave it be - but voluntary tagging is a reasonable idea.

Rod

In message , Owain writes

You forgot, of course,

uk.d-i-y.threads.which.have.spun.off.topic.and.out.of.control.to.the.anno yance.of.a.newbie.who.asked.a.stupid.question.in.the.first.place

John Eastwood in :

I should just point out that I did not make the claim of 150 posts per day, and that I was not the op. I do read uk.d-i-y and find that because I am not particularly specialised in some areas (i.e, woodworking et al), that I tend to delete a lot of threads. However, I do find it useful on occasions.

Andrew.

sounds about as sensible as going to left hand drive starting tomorrow.