Entry page for site

It appears that the entry page for reprap has changed to a wiki page.

PLEASE put it back. I know that you are trying to help. But it is better that the main page be a static page so that if there are any problems with the wiki then you can still get to the other parts of the site like the forums here.

Bob Teeter

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Bob Teeter
"What Box?"

I noticed this too, as I keep the reprap.org page bookmarked.

Actually I like the Wiki page It looks a bit cleaner.

What is needed on the Wiki home page, are links to these forums, somewhere in the top left side (for english lanquage readers) to click on. There should also be a quick link to the main static page.

One thing I find awkward with the Wiki pages is that there are no tree views. If for example, I find the page for the v1.2 stepper controller I can not click on a link that takes me back up to a section that details the different stepper motor controller revisions. I spent hours the other day looking for the v1.2 info again.

Similarly I sent out a Nema17 motor to a machinist friend. I wanted the shaft knurled. He has a hard time understanding I am not putting anything on the shaft "Sure you would not rather have a flat and a knurled sleeve?" He keeps asking.

I wanted to link to Adrian's page. This is now crowded with dremmel and zipped tied drillpress stuff, which will make this friend's head explode. It helps when his head is intact.

Granted this is a research project, and a lot is happening. I still feel there needs to be simple pages which can be browesed from a tree structure.

Not that at this point I can see the forest from the trees.

-julie

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It appears that the entry page for reprap has changed to a wiki page.

It was always a wiki page, just a different page in a different wiki!

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

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One thing I find awkward with the Wiki pages is that there are no tree views.

That is because wikis are not trees, they are arbitrary directed graphs, the same a the rest of web. The only practical way to find things is with Google search with site: IMHO. E.g. "site:[reprap.org] knurl" gets you straight to the page.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

The link I had bookmarked was not a wiki page. It was 'http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/WebHome' and had access to more info. That link is now redirected to the wiki front page. I have been trying to find that page from the wiki front-page with no luck. It's how I first found your great blog nophead and other things I can no longer find.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/2010 03:03PM by Duaner.

I used the find, to locate the knurling page.

This precludes two things
that I know what to search for
and
that the relevant page contains useful information.

How the data is structured, reflects how valuable the tool is. I like to browse library stacks. This way one can locate similar related subjects on a topic.

Modern libraries want to used compressed storage for the stacks so that there is more room for wireless laptop stations. This means no one ever bothers to check out the books on the decline and fall of the roman empire. So these shelves are removed and the books recycled as there is no interest in the subject.

With a quickly changing project like this one, it is hard for someone new to find things. I spent a whole year, reading these forums before I became active.

The most recent weekend, I was a workshop leader at the Nova Albion Steampunk expo. Which was held across the bay from San Francisco. (my workshops were on mechanical doll dressing and steampunk music.) It was interesting how many of the members were indicating a desire for a reprap. Cupcake and makerbot were mentioned quite a few times.

While many of the makers, probably could jump in as I have done to start work on one of these machines, there seems to be quite a bit of "magical thinking" when it comes to talking about how 3d printing is going to change the way the system works. So much talk, little action

This is why I feel that a simple primer and tree structure of the development process, which can give an overview as to what resources are needed.

When I was studying clockmaking, there were books of plans called "Bedside readers." One kept the book on the nightstand, to read before going off to sleep. Dreaming about what could be made.

Perhaps, wiki is not the structure, the "home" intro page should be in. If I had a better solution that would be the thing to present. Watching my presentations, and the presentations at the expo of the other "Top level" makers is that there are could be a thousand followers to every active blogger. Even in a live workshop or panel, there is the presenter or (panelist) and a room full of consumers.

This is the nature of things. I do not think that adding wiki's and search engines will make information easier to find. Well structure portals and social networking groups on the other hand do reflect the tribal family groups have worked for thousands of years.

A reason why the entrance gates to the city/community are made as welcoming as possible, with a strong presence of design.

Sometimes less, is more.

-julie

I agree with many of the above posts. The new wiki frontpage is missing a lot that the old homepage had, such as:

- A prominent link to the RepRap Pipes (it's currently buried at the bottom)
- a sidebar link to the forums (it's currently hiding in the "community portal" page)
- A link to Thingiverse

In response:

bobt + sheep: Forum links are back, I added them under the heading community (as well as an irc link). I removed most of those links because the old site was overly cluttered with a billion links that made navigating to the important bits very difficult IMO.

sheep: links to previous versions of each electronics (like wikipedia has for everything and anything with a previous version) is a very good idea. I will look into starting on this but there are a lot of versions of different electronics to do this on, help would be very welcome

Dunmer: blog links are in the community portal and the blog aggrigator has a link on the main page. Hopefully these are just growing pains - please let us know what we can make better or give it a shot yourself, anyone is welcome to edit the wiki (except spam-bots .

I'm glad to see the old wiki go. The new wiki being the entry page means that it'll get more attention, more users will help it. All of the information from the old wiki should be ending up on the new wiki within the next little bit here. They've been talking about getting it all moved over for quite some time.

Users, to your editing pages!

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The link I had bookmarked was not a wiki page. It was 'http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/WebHome'

It was definitely a wiki page. If you look at it using the web archive you can see it has edit buttons, etc. [web.archive.org]

Not that there is much point in arguing about it now that it has gone.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

sheep: check out any stepper motor driver version now, they should all be linked with a history navigation box at the top ( [www.reprap.org] ) hope that solves the problem at least for steppers.. if someone can duplicate that for other electronic components then all would be good.. at least in that small area of the wiki