Forum reorganization

As was suggested in the Reprap 2014 thread in the general section, i'm starting a thread here to discuss structural changes to the forum, for greater clarity and brevity.

First, under machine variations, i suggest a forum specifically for official reprap machines, with subforums for each bot (or perhaps just a "legacy Repraps" subforum as a catch-all for darwin and Sells designs)
Second, get rid of all the other forums under machine variations. replace them with either kinematic-based forums (ie, cartesean, delta, polar) or with build-method-based (ie. FDM, SLS, etc.) and put the old forums under these (if keeping them at all).

third, condense the electronics forums into a single forum. Same for software and firmware.

I designed the Prism Printer, and there is a forum just for it, but there are so few posts that i think it could all just be put into the extruded aluminum folder.
That's all i have for now.

As someone who only reads parts of the electronics forums (the general one and the ones I'm used to dealing with), I personally don't want to have to go looking sorting through lots of other messages about other types of electronics to answer questions about various stuff.

Some consolidation is in order (we could collapse a few forums together), but collapsing electronics into just 1 forum is madness IMO.

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Buback
official reprap machines

Good luck getting anyone to agree on what an "official" reprap machine is. Is it a machine from this wiki page? It is a machine from this wiki page? Is it some mishmash of the two, or some combination of other machines??

Good luck getting anyone to agree on anything, actually.

In spirit I support a reorganization of the forums... But changes need to be made gradually. I would suggest starting by moving the forums that don't get a lot of traffic under an "Old Subforums" heading... maybe no more than that at this point.

Yeah just tossing ideas out there.

it's been my experience that everyone just throws their hands up in the air and says, "good luck with that." I think that's exactly why we're in the situation we're in. (the situation being there's been a brain-drain; most of the serious developers have drifted away)

Why, exactly, do we even need to host forums for lots of different electronics? or softwares? Shouldn't they have their own communities and forums? why not just pick one, and then support that one here and refine it until it's perfect, and switch when something better comes along (determined through votes, i guess, or by fiat, if someone is ballsy enough)

Anyway, it's not like everyone has to agree. we already know that there are lots of people using these forums for their own agendas, so you're always going to get some strain of dissidence. Some people have a livelihood to maintain so will fight for the reputation of their printer designs and parts tooth and nail.

I'm just frustrated.

'Reprap' means a lot more to me than just 3d printers and i feel that it's, if not dead, on life support.

Saying "good luck with that" and throwing one's hands in the air are very different things. Many people (myself included) are here every day, cleaning up spam, writing FAQ entries for the forums, pointing new people toward resources, doing our best to organize the wiki, etc, etc.

When I say "good luck with that" what I mean is that your suggestion of labeling anything an "official RepRap" anything is not going to work. (You should know this based on your experience with "RepRap Standard 2012" - I'm not trying to be rude or snide here, just speaking plainly.)

I think the best way to improve reprap is to just... do something. Something specific. Here's a few brainstormy ideas:

• Add to the to-do wiki page and then do some of the items.
• Make a list of research projects that could be funded by bounties, then post them and drum up support.
• Edit wiki pages to make them more consistent.
• Go to the wiki Special Pages and fix something that is broken.
• Make a wiki page for standard interfaces and post bounties for each drawing added. (I think a "standard" for common interfaces would be well received.)
• Make specific recommendations about forum organization, i.e. "create this new heading and move these pages to it".

In the other thread, iquizzle said

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iquizzle
In truth, this forum is about 50% used as a place for small businesses to discreetly leverage free advertising and for people to voice opinions about those things. The other 50% is made up of tech support, like you say and innovation (probably making up a small portion of that ~5%).

and I agree with the assessment. I do my best to streamline the 50% tech support, I really don't care one way or the other about the commercial stuff, and the 5% research is interesting enough that I keep coming back...

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Buback
Why, exactly, do we even need to host forums for lots of different electronics? or softwares? Shouldn't they have their own communities and forums? why not just pick one, and then support that one here and refine it until it's perfect, and switch when something better comes along (determined through votes, i guess, or by fiat, if someone is ballsy enough)

Many of the electronics out there are free products - there is no money behind them (I know there's no money behind RAMPS-FD for instance) so where are they going to get the resources to run their own online communities? They're products specifically aiming to support the reprap community, so why not help them out with the TINY amount of overhead it generates?

Should some of the other electronics out there get their own communities? Sure. But finding the line at where to draw the difference is going to be hard. I'm not saying don't do it, just be wary and take some time.


We do have too many forums though, and some consolidation needs to be done. We can probably consolidate some of the electronics groups (based around function or something specific such as do they sit on a processor board - such as a shield or cape), but there's not really that huge a number of them to start sorting and we may end up with a number of groups exceeding the number of forums we currently have.

The fact that a printer no one has built has a forum is IMO silly. Mods should be the ones doing the requesting after seeing too many posts in a forum, not users because they have an idea for something IMO.

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MattMoses
I'm not trying to be rude or snide here, just speaking plainly.

Oh I know, same here. my comments weren't directed at you, it's just that i've heard that refrain before and it struck a chord.

This is interesting. I have the opposite opinion again. I think the forum needs more organization, not less. We need more sections for specific stuff so it is organized and people can find what they need.

I think it needs to have only a few sections on the main page with sub forums like the User Groups Section has for Asia and Canada etc

Forum section > Subforum

"Machines" > Current list of machine forums plus any new ones so it does not get cluttered like the Mendel folder
"Software" > Current list of software forums plus ones not currently listed like Cura plus the firmware sections
"Market place" > Current list of forums plus Bounties
"Electronics" > Current list of forums with the "electronics" folder archived and new folder created for each type of electronics that come out.
"Mechanical" > Currently what is in Fabrication minus the Competition folder plus the mechanics section from the library section
"Other" > This would cover all the places that are currently just collecting garbage or do not have homes. "General, Rerappers, Developers and most of the library section.

This is six forum sections on the main page that would force every user to select which section they wanted to post in before selecting the actual forum to post in and hopefully stop everyone from just posting in the first forum (general has 62 thousand posts).

For even better organization it would be neat to have the machines in a tree format so you could see the evolution of the machine and its roots.

I do not think the idea of an official RepRap is good at all since there can not be an official without an owner. As it is any "Rep"licating "Rap"id prototyping machine is a RepRap. RepRap is about evolution and as with biological life there will be a lot of variations and species, all of which are descendents of the first even if they can not interbreed any longer. Trying to restrict that goes against the basis of a machine that evolves.

I also think there needs to be far less bias in the official RepRap resources. Right now the cover page of the wiki has a link to this page [reprap.org] which can only be edited by a few privileged persons who are basically using it as an AD for their machines. Even worse is IRC, it has an AD at the top to build a Prusa I3 which is only popular because of the name Prusa. There are far more machines that take way less shortcuts and have more thought put into them than a Prusa I3 and yet it is the one with the AD on what appears to be an official RepRap resource. If IRC is not an official place I think it should be removed from the Forum heading, if it s an official place it should not have AD's in its header.

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Sublime
I do not think the idea of an official RepRap is good at all since there can not be an official without an owner. As it is any "Rep"licating "Rap"id prototyping machine is a RepRap. RepRap is about evolution and as with biological life there will be a lot of variations and species, all of which are descendents of the first even if they can not interbreed any longer. Trying to restrict that goes against the basis of a machine that evolves.

Where does the reprap project fit into that metaphor? Was it only just the seed? What it it's purpose now?

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Buback

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Sublime
I do not think the idea of an official RepRap is good at all since there can not be an official without an owner. As it is any "Rep"licating "Rap"id prototyping machine is a RepRap. RepRap is about evolution and as with biological life there will be a lot of variations and species, all of which are descendents of the first even if they can not interbreed any longer. Trying to restrict that goes against the basis of a machine that evolves.

Where does the reprap project fit into that metaphor? Was it only just the seed? What it it's purpose now?

RepRap is the environment that supports the life that started evolving in it from the first machine which was named Darwin (not reprap). It was that first machine that has evolved into all the current ones. RepRap itself is nothing more than an idea and a place for people to work together. What I hear when I hear consolidate or official reprap is "if you do not fit in then you are not welcome". But we need more innovation and less copying of the same old design. We do have some innovative designs like Delta, Core XY, Etch-a-sketch (Ultimaker/Tantillus), Polar, and everything that Nicolas Seward has designed. If RepRap were to be just slight variations on the "official machines" (say those from RepRapPro, Adrian Bowyers company) we would have no advancements just more Mendel variants with all the flaws it intrinsically has.

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Sublime
RepRap itself is nothing more than an idea and a place for people to work together.

that sentiment exactly why nobody bothers with the wiki.

If you want to stick with the evolutionary metaphor, consider this; there needs to be some type of forcing mechanism in order to promote one mutation over another. Otherwise, you just get random, unproductive mutations. I would like to see the reprap project as enforcing specific forcing mechanisms, such as reproducible part count, and cost, and ease of use. Designating a machine that meets those criteria best would, in my opinion, spur other developers to beat that machine. I don't think that hinders development at all.

it's not about selecting a "best" printer, but about selecting the one that best meets Reprap.orgs mission goals. Other companies or individuals will have their own goals.

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Buback

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Sublime
RepRap itself is nothing more than an idea and a place for people to work together.

that sentiment exactly why nobody bothers with the wiki.

I think the reason nobody bothers is because it is an unorganized mess with pages that try and organize things but actually make it worse since they need to be manually updated every time. Like I said in the other thread it needs to be self organizing with the tags making the index pages, not a page that each person has to add a link to and then they fight over which ones is at the top and it becomes a place of opinion and no longer a place full of facts. Try opening an encyclopedia some time and see if there are general pages trying to influence your opinion, you won't find any. It is made up of pages with facts and it is up to the reader to read through all the facts and make an informed decision. Right now there are all kinds of pages trying to make decisions for people and stifling innovation.

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Buback
If you want to stick with the evolutionary metaphor, consider this; there needs to be some type of forcing mechanism in order to promote one mutation over another. Otherwise, you just get random, unproductive mutations. I would like to see the reprap project as enforcing specific forcing mechanisms, such as reproducible part count, and cost, and ease of use. Designating a machine that meets those criteria best would, in my opinion, spur other developers to beat that machine. I don't think that hinders development at all.

That is the user base. If users use your design it continues to live. If they do not it dies off. Also Random mutation is what makes evolution work so you definitely do not want that to stop. It sounds more like you want work on a single type of machine which is fine but that should not restrict others from mutating and creating a new species that lives in the same environment. Some of the earliest threads in the forum are about Resin and Powder printers, are you saying they should not exist? In my opinion RepRap should definitely have one criteria and that is being "Rep"licating. Like this page says [reprap.org] as much of it that can be produced with the current technology.

If you look at the current designs they are actually going away from that. Most of them use fancy lead screws and extruded aluminum and special v-slides etc. The only machines that have been designed lately that I would consider closer to the original goal would be the work of Nicolas Seward but those are not the ones being promoted by the homepage of RepRap or IRC which promote those that use less replicating parts then their predecessor. The entire project is going backwards if we keep promoting the designs that are the fastest to manufacture. It should not matter if it takes a day or a year to self replicate if it means you do not need to rely on a corporation to manufacture part of your machine that is not necessary (like lead screws can be replaced with levers or strings or fluid)(Or frames that can be printed).

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2014 03:01PM by Sublime.

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Buback
I would like to see the reprap project as enforcing specific forcing mechanisms

Why not encourage instead of enforce? If you have a vision you think people will rally behind, create a project page on the wiki, set up a bounty, get people to put money on it, and then don't shut up about it until someone does the work. All the things you mention, "reproducible part count, and cost, and ease of use" could be itemized as action items on the bounty tracker... Heck, there's an open $50 bounty right now for an ease of use development.

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Sublime
Right now the cover page of the wiki has a link to this page [reprap.org] which can only be edited by a few privileged persons who are basically using it as an AD for their machines.

Maybe for full disclosure you should also mention that the cover page of the wiki has a link to this page RepRap Options, and one of the machines on that page is this one and one of the dedicated subforums on this website is this one. It doesn't seem like you are being deprived of publicity...

I don't know how many people remember the last time there was discussion about updating the official machines page, but it didn't go well. Here is what the hard-working volunteer had to say about it after trying to come up with a reasonable solution:

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spacexula
I got enough nasty emails and conversations questioning my character that I am really not intersted in continuing the update of the front page any further. If someone else wants to take up the project have at it. I am done.

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Sublime
If IRC is not an official place I think it should be removed from the Forum heading, if it s an official place it should not have AD's in its header.

A lot of people on IRC think that IRC is the official seat of RepRap. I suggested we put the IRC button up at the top of the forums in an attempt to foster more interaction between the two (largely separate) groups. (The wiki has had a link to IRC in the sidebar since forever.)

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Sublime
If you look at the current designs they are actually going away from that. Most of them use fancy lead screws and extruded aluminum and special v-slides etc. The only machines that have been designed lately that I would consider closer to the original goal would be the work of Nicolas Seward but those are not the ones being promoted by the homepage of RepRap or IRC which promote those that use less replicating parts then their predecessor. The entire project is going backwards if we keep promoting the designs that are the fastest to manufacture. It should not matter if it takes a day or a year to self replicate if it means you do not need to rely on a corporation to manufacture part of your machine that is not necessary (like lead screws can be replaced with levers or strings or fluid)(Or frames that can be printed).

I agree completely. But I think that if reprap ignores the trends of more conventional low-cost 3d printing, it will lose even more relevance. The commercial side of things is not going to go away, and I think people who care about the future of RepRap should acknowledge that. But I also think we can strike a balance between the mundane commercial work going on and cutting edge research into new fabrication methods, self-replication, and so on. We gotta be realistic.

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Sublime
If you look at the current designs they are actually going away from that. Most of them use fancy lead screws and extruded aluminum and special v-slides etc. The only machines that have been designed lately that I would consider closer to the original goal would be the work of Nicolas Seward but those are not the ones being promoted by the homepage of RepRap or IRC which promote those that use less replicating parts then their predecessor. The entire project is going backwards if we keep promoting the designs that are the fastest to manufacture. It should not matter if it takes a day or a year to self replicate if it means you do not need to rely on a corporation to manufacture part of your machine that is not necessary (like lead screws can be replaced with levers or strings or fluid)(Or frames that can be printed).

Yes! exactly what i'm saying! we do see eye to eye, you know.

and re: random mutations. yes, mutations happen all the time, but a gene that makes a plant drought tolerant isn't passed down preferential unless there's a drought. Just like why "replicable" is not currently as important as "cheap." It's also why people pick FDM over powder printers; They work for what the user needs, and there's no forcing mechanism that would make switching beneficial (in fact, it's the opposite, as you'd have to invest a lot more time and money doing all the research and sourcing yourself). There's also the patents, so the support business actually have a disincentive while the patents are still in place.

I'd actually love to see a powder reprap, and i think choosing or designing a "seed" printer, just like Darwin, would help spur development.

Re: spacexula. He last posted on the forums 10 months ago. I don't know if he's active elsewhere, but it looks he might have moved on. that sucks.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2014 04:21PM by Buback.

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Buback
I'd actually love to see a powder reprap

You've probably heard about these projects already, but just in case: OpenSLS, Pwdr Model 0.1, Dragonator 3DP printer

I've read about the first one (because it's on the wiki) but not the other two. I feel it wouldn't be proper to adopt someone's printer that wasn't already on the wiki. The only problem is that opensls is not exactly a complete printer (but is awesome and encouraging).

Back on topic for a sec:
Consolidating the forums will make them easier to moderate, seemingly. tech support or "what should i build/buy" questions really clog up every other subforum. I think most readers are leary of reporting such topics because it makes you feel like a (unkind person).

Go slow, sure. But i think you can safely dump the prism threads into the extruded aluminum forum.

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MattMoses

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Sublime
Right now the cover page of the wiki has a link to this page [reprap.org] which can only be edited by a few privileged persons who are basically using it as an AD for their machines.

Maybe for full disclosure you should also mention that the cover page of the wiki has a link to this page RepRap Options, and one of the machines on that page is this one and one of the dedicated subforums on this website is this one. It doesn't seem like you are being deprived of publicity...

Sorry I hope that did not sound like I was whining. I actually feel there should be no pages that have limited access and make decisions for people. That is the page I linked to should not exist and the home page should not have any machine specific information on it. I would also like to say that the page you linked to with my Tantillus design I did add Tantillus to myself but it was after I closed my store and none of this was about promoting sales. It was about promoting evolution and the machine I promote the most lately is Ingentis which does not have a wiki page at all and all the development is happening either in the Tantillus forum or on G+ (which I am not a fan of).

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MattMoses
I don't know how many people remember the last time there was discussion about updating the official machines page, but it didn't go well. Here is what the hard-working volunteer had to say about it after trying to come up with a reasonable solution:

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spacexula
I got enough nasty emails and conversations questioning my character that I am really not intersted in continuing the update of the front page any further. If someone else wants to take up the project have at it. I am done.

I do remember that and again this comes down to there is no way to define an official RepRap and whenever a page tries influence opinion it ends up in fights and problems. Hence my suggestions of that page not existing and only having factual pages with indexing based on tags.

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MattMoses

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Sublime
If IRC is not an official place I think it should be removed from the Forum heading, if it s an official place it should not have AD's in its header.

A lot of people on IRC think that IRC is the official seat of RepRap. I suggested we put the IRC button up at the top of the forums in an attempt to foster more interaction between the two (largely separate) groups. (The wiki has had a link to IRC in the sidebar since forever.)

I just talked about this in the thread in the general section but I will say it here again. IRC only holds people responsible for misinformation for the time it takes for the conversation to be pushed off the page which means bad advice gets proliferated or sends people off on wild goose chases without anyone being able to come along a day later to add to the conversation or correct it.

As for the side bar, is this another thing only editable by certain people? Maybe those that use IRC to influence people into their way without worry of actually having to defend what they say because the conversation is not preserved like on the forum?

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MattMoses

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Sublime
If you look at the current designs they are actually going away from that. Most of them use fancy lead screws and extruded aluminum and special v-slides etc. The only machines that have been designed lately that I would consider closer to the original goal would be the work of Nicolas Seward but those are not the ones being promoted by the homepage of RepRap or IRC which promote those that use less replicating parts then their predecessor. The entire project is going backwards if we keep promoting the designs that are the fastest to manufacture. It should not matter if it takes a day or a year to self replicate if it means you do not need to rely on a corporation to manufacture part of your machine that is not necessary (like lead screws can be replaced with levers or strings or fluid)(Or frames that can be printed).

I agree completely. But I think that if reprap ignores the trends of more conventional low-cost 3d printing, it will lose even more relevance. The commercial side of things is not going to go away, and I think people who care about the future of RepRap should acknowledge that. But I also think we can strike a balance between the mundane commercial work going on and cutting edge research into new fabrication methods, self-replication, and so on. We gotta be realistic.

Agreed and I am not trying to argue here. A lot of those things that make for cheap kits make very expensive self sourced machines. But a lot of what makes for cheap self sourced machines does not make for an expensive kit.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2014 06:33PM by Sublime.

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Sublime
I just talked about this in the thread in the general section but I will say it here again. IRC only holds people responsible for misinformation for the time it takes for the conversation to be pushed off the page which means bad advice gets proliferated or sends people off on wild goose chases without anyone being able to come along a day later to add to the conversation or correct it.

As for the side bar, is this another thing only editable by certain people? Maybe those that use IRC to influence people into their way without worry of actually having to defend what they say because the conversation is not preserved like on the forum?

I don't like the IRC channel personally. I find it useful to get into immediate contact with certain people, but that's all I use it for. I've tried to get on there to help and whatnot, but everything just gets drowned out in the noise. It's so much worse than the forums.

I don't know how the sidebar is edited. I can't find an option to do so anywhere on the wiki. Maybe one of the other admins knows.

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Sublime
I actually feel there should be no pages that have limited access and make decisions for people. That is the page I linked to should not exist and the home page should not have any machine specific information on it.

This sounds OK to me. I like the RepRap Options page (even though it is disorganized) and it does not have any editing restrictions. The Build A RepRap page (the one with editing restrictions) seems to be really out of date anyway... A simple thing to do would be to change the link(s) on the main page so they all point to RepRap Options... We would probably need Adrian's OK, however.

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Sublime
I did add Tantillus to myself but it was after I closed my store and none of this was about promoting sales

I didn't know you closed your store. Will keep this in mind in the future... Just a general comment, Sublime: if you want Admin privileges, just ask (probably Traumflug or VDX). Unless there is bad blood I don't know about, I don't think anyone would object to you being an admin. (For example I got involved just by volunteering to help clean up spam.)

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NewPerfection
I don't know how the sidebar is edited... Maybe one of the other admins knows.

The wiki sidebar is here. It does not appear to be locked (to me anyway).

As for IRC, I don't have strong opinions one way or the other. I'm actually in the process of editing and converting the kthx factoids to add to the Glossary but I'm not convinced it is worth the effort. (A large fraction of the factoids are nothing more than profanity-laced inside jokes, to be honest.) But I think it is silly for the RepRap community to split into fragments just because some people use IRC and some use the forums... Hence any kind of interaction between the groups is helpful, in my opinion. Kind of reminds me of this xkcd about crazy straws.

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MattMoses

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Sublime
I actually feel there should be no pages that have limited access and make decisions for people. That is the page I linked to should not exist and the home page should not have any machine specific information on it.

This sounds OK to me. I like the RepRap Options page (even though it is disorganized) and it does not have any editing restrictions. The Build A RepRap page (the one with editing restrictions) seems to be really out of date anyway... A simple thing to do would be to change the link(s) on the main page so they all point to RepRap Options... We would probably need Adrian's OK, however.

Hopefully someone with the know how or privilages will read this and let us know. If that does not happen in the next say week maybe we should start a thread to request it?

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MattMoses

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Sublime
I did add Tantillus to myself but it was after I closed my store and none of this was about promoting sales

I didn't know you closed your store. Will keep this in mind in the future... Just a general comment, Sublime: if you want Admin privileges, just ask (probably Traumflug or VDX). Unless there is bad blood I don't know about, I don't think anyone would object to you being an admin. (For example I got involved just by volunteering to help clean up spam.)

I became a stay at home dad and was left with very little time to spend in the garage. I am about to have even less time soon. I do still make a few hobbed bolts but that is about it.

I have thought about being an Admin but I know myself too well and understand that I am opinionated and that can get in the way. Although I have wanted many times to move threads that are posted in the wrong sections (some times that seems like it would be a never ending battle).

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personally i doubt we're going to get very far here,

the wiki is currently abused by people whose sole contribution is an external link to their website, i think we need to seriously reconsider a good percentage of them since most of them don't have interest other than making money off us and purge them from the wiki, doing this alone will help drive traffic to developer owned web shops which will give them more cash-flow and more money to spend on development the knock on effect would be developers seeing more value in the wiki than they currently do

i think the reason the build a reprap page is restricted is because it would just look like the reprap options
and looking at the reprap options page ..... seriously?

this is supposed to be about self replicating machines , in what world are printers like the eventorbot self replicating? why are they on this page at all? then there are the ones which use tslot as their primary structure ...

there are 32 printers on that page and only a handfull of them have any focus on self replication, and the most promising in that department is the tantilus


i suggest that as part of any clean up on the wiki that we remove/declare obsolete/legacy some of these printers, and remove any/all commercial links to webshops which don't support the reprep community or it's developers in anyway that exist on the forum/wiki

we really should have 1 wiki page that lists suppliers and everything link to that i think currently we have 10 to 15 pages which list the same suppliers

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/2014 10:37PM by thejollygrimreaper.

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I know there's no 'reprap administration' but i like this idea that we remove any printers that don't contribute monetary funds back to reprap.org. maybe with more funds reprap could hire a web developer...

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/2014 10:50PM by Buback.

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Buback
I know there's no 'reprap administration' but i like this idea that we remove any printers that don't contribute monetary funds back to reprap.org. maybe with more funds reprap could hire a web developer...

it not so much about sending funds to reprap.org, but more about not linking to places who don't put back into the community in anyway

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thejollygrimreaper
this is supposed to be about self replicating machines , in what world are printers like the eventorbot self replicating? why are they on this page at all? then there are the ones which use tslot as their primary structure ...

You will not find a bigger fanboy for self-replicating machines than myself but even I acknowledge that if we kick out every piece of work that doesn't deal directly with self-replicating machines, we are not going to be left with much.

A big part of RepRap is also promoting open source hardware in low cost 3D printers. RepRap started this whole thing, and RepRap has a good chance of remaining the "go to" place for open source advanced manufacturing, unless we do something stupid and scare away everyone doing research on the topic.

Personally, I think the eventorbot is "moving away from self-replicating" compared to earlier designs, but ya know what? They've got a nice page on the wiki, the design files are easily available, the printer can print some of its own parts... I think it totally deserves a spot on the RepRap options page. (side note: the fact the handful of people participating in this thread can't agree on what should be on that page does not bode well for any type of reorganization process...)

When I see 32 machines on the RepRap options page I think "Wow, all of these printers came out of the RepRap project. All of these designs are part of the RepRap project. I want to design a printer that goes on this list. What is my printer going to look like?" So I don't see it as a bad thing...

Regarding the commercial links, I find it annoying when people edit the wiki only to put a link to their offsite shop. Some people have dozens of edits and every single one of them is just adding a one-line link to their crappy blog. I am fine if we try to reduce that behavior. But I think it is a bad bad idea to be too restrictive about what kind of links we allow. It will give reprap.org a bad reputation as a place that is unfriendly to small businesses. (I think that's bad and I'm not even selling anything!)

My recommendation is to always err on the side of less rules instead of more rules, and to deal with bad behavior (spam, blatant advertising, etc) on a case by case basis.

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MattMoses

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thejollygrimreaper
this is supposed to be about self replicating machines , in what world are printers like the eventorbot self replicating? why are they on this page at all? then there are the ones which use tslot as their primary structure ...

You will not find a bigger fanboy for self-replicating machines than myself but even I acknowledge that if we kick out every piece of work that doesn't deal directly with self-replicating machines, we are not going to be left with much.

A big part of RepRap is also promoting open source hardware in low cost 3D printers. RepRap started this whole thing, and RepRap has a good chance of remaining the "go to" place for open source advanced manufacturing, unless we do something stupid and scare away everyone doing research on the topic.

Personally, I think the eventorbot is "moving away from self-replicating" compared to earlier designs, but ya know what? They've got a nice page on the wiki, the design files are easily available, the printer can print some of its own parts... I think it totally deserves a spot on the RepRap options page. (side note: the fact the handful of people participating in this thread can't agree on what should be on that page does not bode well for any type of reorganization process...)

When I see 32 machines on the RepRap options page I think "Wow, all of these printers came out of the RepRap project. All of these designs are part of the RepRap project. I want to design a printer that goes on this list. What is my printer going to look like?" So I don't see it as a bad thing...

Regarding the commercial links, I find it annoying when people edit the wiki only to put a link to their offsite shop. Some people have dozens of edits and every single one of them is just adding a one-line link to their crappy blog. I am fine if we try to reduce that behavior. But I think it is a bad bad idea to be too restrictive about what kind of links we allow. It will give reprap.org a bad reputation as a place that is unfriendly to small businesses. (I think that's bad and I'm not even selling anything!)

My recommendation is to always err on the side of less rules instead of more rules, and to deal with bad behavior (spam, blatant advertising, etc) on a case by case basis.

by all means we probably should ease up on a rule or two, but i'm more concerned about the webshops for example that do things like stock the clone jheads which are made so badily they don't even have the right number of slots in them, and have given people all sorts of jamming trouble because they haven't seen a day of testing they've just been produced to make money, personally i think these are the shops that do this sort of activity we should remove we are not obligated to keep them and to an extent we are condoning their activity which just hurts the developer

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thejollygrimreaper
but i'm more concerned about the webshops for example that do things like stock the clone jheads which are made so badily they don't even have the right number of slots in them, and have given people all sorts of jamming trouble because they haven't seen a day of testing

How about this: if there is a link to a product that is known to be defective, add a warning and/or a link to a review, forum discussion, or some other source. Fight the problem with additional information.

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MattMoses
How about this: if there is a link to a product that is known to be defective

How would you know a product to be "defective"? You have no sample yourself and the vendor will deny this immediately.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

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Traumflug

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MattMoses
How about this: if there is a link to a product that is known to be defective

How would you know a product to be "defective"? You have no sample yourself and the vendor will deny this immediately.

defective or not, in a lot of cases there are significant differences which should render the product a variant anyway and should stand on it's own two feet , not ride on another manufacturers reputation and deceive people who simply don't know any better, this is why i think the links in the wiki should either be removed or warnings attached next to them, most of the time the differences can be seen in the photos the seller uses

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/2014 07:18AM by thejollygrimreaper.

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thejollygrimreaper
most of the time the differences can be seen in the photos the seller uses

In some cases though the sellers aren't that honest, and use misleading descriptions and photos. For example: [www.reprapit.com] They use the J-Head photo and description ripped straight from the wiki, but seem to be selling knock-off J-Heads. See: [forums.reprap.org] I never got a definitive reply, but in either case they shouldn't be using the image from the wiki unless they are actually re-selling hot ends from Brian.

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thejollygrimreaper
defective or not, in a lot of cases there are significant differences which should render the product a variant anyway and should stand on it's own two feet , not ride on another manufacturers reputation and deceive people who simply don't know any better, this is why i think the links in the wiki should either be removed or warnings attached next to them,

I agree.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2014 10:37AM by NewPerfection.

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Just FYI, I'm all for identifying scrap, too, I just don't see how it can be done reliably. Instead I see heated debates based on very weak arguments.

One strategy could be to make two vendor sections, "authorized vendors" and "other vendors". Only sellers authorized by the developer himself would got into "authorized vendors". This way every seller finds his place and there's a distinction of the items known to be good and those of not yet defined quality (which can be good, too, of course).

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY