Request for changes in the "Machines Variations" section

Hi,
This is a request to the forum admins. Please, could we make a few changes/adjustments to the "Machines Variations" section?

1. Archive or merge into an "Older designs" subforum, both the Darwin and Prism subforums. They both saw their last posts in June 2014.

2. Merge the "Mendel 90" and "Mendel and Prusa Mendel" subforums. How about rename this new forum to "Mendel and variants" ?

3. Most importantly, create a separate "Prusa i3 and variants" subforum! This is one of the most popular designs in 2015 and a separate subforum is clearly justified.

4. Rename "New Repstraps and Post Mendel" to something slightly less confusing, how about "New and Experimental Designs", with the subtitle "Anything new that doesn't fit in any of the other categories".

Thanks a bunch for your hard work,
Andrew

This sounds (mostly) like a good idea to me. I have not done this kind of forum reorganization before, but I can give it a try if we find consensus regarding what goes where.

In response to your specific suggestions here are my own opinions:

Quote
AndrewBCN
1. Archive or merge into an "Older designs" subforum, both the Darwin and Prism subforums.

Yes. No problem.

Quote
AndrewBCN
2. Merge the "Mendel 90" and "Mendel and Prusa Mendel" subforums.

No. Mendel90 is very active and it is also nophead's turf. I do not dare touch it without nophead's express permission.

Quote
AndrewBCN
3. Most importantly, create a separate "Prusa i3 and variants" subforum!

Yes. No problem.

Quote
AndrewBCN
4. Rename "New Repstraps and Post Mendel" to something slightly less confusing, how about "New and Experimental Designs"

Yes, but I do not like the name "New and Experimental Designs" because there are a lot of new and experimental designs in others of the subforums - Polar bots & robot arms, CoreXY, Delta Robots & Stewart Platform all have a lot of experimental activity reported in them. How about "Miscellaneous New Designs" or "Other New Designs" instead, keeping the subtitle "Anything new that doesn't fit in any of the other categories"?

I was thinking about this a bit more. There are quite a lot of Prusa i3 posts in the "Mendel and Prusa Mendel" subforum, so maybe we do not need to create a new subforum. And ideally we want to reduce the number of subforums, not keep the same and certainly not increase. So how about this:

1. Rename "Darwin" to "Legacy Designs - older designs no longer in widespread use".

2. Move all topics of "Prism" to "Legacy Designs" and then delete "Prism".

3. Rename "Mendel and Prusa Mendel" to "Prusa i3, Prusa Mendel, and Sells Mendel".

4. Rename "New RepStraps and Post Mendel" to "Other new designs - anything new that doesn't fit in other categories".

Optional: Move all topics of "Polar bots and Robot Arms" to "Other new designs" and then delete "Polar bots and Robot Arms".

How does this sound? Comments? Objections?

... sounds OK for me -- but the "polar bots" and "robot arms" are different enough from cartesian and parallel-kinematic structures, to get an own categorization ...

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Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

I agree with everything, except for prism being legacy. Maybe because I use one...

IMO it is ok to delete the Prism subforum, it doesn't have enough traffic to be worth existing.
But I believe its existing posts should be moved to "Mendel" as it is a Mendel variation.

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Most of my technical comments should be correct, but is THIS one ?
Anyway, as a rule of thumb, always double check what people write.

To reduce the clutter it might be a good idea to create folders. For example, "Legacy Designs" (Darwin) or "Specific Models" (Mendel90, Ormerod, i2/i3, ...). These folders next to more general sections on the same level.

Moving stuff into a folder is much simpler than joining two topics, because when joining you have to move every thread one by one. That's fine for 20 or 30 threads, but with 1000 of them you'd spend an entire day with moving. Also, moving stuff into folders keeps the separation between models.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

Agreed.

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Most of my technical comments should be correct, but is THIS one ?
Anyway, as a rule of thumb, always double check what people write.

Quote
MattMoses
....

3. Rename "Mendel and Prusa Mendel" to "Prusa i3, Prusa Mendel, and Sells Mendel".

...

Hi Matt, everybody,

I think there is some consensus by now about a couple of things in the "Machine Variations" forum reorganization.

1. We do not want to increase the number of subforums.

2. We accept that some newer designs are in widespread use, development and most importantly, being built currently by a large number of people who will probably look for information and answers to their questions in these forums, while some older designs are, let's put it this way, "legacy" designs: they undoubtedly work fine but are not being developed, used, or built in such a widespread manner as they were a couple of years ago.

3. Markus' excellent suggestion to use folders should be put to good use.

So I have a new proposition, which caters to most of the opinions expressed above and tries to put the idea of folders to good use too:

1. Create a new subforum "Legacy Designs" with the subtitle "Older designs no longer in widespread use". Yes, I know, subforum count + 1, but see below.

2. Create a folder "Darwin" inside "Legacy Designs", and move all the posts from the Darwin subforum in there, then delete it. That brings us back to the original subforum count. :-)

3. Rename the subforum "Mendel and Prusa Mendel" to "Mendel and all variants".

4. Create the following folders inside "Mendel and all variants": a. Prusa Mendel b. Prism c. Sells Mendel d. Mendel 90 e. Prusa i2 f. Other Mendel variants

5. Move all the posts from the Prism subforum to the Prism folder inside "Mendel and all variants", then delete it. Subforum count - 1. Hurray! :-)

6. Likewise, move all the posts from the Mendel 90 subforum in the Mendel 90 folder inside "Mendel and all variants", then delete it. Subforum count - 2. Double hurray! :-)

7. Create a separate "Prusa i3 and variants" subforum, and then create folders inside it as needed. I would suggest a. Prusa i3 single frame b. Prusa i3 Box frame c. Prusa i3 Rework d. Prusa i3 Twelvepro e. P3Steel. Yes, I know, back to subforum count - 1, can't have the cake and eat it too I guess.

8. Rename "New RepStraps and Post Mendel" to "Other new designs" with subtitle "Anything new that doesn't fit in other categories", as you suggested above.

9. Create a folder "Polar bots and Robot Arms" inside "Other new designs", move all the posts and delete the subforum. Back to subforum count - 2, good!

Hopefully none of the above leaves anybody unhappy.

Thanks again for all your hard work maintaining the servers, forums, wiki, etc. I must say I consider RepRap.org to be the single most valuable resource for all reprappers on the web, and it's all thanks to your hard work. I try to contribute what I can...

Cheers,
Andrew

Can I suggest that whatever rearrangement is done, "Scara" is included in one of the forum titles. Currently, a lot of the posts in the Polar bots and Robot Arms forum are actually about Scara designs.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

This is part 1 of a 2-part reply.

I was getting confused on terminology, so I made these two little graphics to help keep the terminology consistent.

• there are folders, forums, and topics
• folders contain other folders
• folders also contain forums
• forums contain topics
• forums do not contain other forums
• forums do not contain folders

This is part 2 of a 2-part reply.

OK, so how about this:

Within the "Machines Variations" folder, create three new folders:

• Legacy Machines - old designs no longer in widespread use
• New and Experimental Machines - CoreXY, Delta, Polar, SCARA, and more
• Specific Machines - Mendel90, Prusa i3, Ormerod, and more

Next, move (and rename where applicable) all of the existing forums in the Machines Variation folder into one of the three new folders:

Legacy Machines
Darwin

New and Experimental Machines
CoreXY Systems
Delta Robots and Stewart Platform
Extruded Aluminum
MetalicaRap
Miscellaneous New Machines - new designs that do not fit in other categories (renamed from "New RepStraps and Post Mendel")
Polar machines, SCARA, Robot Arms (renamed from "Polar bots and Robot Arms")

Specific Machines
General Mendel Topics - Prusa, Prusa i3, Sells, and more (renamed from "Mendel and Prusa Mendel")
FoldaRap
Huxley
Mendel90
Ormerod
Prism
Prusa i3 (new!)
Smart_Rap
Tantillus

We can add more forums to the "Specific Machines" folder as needed. There are already a ton of Prusa i3 topics in the existing "Mendel and Prusa Mendel" forum, so whatever the new name of that one is, it should reflect that it has i3 topics in it...

OK, that's all for now. What do people think?

My 2p worth:

1. Delta printers are hardly new and experimental, there are a number of mature designs around. OTOH I don't think any of them has a large enough user base yet to merit its own sub-forum. Whereas Stewart platforms are still very much experimental in 3D printing. So I suggest a forum "Delta printers", and then Stewart platforms come under Miscellaneous.

2. It seems a shame to make the users of the most active forums navigate down a level to access them, or even just to see if anything new has been posted - and this will increase the load on the server, which is already vert slow at times. I would prefer to see the most active forums remain at the top level. Although that will probably lead to argument about what belongs at the top level and what doesn't.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Quote
dc42
...and this will increase the load on the server, which is already vert slow at times...

I am not an admin for the reprap.org server or servers and so I don't have access to load figures, but in my "real life" I am a Linux sysadmin and I have worked in the past on server systems with up to 1 million hits per day. Personally I don't see how the folder structure of the forums can have any impact on server load.

My main objective about this request for the reorganization of the "Machines Variations" section is to bring some clarity about where people should post when they have a question about any specific printer model. Because what I am seeing right now is that people don't even bother going down to the "Mendel and Prusa Mendel" to post their question about a Prusa i3, they just use the "General" forum. :-(

Because - the way I see it - although it may be obvious to more experienced reprappers that a Prusa i3 is an evolution of the Prusa Mendel (is it? doesn't quite look like it to me, but anyways...), to a newbie such as myself it seems at first glance that there is not a single forum that focuses on the Prusa i3 and its variants - even though these may represent 1/4 to 1/3 of all the reprap 3D printers being built nowadays, in 2015. And yet older designs that are clearly deprecated (e.g. Darwin) have their own forum...

Matt, you latest proposal seems just about perfect to me. And I agree with dc42 about his suggestion for a separate forum for Delta printers with Stewart Platforms under Miscellaneous.

Again, thanks a bunch to you all.

Andrew

Quote
AndrewBCN

Quote
dc42
...and this will increase the load on the server, which is already vert slow at times...

I am not an admin for the reprap.org server or servers and so I don't have access to load figures, but in my "real life" I am a Linux sysadmin and I have worked in the past on server systems with up to 1 million hits per day. Personally I don't see how the folder structure of the forums can have any impact on server load.

If a user only visits one forum, then he may bookmark it, in which case when he accesses that forum there will be no increase in server load if the forum is in a folder. But people like you and I who visit multiple forums will generally navigate to the folder first, then to the forum. That's an extra page load. Just to see which of the forums I monitor have new posts will require extra page loads if some of those forums are in folders.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

"Legacy Designs": ... old stuff typically goes to the bottom ... :-)

"Extruded Aluminium": I still can't believe people see this as a distinction (and don't ask me what I think about the designs typically done with them). With this we'd also need to have a subforum "threaded rod", "wood sheets", "welded frames", whatever. In short, I'd simply stuff that away into "Legacy Designs" in the hope it gets forgotten. What matters is the kinematics type of a design, you can make a Delta and also a CoreXY and also a traditional printer with this building material.

... wait ... this could be renamed to "Carthesian/Straight Printers", because we have topics for all kinematics types except for the most straightforward one.

"Prusa i3" -> "Sells Mendel, Prusa i2, Prusa i3" == "General Mendel Topics"

The subforum aspect @dc42 talks about is indeed an issue. Less for the server load, more for people's laziness. Just look at what gets posted to the "General" section, just because that's the first section and "General" needs the least thinking about where an appropriate place is. I have no golden solution, though, other than to use less subforums in doubt.

"MetalicaRap" is a "Specific Machine".

I'd remove the "New and Experimental Machines" folder and put these topics on the same level as the folders. Because these topics are less about being experimental, more about kinematics types.

This is also just $0.02 from me.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

It looks like we all want something different. But I have not yet given up hope of making everyone happy.

How about this one? We split "Machines Variations" into two top-level folders, "Machines Organized by Name" and "Machines Organized by Kinematics". And we also create a new top-level folder called "Legacy Forums" that goes at the bottom of the whole page. It would look kind of like the picture below.

The contents of the top-level folders would be:

Machines Organized by Name
General Mendel Topics - Prusa i3, Prusa i2, Prusa and Sells Mendels (renamed from "Mendel and Prusa Mendel")
FoldaRap
Huxley
Mendel90
MetalicaRap
Ormerod
Prism
Smart_Rap
Tantillus

Machines Organized by Kinematics
CoreXY Systems
Cartesian XYZ, Box Frames, Extruded Aluminum (renamed from Extruded Aluminum)
Delta Robots and Stewart Platforms
General New Machines Topics - new designs that do not fit in other categories (renamed from "New RepStraps and Post Mendel")
Polar machines, SCARA, Robot Arms (renamed from "Polar bots and Robot Arms")

Legacy Forums (old)
Darwin
Kartik M. Gada Humanitarian Innovation Prize

Hi Matt,
That is certainly an improvement relatively speaking, compared to the present situation, but it doesn't cater to my main request in my original post above: I really wanted a separate folder or subforum named "Prusa i3 and variants". I am quite certain we will observe within a matter of days that it is the forum in the "Machines Variations" section that will receive the highest number of posts. I understand that there is already a large number of posts related to the i3 in the "Mendel and Prusa Mendel" subforum but so be it! A note could be added in the subtitle for the new "Prusa i3 and variants" subforum about that.

And I would include the Prism subforum in the "Legacy" top-level folder. For the simple reason that it received its last post in June 2014, not because I find the design obsolete or problematic, but because it seems nobody is building one in 2015, and it becomes less likely that one will be built as time goes by.

Thanks for your patience if you have read so far!

Cheers,
Andrew

Quote
AndrewBCN
I really wanted a separate folder or subforum named "Prusa i3 and variants"

OK, OK. We can make an extra forum for Prusa i3.

How's this? (Prism topics to be moved to "General Mendel Topics" as suggested by DeuxVis.)

Machines Organized by Name
General Mendel Topics - Prusa, Prism, Sells, and more (renamed from "Mendel and Prusa Mendel")
FoldaRap
Huxley
Mendel90
MetalicaRap
Ormerod
Prusa i3 and variants
Smart_Rap
Tantillus

Machines Organized by Style
General New Machines Topics - designs that do not fit in other categories (renamed from "New RepStraps and Post Mendel")
Extruded Aluminum Frames, Box Frames, Cartesian XYZ (renamed from Extruded Aluminum)
CoreXY Systems
Delta Robots and Stewart Platforms
Polar machines, SCARA, Robot Arms (renamed from "Polar bots and Robot Arms")

Legacy Forums (old)
Darwin
Kartik M. Gada Humanitarian Innovation Prize

Looks an improvement on the current arrangement to me, but instead of "Delta Robots and Stewart Platforms" I suggest "Delta Machines". Likewise "CoreXY Systems" could be "CoreXY Machines" for consistency.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

@Matt Thanks, that is perfectly fine, and I also support dc42's suggestions above, i.e. renaming "Delta Robots and Stewart Platforms" to "Delta Machines" and "CoreXY Systems" to "CoreXY Machines".

BTW I noticed in another thread that you and other sysadmins are short on time for this sort of administrative tasks, and I am perfectly fine with donating some of my time if you need some help. In my "real life" I am a Linux sysadmin. So please feel free to PM me if needed.

Cheers,

Andrew

OK, I changed enough things for one evening. Time to quit before I break something. Here is a summary:

1. Moved Prism topics to "Mendel and Prusa Mendel". After the old empty Prism forum was deleted, it broke redirects to the Prism topics. By sheer dumb luck I had decided to write down all of the Prism topics and links before moving them, so it was easy to create a list of links to the new locations of the Prism topics. These are listed in this separate thread here.
2. Created the "Legacy Forums (old)" folder at the bottom of the page and moved Darwin and Gada Prize into it.
3. Renamed "Mendel and Prusa Mendel" to "General Mendel Topics".
4. Created the new "Prusa i3 and variants" forum.

I will let people get used to these changes for a little while, and then proceed with the rest of the plan as presented above.

Quote
AndrewBCN
In my "real life" I am a Linux sysadmin. So please feel free to PM me if needed.

Thank you! I hope he does not mind me saying, but Traumflug is our most active sysadmin guru. Perhaps you two can coordinate. I can handle simple organizational things like renaming forums and deleting spam, but I am clueless and dangerous when it comes to true sysadmin work.

Quote
MattMoses
Created the "Legacy Forums (old)" folder at the bottom of the page and moved Darwin and Gada Prize into it.

Oh, it's at the bottom of the top page. I thought more of the bottom of the Machine Variations folder.

Other than that, looks good so far!

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

OK, Everyone. I completed the changes. See how you like it for a few days. And then if you think it should be different, let me know. (Or change it on your own if you are an admin.)

I definitely like it. Thanks a bunch!

Cheers,

Andrew