How to do this and that....Any thoughts?

[yak face]

I think its a great idea , I'm with patrick and ron however , I dont think it would be a good idea to have replies or questions. A simple sticky where members can post their way of solving a particular problem , without any replies to clog up the thread, would be my ideal way of doing it. If any one wanted any further info they could PM the contributor or just post a general question in the relevant section. Just my two penneth , its up to john at the end of the day, cheers tony

[John]

I would rather people didn't PM each other to discuss "how to" that kind of defeats the whole point of the forum, we are here to share, I guess Ron might have something with a "How To" forum then put posts in there but I think it would be better if it was full of more detailed posts rather then someone with a one liner, if that makes sense?

So that being the case it would have to be moderated to make sure the posts are worth going in or if they belong in the quick tips forum.

There is also a blog attached to the forum which I don't have enabled, we could use that in some way.

[spanner570]

John, good and valid point re. p.m's, I forgot that side of things.

The 'One liner' phrase was just me trying to be clever.......

What I should have typed was anyone contributing to this proposed 'How to' thread could keep it short and sweet....ie just a few lines coupled with pictures, rather than a long and detailed contribution.

Thanks for giving my suggestion some consideration, I appreciate it.

Ron

[Guest]

Surely though Ron, some 'how to's' would need a fair amount of description?

To my mind, it's other comments / questions that clog-uo previous threads like this. Subdiving the tutorials section would help & 'no reply' threads could be submitted after moderator approval.

Cheers

Patrick

[spanner570]

Quite right Patrick. Some will, some won't.

Your other points and observations are valid too.

I hope this idea does come to fruition, it would certainly help forgetful, 'tinternet numpties like me find specific stuff long gone from the front pages of this great forum.

Cheers,

Ron

[flyjoe180]

I think this is a great forum, full of useful information which has helped me with my endeavours to get back into modelling. Members here are willing to help and answer questions, and also to offer information without being asked. Personally I find the sections logical. If I want to find something that I cannot locate under the section I thought it may be under, I make use of the search function at the top right, which usually leads me to what I need and eliminates the need to ask the question again. But there are a few really great threads which may be useful as stickies, such as the 'Back to Basics' thread, which is already a sticky http://www.scale-models.co.uk/tutorials/2298-back-basics.html. The basic information needs to be easy to find as most who seek its help will be new to the forum.

[John]

Ian and myself have been talking about this, it's felt it should be laid out like this

A forum called "How to..?" then in that forum individual posts from users, these posts should be formatted in a tutorial type post, preferably all info in the first post, it's encouraged that people don't reply to these posts but you can use the thanks button, but if for example the title is How to make a door and someone else apart from the original poster has another way to make a door then they can post in the same thread, that was all posts about how to make a door are in the same place.

[John]

Any thoughts?

[Ian M]

Gone a bit quiet in here....

You got my vote John.

Ian M

[Guest]

Yes I have thought about this a lot Ian & John. I was just worried about being a pesimist which is not normally my trade. Cannot even spell it.

Problem that I see is if a question is posed then there will be a variety of answers & more questions will flow from that and the article builds up.

It does mean that somebody has to edit this down to put into a how to do it section. It will not be any good just taking the answers as the questions are needed to make sense in most cases. In other words each article is a story in itself.

Who will do that ? If not done properly then then you are better looking at the original article. Also say you have 500 how do you do this. Are members going to wade through that without a search or it being sectioned.

If it is where a lot of us have an idea we wish to share then this is already catered for.

Perhaps for instance paints. Instead of all articles lumped under paints subsections under paints. Type of paints. Preparation. Fillers. Masking. Masking windows. Varnish, even Klear (wow what a section). There are a number of other Headings which could be sectioned which makes it easier for looking back at. Good number of times I have read an article & later wished to remind myself but could not find the article.

Just some thoughts as I think it more difficult than first meets the eye. One thing, which I have mentioned but worries me, is not to stop themes which have gone before being brought up again as new ideas often surface.

Laurie

[Guest]

I think it's a good idea & one that would help everyone.

I don't think we need lots & lots of subsections. Each thread will be it's own subsection & if people are too lazy to search or scroll through a few pages, that's their hard cheese!

To prevent the threads from clogging up, a simple message at the top should suffice. Something like " This thread is for reference only, can users please refrain from posting comments here" Then any questions can be answered either by PM or in a new general thread. Forum members are smart enough to do this & any comments that slip through in the early stages could be removed by the moderators?

Quite simple IMHO

Cheers

Patrick

[spanner570]

To all,

As it was me that started this thread and having since read it through, I have come to the conclusion that I made an elementary error in the title.......

It should have read "How to make this and that"......that one word ommission 'Make' puts a totally different light on the whole thing and as consequence I have really balls up the whole discussion and I apologies for doing so.....

I never wanted the thread to be an open house for loads of 'How to's'. My idea for the thread stems from being flatteringly asked how I made certain things for my dioramas and it occured to me that I had seen loads of one off things from other modellers, but could not remember for the life of me which thread.

Hence my suggestion for a sticky.

I'm truly sorry if this post might cause annoyance in certain quarters, but I've been watching in growing alarm as the discussion has gone way beyond what I invisaged......It's completely my fault for not wording the title correctly in the first place.

Ron

[Guest]

I don't understand what you mean Ron. You're idea is perfectly valid & I for one got the gist that it's about making stuff, and not other things such as painting or filling which would be, quite rightly, covered in other parts of the forum.

Perhaps the only difference to what you envisaged is that it would work more effectively as a separate section, rather than a thread like 'back to basics'.

I hope this happens, there's so much we can put in it!

Cheers

Patrick

[spanner570]

Patrick, it was when references to painting and filling came into the discussion that I realised something was amiss.

So I just presumed that my opening post had been misinterpreted due to a possible error in my wording......

John, your idea is spot on and thanks for taking the time to consider my suggestion.

Ron

[Guest]

Ron, i think your thread question (even if it was misinterpreted initially) has sparked a good debate and got some good ideas from members regarding the forum now and possibly the future .

As i said in my last post, logically there's really only two ways to do this sort of thing ... "questions and answers" - or - "database"...

Both easy to set up by initiating a forum or subforum, the reply function could even be switched off for this particular (sub)forum if it gets too messy with replies, thus all threads would be a single post only (make it bit of a pain to go through endless single post threads to search for specifics in this case though)

Seems we have a database to form then eh