160 DIY articles:
http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?...ecial:Allpages

NT

On Feb 11, 2:00 am, wrote:
160 DIY articles:http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?...ecial:Allpages

Why is it full of Americanisms? Or has that been resolved?

wrote:
160 DIY articles:
http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?...ecial:Allpages

I was planning to post about this in a week or so, but I'll tag onto
this post.

Since so much effort has gone into putting some great content into the
wiki (John Stumbles and NT being by far the busiest contributors), I
think it would be reasonable to make it a permanent feature. I'm quite
happy to leave it hosted where it is currently hosted, and will not
remove it. The server is backed up nightly, so the chances of accidental
data loss are very low.

It would be useful to get a link from the main FAQ pages to the wiki -
how do people feel about this?


--
Grunff
http://www.greendoug.com - a forum for all things environmental

Weatherlawyer wrote:
On Feb 11, 2:00 am, wrote:
160 DIY articles:http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?...ecial:Allpages

Why is it full of Americanisms? Or has that been resolved?

What Americanisms where?


NT

On 11 Feb, 10:58, Grunff wrote:
wrote:

160 DIY articles:
http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?...ecial:Allpages

I was planning to post about this in a week or so, but I'll tag onto
this post.

Since so much effort has gone into putting some great content into the
wiki (John Stumbles and NT being by far the busiest contributors), I
think it would be reasonable to make it a permanent feature. I'm quite
happy to leave it hosted where it is currently hosted, and will not
remove it. The server is backed up nightly, so the chances of accidental
data loss are very low.

It would be useful to get a link from the main FAQ pages to the wiki -
how do people feel about this?

sounds good to me


NT

Grunff wrote:

It would be useful to get a link from the main FAQ pages to the wiki -
how do people feel about this?

Yup, links both ways would be good.

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

wrote in message
ups.com...
160 DIY articles:
http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?...ecial:Allpages

NT

Hey, looks good!

The following caught my eye:-

Bad Ideas - Floors

Sanding boarded floors. It is not necessary for domestic floors, and
sometimes exposes woodworm eaten cores, ruining the appearance of the
floor. An hour of repeated washing is very effective, paint spots can often
be scraped off, and spot sanding can be used to remove the infamous black
stuff without removing any noticeable bulk.

Erm... I was just about to sand the floor in the living room because I dont
see the point in the carpet being dirtied by people coming in and I was
going to use a sanding machine. Is the above article honestly saying that I
dont need to, just by cleaning them?

In article ,
Grunff writes:

It would be useful to get a link from the main FAQ pages to the wiki -
how do people feel about this?

A big concern I have is that lots of it needs peer review.
This means it isn't the group's collective wisdom, unlike
a thread here or an article in the main DIY FAQ. I would
be concerned if it was promoted on a level footing as it
currently stands. That's not to knock the contributors in
any way who've clearly been working hard -- it's just that
there aren't enough of them working on each article, and
until there are, it isn't the group's collective wisdom
and mustn't be promoted as such.

Having spent some time correcting one article and adding
appropriate safety precautions which were missing, I was
somewhat ****ed to find most of that stripped out. It's
very unlikely that I (or others) will waste our time if
that sort of thing continues.

I would also get rid of all the empty articles which
contain only links to Google. After you've bounced off
a few of those, you can easily get the impression the
Wiki is completely empty.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

On 11 Feb 2007 14:57:17 GMT, (Andrew
Gabriel) wrote:

Having spent some time correcting one article and adding
appropriate safety precautions which were missing, I was
somewhat ****ed to find most of that stripped out. It's
very unlikely that I (or others) will waste our time if
that sort of thing continues.

This is a very important point.

I just went in there and could have altered or deleted anything I
wanted without any reference.

There should be an access hierarchy of registered editors.

Andrew Gabriel wrote:

Having spent some time correcting one article and adding
appropriate safety precautions which were missing, I was
somewhat ****ed to find most of that stripped out. It's
very unlikely that I (or others) will waste our time if
that sort of thing continues.

This is exactly the thing I hate most about wikis, and why I was
hesitant to use a free-for-all wiki rather than an access controlled CMS.


I would also get rid of all the empty articles which
contain only links to Google. After you've bounced off
a few of those, you can easily get the impression the
Wiki is completely empty.

Tend to agree there - an article containing nothing but a link is of
little value.


--
Grunff
http://www.greendoug.com - a forum for all things environmental

EricP wrote:

This is a very important point.

I just went in there and could have altered or deleted anything I
wanted without any reference.

There should be an access hierarchy of registered editors.

We had a discussion about this at the outset, and opinion was split, but
there were definitely more voices in favour of an open wiki.

It can work, and the prime example of this is Wikipedia - on the whole
the content is high quality, but you do get the occasional edit war.


--
Grunff
http://www.greendoug.com - a forum for all things environmental

On 11/02/2007 15:51, EricP wrote:

I just went in there and could have altered or deleted anything I
wanted without any reference.

There is of course a history of the edits, you can compare revisions to
one another, I don't know easy mediawiki makes it to revert changes.

Andrew Gabriel wrote:

A big concern I have is that lots of it needs peer review.
This means it isn't the group's collective wisdom, unlike
a thread here or an article in the main DIY FAQ. I would
be concerned if it was promoted on a level footing as it
currently stands. That's not to knock the contributors in

Perhaps the fact that the FAQ is peer reviewed is something that out to
be spelled out in the introductions to both the FAQ and in a (non
editable) intro on the wiki?

any way who've clearly been working hard -- it's just that
there aren't enough of them working on each article, and
until there are, it isn't the group's collective wisdom
and mustn't be promoted as such.

One of the other difficulties is there is less visibility of where
changes are being made. If we publish a FAQ section here, then it has
high visibility for all readers of the group. With the wiki you need to
actively go to find the stuff and are less likely to encounter it unless
you are specifically looking.

Having spent some time correcting one article and adding
appropriate safety precautions which were missing, I was
somewhat ****ed to find most of that stripped out. It's
very unlikely that I (or others) will waste our time if
that sort of thing continues.

This seems to be a general problem with the wiki format. You only need
to look at wikipaedia where the people with genuine domain knowledge get
shouted down by a more vocal majority with consensus "knowledge" rather
than actual expertise.



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

Grunff wrote:

It can work, and the prime example of this is Wikipedia - on the whole
the content is high quality, but you do get the occasional edit war.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02...pedia_reality/


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 11 Feb, 14:57, (Andrew Gabriel) wrote:
In article ,
Grunff writes:

A big concern I have is that lots of it needs peer review.
This means it isn't the group's collective wisdom, unlike
a thread here or an article in the main DIY FAQ. I would
be concerned if it was promoted on a level footing as it
currently stands. That's not to knock the contributors in
any way who've clearly been working hard -- it's just that
there aren't enough of them working on each article, and
until there are, it isn't the group's collective wisdom
and mustn't be promoted as such.

I think thats something that takes time. The wiki is right at the
beginning. I'd assume most readers know what a wiki is and isnt, but
if that isnt so there could be a link at the bottom of pages
explaining what it is. I see there already is, but people could be
forgiven for not clicking on it.


Having spent some time correcting one article and adding
appropriate safety precautions which were missing, I was
somewhat ****ed to find most of that stripped out.

Are you referring to the clothes dryer article? If so I spent enough
time trying to find material to back up what you'd written, and simply
could find nothing to back it up, only various reasons to believe the
opposite.

Just so we both understand each other's position on what went on
there, when adding another information section I removed bits that
were incorrect, incorporated bits that were fair views of yours, even
if I didnt entirely agree, and added info addressing the issues you'd
raised. I also returned a small number of valid points you'd removed.

This is a basic weakeness of wikis in that there is not much
opportunity to discuss to clarify the points people make in articles.
I did invite some information on what you'd written on the talk page,
and waited a while, but none was forthcoming.

What we need is either to use the talk pages to communicate and
understand the different points presented, or to bring differences of
opinion here to discuss.

In this case I removed a fair bit because I could simply find nothing
anywhere that indicated it to be right, and only found the opposite.
As I'm sure you do have reasons behind what you wrote, why dont you
expain some of it here on ukdiy, and we can move closer to some
concensus.


It's
very unlikely that I (or others) will waste our time if
that sort of thing continues.

I wish it were as easy as 'I say so' but its not. I've had mixed
feelings about a wiki approach because good material will get removed
and work undone, but I think when that occurs it means that if the
info is to be presented and stay there it needs to be explained,
backed up with references or calculations, etc.

The Wiki concept is about finding common ground, addressing more than
one view, and backing up what views are presented. So I invite you to
discuss your input to the clothes dryer article.


NT

Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
Grunff writes:
It would be useful to get a link from the main FAQ pages to the wiki -
how do people feel about this?

A big concern I have is that lots of it needs peer review.
This means it isn't the group's collective wisdom, unlike
a thread here or an article in the main DIY FAQ. I would
be concerned if it was promoted on a level footing as it
currently stands. That's not to knock the contributors in
any way who've clearly been working hard -- it's just that
there aren't enough of them working on each article, and
until there are, it isn't the group's collective wisdom
and mustn't be promoted as such.

I agree too. I feel happy delving into the FAQ for information and
acting upon it, because it's been well peer-reviewed; likewise if I post
a query on uk.d-i-y, I'm usually OK about going with the answers I get,
because if someone posts a 'wrong' answer then someone else will be
along shortly to shoot it down.

However, with the wiki as it stands, I don't have that level of
confidence. Eg, I just looked up a random article 'Cement mixing'... no
disrespect intended to the author at all (it looks fine to me!) but
firstly, I've no idea who originally wrote it - ie, was it written by
someone whose judgement I generally trust? Secondly, AFAICS it hasn't
ever been edited by anyone at all, which could mean that the article's
perfect, but also that nobody else has passed a critical eye over it.
Thirdly, what happens if I'm feeling like a malicious prat and decide to
make some catastrophic alteration which causes someone to blow up their
cement mixer... if nobody's monitoring the page, and everyone and his
wife has edit access, then how long is that 'bad advice' going to stay
'live', and how many cement mixers are going to get blown up?(!)

Just my two penn'orth

David

On Sun, 11 Feb 2007 16:55:10 +0000, Andy Burns wrote:

On 11/02/2007 15:51, EricP wrote:

I just went in there and could have altered or deleted anything I
wanted without any reference.

There is of course a history of the edits, you can compare revisions to
one another, I don't know easy mediawiki makes it to revert changes.

It's very easy to do so (see the 'discussion' page of the main page).

On 11 Feb, 14:38, "Jason Hallway" wrote:

Hey, looks good!

The following caught my eye:-

Bad Ideas - Floors
Sanding boarded floors. It is not necessary for domestic floors, and
sometimes exposes woodworm eaten cores, ruining the appearance of the

floor. An hour of repeated washing is very effective, paint spots can often
be scraped off, and spot sanding can be used to remove the infamous black
stuff without removing any noticeable bulk.

Erm... I was just about to sand the floor in the living room because I dont
see the point in the carpet being dirtied by people coming in and I was
going to use a sanding machine. Is the above article honestly saying that I
dont need to, just by cleaning them?

Yes, the kind of mass sanding og domestic boards that has become
fashioinable just isnt necessary in almost all cases. The method has
been copied from its use in public halls etc, where enough wear occurs
for sanding to be needed, but in a house that doesnt happen. Its
surprising how well dark boards come up looking like new. However if
you encounter the famous black gloop, sanding is the only way to get
that pff that I know, but a hand held sander can do it in limited
areas without removing large amounts of wood and sometimes ruining the
floor.

Trying the mop wash method only takes an hour or 2. Just mop it, wait
a few mins, mop again, and keep repeating. Its much quicker and easier
than sanding, so even if youre not convinced its worth trying.


NT

On Sun, 11 Feb 2007 14:57:17 +0000, Andrew Gabriel wrote:

In article ,
Grunff writes:

It would be useful to get a link from the main FAQ pages to the wiki -
how do people feel about this?

A big concern I have is that lots of it needs peer review.
This means it isn't the group's collective wisdom, unlike
a thread here or an article in the main DIY FAQ. I would
be concerned if it was promoted on a level footing as it
currently stands. That's not to knock the contributors in
any way who've clearly been working hard -- it's just that
there aren't enough of them working on each article, and
until there are, it isn't the group's collective wisdom
and mustn't be promoted as such.

Agreed: I've added a comment about this to the main page but if we have a
link to the wiki in the weekly FAQ post and the FAQ itself it needs to be
pointed out prominently there. (It would help to point out that readers
can contribute, even if only to say "this isn't clear" in an article's
discussion page.)

However links from the main FAQ and weekly posting could help to get more
people contributing to the wiki and raising the quality of its content.

On 11 Feb, 18:51, Lobster wrote:
Andrew Gabriel wrote:

A big concern I have is that lots of it needs peer review.
This means it isn't the group's collective wisdom, unlike
a thread here or an article in the main DIY FAQ. I would
be concerned if it was promoted on a level footing as it
currently stands. That's not to knock the contributors in
any way who've clearly been working hard -- it's just that
there aren't enough of them working on each article, and
until there are, it isn't the group's collective wisdom
and mustn't be promoted as such.

I agree too. I feel happy delving into the FAQ for information and
acting upon it, because it's been well peer-reviewed; likewise if I post
a query on uk.d-i-y, I'm usually OK about going with the answers I get,
because if someone posts a 'wrong' answer then someone else will be
along shortly to shoot it down.

However, with the wiki as it stands, I don't have that level of
confidence. Eg, I just looked up a random article 'Cement mixing'... no
disrespect intended to the author at all (it looks fine to me!) but
firstly, I've no idea who originally wrote it - ie, was it written by
someone whose judgement I generally trust?

The solution to that would be to require registration with a name to
edit. FWLIW I wrote it.


Secondly, AFAICS it hasn't
ever been edited by anyone at all, which could mean that the article's
perfect, but also that nobody else has passed a critical eye over it.

Thirdly, what happens if I'm feeling like a malicious prat and decide to
make some catastrophic alteration which causes someone to blow up their
cement mixer... if nobody's monitoring the page, and everyone and his
wife has edit access, then how long is that 'bad advice' going to stay
'live', and how many cement mixers are going to get blown up?(!)

All articles are monitored, but they may not be monitored by the range
of people you may wish. It takes time to correct things, since we
don't just write or delete things on the spot, but check them out
first, as and when tuits show up.

This is the weakness of wiki. If it continues to grow, as more people
get more involved corrections will happen quicker. Readers would not
be clever to rely 100% on all information on wiki, and of course this
is just as true with the net as a whole.

Wiki has strengths as well as weaknesses, and I think its something
that will prove useful.

To a lesser extent its true here on ukdiy too. While the expertise
here is excellent, it is not perfect, and bad advice does go
uncorrected sometimes. And some of that advice could cost people 10s
of thousands to fix. But that really is life, there is no source of
100% guaranteed info in the world, all sources have their own
problems.

My own personal take is that people are unwise to expect that any info
source is perfect, or to imagine life to be risk free, or to think
safeguards are as good as they appear. That leads to only one workable
approach: taking responsibility for one's own actions.


NT

In article .com,
writes:
All articles are monitored, but they may not be monitored by the range
of people you may wish. It takes time to correct things, since we
don't just write or delete things on the spot, but check them out
first, as and when tuits show up.

This is the weakness of wiki. If it continues to grow, as more people
get more involved corrections will happen quicker. Readers would not
be clever to rely 100% on all information on wiki, and of course this
is just as true with the net as a whole.

It won't grow unless you allow it to become a uk.d-i-y wiki.
No one is going to put the effort into your personal wiki
where you you trash other peoples' contributions (at least,
I'm not).

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article .com,
writes:
All articles are monitored, but they may not be monitored by the range
of people you may wish. It takes time to correct things, since we
don't just write or delete things on the spot, but check them out
first, as and when tuits show up.

This is the weakness of wiki. If it continues to grow, as more people
get more involved corrections will happen quicker. Readers would not
be clever to rely 100% on all information on wiki, and of course this
is just as true with the net as a whole.

It won't grow unless you allow it to become a uk.d-i-y wiki.
No one is going to put the effort into your personal wiki
where you you trash other peoples' contributions (at least,
I'm not).


It's the Koran Wiki