Official Luthiers Forum!

I've been thinking about this for quite awhile and I was going to start it up myself. But, I'm an Olympic class procrastinator and I'm pretty sure that I'll never really get around to it.

A Wiki is a community driven encyclopedia. Anybody can create or edit an entry. This seem like an ideal format for capturing all the various techniques building musical instruments. Imagine wanting to know how to make a certain kind of rosette. You go to the wiki and enter a search request and there will be several articles different approaches to making rosettes. One may be just what you need or perhaps a combination of two might work for you.

Perhaps, your favorite method isn't there. You create a pictorial and description and add it to the wiki. Others soon read your description, edit the obvious mistakes and discuss ways in which it could be clearer or supply a missing step. You should be prepared to have others modify your article without getting bent out of shape. That is the nature of a wiki.

My idea is not to have the best approach to a process or to have just the way I do it, but to have all the methods. It would supplement forums like this one and perhaps be a component. Think of the wiki as being an organizing tool for the tips and techniques section.

I don't really know how much effort it would be to start this. There are free wiki servers and the one that Wikipedia uses is one of them. The wiki can grow at a rate that reflects the interest in it. Existing tips written is other formats could be automatically imported with simple filters.

Does it make sense for the OLF do this? I know that I'd contribute articles but don't have the time to organize the project. I'm just opening the discussion and would like to hear what your thoughts are. For those who haven't been to www.wikipedia.org, go there and look around.

Hi Mike, There is info up on guitars now. (I've got a couple of Bios up for artists which were unknown.) And you are right, others do edit the articles making them more correct or wikifying them to the standards of the encyclopedia. This could work.

I doubt individual articles would stand alone long, but in a general framework of building guitars say steel strings in particular, each step of building could be expanded to include many ways of doing things.

Interesting idea. Good luck procrastinating about this, we're right behind you.   

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

I'm not proposing that we add to wikipedia.org but that we create our own wiki. Other technical interest groups have done this. When you go to their wiki, it looks like wikipedia but the only information there is about the special interest.

In that context, I would expect that the individual articles would stand alone.

Ahhh! Got an example?

We're still behind you Mike.

Pure Genius.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Here's one on the band Pearl Jam

Cool Idea Mike. Would this go in our "Jigs, Tools and Technique's" area?

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Say what you do, Do what you say.

Count me......out. I can see us becoming like another forum with that standard response "Check the archives" or in this case "Check Wikipicki". Just think, maybe someday we won't have to interact with anyone else at all. Oh wait, I see, lets recreate a ......book!

I don't know, maybe the new software will go this route to simplify the jigs and technique section updates. However, who is going to decide the structure, what is included, the validity of the inclusion (safety etc.), and who will ultimately be in charge of it. This whole issue is best taken up with Lance and Brock as it will ultimately be their decision not ours.

I'm sure YMMV.

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Don Atwood
Arlington, VA

Don, Ya poked Mike in the eyes with two fingers.

Did you notice his three stooges move with the hand on the nose? Wow, what a move.

Nya, ah, ahhhhhh!   

Don likes his info interactive.

Sounds like it could be a well done resource.

However, lots of good ideas die on the vine.

Mike, I heard once that "If you build it, they will come." How about videos on You Tube?

Oh, that was a nice Pearl Jam site, looked just like Wikipedia, but I don't think it was. More info please.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

I like the idea a lot. My problem is I'm at the early stages of luthierydom, and can't contribute too terribly much.

And I've also adopted the term "Olympic Class Procrastinator".   Lovely term.

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Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

Or, Bill how about some other TERMS FOR LUTHIERS:

I'll get right on it = 2 weeks

I can do that in no time = 5 weeks

Give me a week = 2 months

I can turn that around to you in say three weeks, four at most = 6 months

I built a guitar in 40 hours once and I can do it again for you = 1 year 2 months, plus another month for finishing.

This schedule resembles no current or past luthiers that I know. Names are withheld to protect the innocent or deceased. If you see yourself in these comments it is purley coincidental. This post is about luthiers I've only heard about.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Sorry Mike if I came across to harsh. Bad shoulder and bad day at work equals shouldn't post. My chief concern is the extra work that might be involved as both of the forum moderators have day jobs as well. Again, sorry for being quite so brash.

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Don Atwood
Arlington, VA

[QUOTE=Don A] Sorry Mike if I came across to harsh. Bad shoulder and bad day at work equals shouldn't post. My chief concern is the extra work that might be involved as both of the forum moderators have day jobs as well. Again, sorry for being quite so brash.[/QUOTE]

Don,

I wasn't offended at all. Your post disagreed with my suggestion and gave a few reasons for it. That is what I call a discourse of ideas. If you had called me an idiot, I might have been offended but you didn't. Too many people on this, and every other forum I've visited, take a disagreement as some sort of personal attack. I try not to be one of them.

As to your arguments, I think they have some merit. I'd love to create and run this wiki but, in 53 years, I've learned a few things about myself and I know that it ain't gonna happen. My hope with the post was to stimulate some discussion and perhaps someone would look into the idea and decide to pursue it. I think it unlikely that Lance and Brock would be able to take on this added burden.

I too, love the interactive nature of the forum and would hate to have an encyclopedia of guitar building techniques detract from that. I don't think that that would happen. People still post questions on the MIMF even though there is a chorus of "check the archives" responses. People still answers those questions, too.

[QUOTE=Bruce Dickey]
Oh, that was a nice Pearl Jam site, looked just like Wikipedia, but I don't think it was. More info please.[/QUOTE]

The software that Wikipedia.org uses is Free software. You can get the sources and, with free PHP and SQL packages, put up your own wiki on any web server. You can make it look just like wikipedia except that the content will be different.

When you asked for examples, I looked at several and the Pearl Jam wiki looked just like wikipedia. Others, such as this one on the TCL/TK language, look quite different but still work basically the same.

Oops. try this: TCL/TK