Originally posted by gerryr
<br />Speaking of the library, I don't see what purpose having the articles grouped by the year it was posted serves. I think it would be easier for everyone if there was just one "Articles" category.
I Agree 100%!
The following is not meant to be inflammatory, just pointing out what I see is part of the problem being discussed here and I write this in hopes that further harmony on the forum is attainable and new ideas are beneficial to current and future newbies.
In the few months that I have been a member I have seen several flair ups, disputes, thread hijacking, ugly word exchanges, etc. where the root cause of the problem was who's idea was first, who invented a particular technique, who coined a phrase, Joe's "perfect" CA method was questioned or is better than Fred's, Jim's sanding or finishing process is the best because he's been doing it longer, etc.
To me, there is a clear division on this forum... the newbies and the elders. The elders wrote articles, derived processes and perfected turning methods years ago and many consider their words to be gospel and any further discussion or improvement of said processes or challenging the validity of said techniques is almost paramount to IAP treason.
I think that not only doing away with dated material would help but also put the articles into a help area without identifying ownership.
Now before everyone starts booing the idea, just think about it.
The bottom line is to share ideas right? OK, the newbies really don't care what a process is called or who did it first so the anonymity would help stop the who did what first, or who owns a certain technique,... because if we are all truly here to help each other and have a good time making pens... it really doesn't matter does it?
Recently I wrote a short tutorial on how I did a knot design because many folks emailed me asking how I did this or that. It doesn't matter if my name is not associated with the tutorial because I want no notoriety or compensation for it or future writings, and it shouldn't matter if Sam came up with the knot idea first or that Fred wrote a similar tutorial two years ago... it just doesn't matter, it’s sharing ideas that matters. After all, these aren't top secret formulas for the secret sauce at McDonalds!
Undated, anonymous articles would provide the desired results as the newbies don’t need to know when the articles were written or by whom, just that they were! And if a few egos were put in check around here, I think the library would work beautifully, just list them from A to Z or from topic… and I have some ideas on that too but this is getting long! [
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Well, that's how I see it.
George
P.S. I may not be able to respond in a timely manner, we change RV parks today and I don't know if the next one down the road will afford me access to the internet or not.
