think tank

[BERTOParticipant @berto]

Here is an odd ball thought for those who care to ponder .

What if MEW added a page titled best of the forum which would have the best questions and answers from the MEW forum each month/year?

I know it has the scribe a line section but they are asking the magazine directly .

Or maybe the best of forum per year as a seperate mag ,insert or similar.

Just a thought – insane as it might be !

Yes i know David that it will increase your workload but you must admitt there is some rippa stuff on the forum !

Maybe we could have a vote on the website each month/year for things we found the most interesting that would narrow it down to say the top 50 or so

 

Ian

 

Edited By BERTO on 27/01/2012 04:39:49

[BERTOParticipant @berto]

best forum answers ever

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi There

Good idea but not sure about copyright.

We will go for it.

 

regards David

 

 

[Terry LaneParticipant @terrylane]

Yes, it’s not a bad idea – I’ll happily give ‘first serial rights’ to anything of mine!

[Martin WParticipant @martinw]

Ian

 

Great idea and I will support it – that said I don’t post a great deal . I can’t see why contributors should object as anything posted on any forum is put into the public domain.

 

Cheers

 

Martin

[NJHParticipant @njh]

If you have read it on the forum why would you want to read it again in the mag?

Wouldn’t it be rather like the T.V. “Dave” channel ?

 

Cheers

 

Norman

[Gray62Participant @gray62]

waste of valuable magazine space

[Michael Cox 1Participant @michaelcox1]

One persons idea of the best thread may be very different from another persons. How is David to decide?

Mike

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Resources would be better spent on a better search function

At the moment you can only search the thread title

There should be a thread content option

 

Then nothing could ever get lost and original threads could be brought back into play when needed

Edited By Ady1 on 27/01/2012 11:13:56

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Hi David,

 

I’ve been reading through back copies on the digital archive and there are some really very good and informative articles. Wouldn’t a ‘Best of MEW’ corner at the back of the mag be a good idea? Newcomers could get access to some of the best ideas and old hands have their memories refreshed – goodness knows mine now needs refreshing (should that be ‘rebooting’ in these digital days) regularly. No problem with copyright, you already have it.

 

Just a thought

 

Regards

 

Terry

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Posted by Terryd on 27/01/2012 11:26:44:

Hi David,

 

No problem with copyright, you already have it.

 

Just a thought

 

Regards

 

Terry

 

 

Terry,

Not quite certain on this. Normally copyright is issued / accepted on “first serial rights”

Reprinting this not in it’s original form ie, complete magazine, would class as “second serial rights”

 

However don’t quote me on this. There are a lot of people out there clever than me, and a lot who just think they are

John S.

[GoCreateParticipant @gocreate]

I am in agreement with Coalburner and Ady1.

 

Improving the forum search facility should be high priority, information is only useful if it can be found.

 

Nigel

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Terry,

Not quite certain on this. Normally copyright is issued / accepted on “first serial rights”

Reprinting this not in it’s original form ie, complete magazine, would class as “second serial rights”

 

However don’t quote me on this. There are a lot of people out there clever than me, and a lot who just think they are

John S.

 

Hi John,

 

Me neither. I know very little about copyright law, it seems too dangerous a swamp to enter, far too many sharks (to mix metaphors) for my liking. I just thought the reprint idea might be a help at the time of few original articles and bring forward some good ideas from the past. After all we have had reprints in the form of ‘The Best of ME’ series of books so in my addled brain a ‘Best of MEW’ seemed a good idea. And I don’t get many of those these days.

 

Best regards,

 

Terry

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi There

We tried a complete search facility many months ago.

It returned too many results, far too many to be useful.

regards David

 

 

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Probbly used too much bandwidth as well, too many $s

Google can be used to search a site

 

Put this kinda thing into the Googlie bar

 

site:model-engineer.co.uk “digital cross slide”

[Gray62Participant @gray62]

If you look at forums running on platforms such as VBulletin or PHPBB, you will see that they have a proper search engine built in where you can specify criteria for the search. I’ve got no idea what this site is based on or what the backend db consists of, but any decent respectable forum will utilise a SQL database backend such as MySQL. Searching the database does not consume bandwidth as the search is conducted on the db server and the results returned as a php or dhtml file or similar. I do feel that there has been a great oversight on the design of this forum and the (lack of) facilities it provides. But then MHS won’t even let us download the digital mags we pay for without going through a great deal of pain.

There is a lot of information on this forum but it is an absolute pain to find it.

It is about time MHS started to listen to its members and made the whole experience a more enjoyable one

[DMBParticipant @dmb]

I think that a separate paperback book like “Machining in your Workshop” (I think it was called), just entitled “Best of ME/MEW Forum”, would leave it free for people to buy if they so choose and make another profit stream for MyHobbyStore. Nobody would be forcing anyone to buy it – consumer choice!

[Diane CarneyModerator @dianecarney30678]

Going back to the original idea – I’ve often thought it might be a good idea to extract one part of a thread (obviously something that makes sense) and print it in the magazine, quite ‘out of context’ just to see whether it brings some different responses. I think there are a lot of magazine readers never, ever look at the forum (and vice versa??? – but that’s another matter!). The printed paragraph’s writer could remain anonymous. I occasionally read some little gems on here. It would make an interesting, perhaps ‘occasional’ column.

I take another monthly magazine where they do something similar and it is quite entertaining reading.

 

Diane

[blowlampParticipant @blowlamp]

Posted by Diane Carney on 27/01/2012 15:39:25:

Going back to the original idea – I’ve often thought it might be a good idea to extract one part of a thread (obviously something that makes sense) …

 

Diane

 

 

Oh, LOL, LOL, LOL, hahaha! Nice one, Diane

 

 

Martin.

[Chris GunnParticipant @chrisgunn36534]

I think the forum is a wonderful place for getting assistance, it does not seem to matter what the question is, someone has the answer. Perhaps we should remember that not everyone wants or has access to it, for whatever reason. These folk are denied the collective wisdom of the forum. Perhaps if the best idea of the month were published in the magazine, together with an invitation to ask questions, then in the fullness of time any existing answers from the forum could be published or answers invited from the forum, and then published. In the ME for example, the letters page is now exactly that, just a page, rather than several, so this may be a good substitute and take up the “spare” pages. It could also encourage folk to join the forum and add their wisdom to the pool.

Chris Gunn

 

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

David mentioned my ‘machining a cylinder from the solid’ thread in ME some long time ago. I’d be happy for it (pics and words) to be ported over to ME, or to edit it into an articl;e myself.

 

I think that exchanges of views would be more interesting; however, we often use ‘more relaxed and informal’ styles online than if we are expecting to go into print.

 

Neil

.

 

 

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi Stub

Same as any other article, we can knock it into shape.

regards David

 

[SpringbokParticipant @springbok]

I agree with coalburner

A waste of a page. and as said before we tend to be a bit flippant in our comments.

Also it would be a massive task sorting out as they say the wheat from the chaff.

Nice idea but think unmanageable, unless..

Berto

how about you each week sifting through everything and presenting a page to Andy.

now there is a stimulating thought.

 

Off to Bolivia next week for a month and only comms is a secure satelite so no forums et.all;.

Will miss the workshop

 

Bob

 

Edited By Springbok on 27/01/2012 20:41:20

[BERTOParticipant @berto]

Bob ,if the magazine had a page in it extracted from the forum you could take a few old copies to Bolivia and catch up on some reading.

p.s take some photos , i always wondered what that place looks like .

 

It takes but a few minutes to scan the subject matter or title of the latest posts at the end of the day for something interesting .

I find that after tha first page of replies a suitable answer been submitted and by the second page the string has drifted away from the original question anyhow .

It was also asked why would i want to read something from the forum in the magazine if i had already read it online ?

Not all readers have access to the forum so miss out on some good question and answers , some may have similar questions but are afraid to ask or just don’t have the means to access the wealth of knowledge and sometimes sillyness that is the MEW forum !

 

IAN

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

The forum is ‘immediate’ and somewhat ephemeral while the magazine is ‘long term’. I think the really good stuff needs distilling into an article in itself so that it is still available in 10-50 years.

Who knows a computer glitch or ‘saving disc space’ could wipe the lot in 5 years.

[Author]

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