Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Woodworking/Archive 2

Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project
Hi, I'm a member of the Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-class, B-class, and Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable articles? Please post your suggestions here. Thanks a lot! Gflores Talk 17:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

new interested user
Hi, I'm interested in helping out. I added Ruobo to the list of influential persons, and would like to help out more as this project develops.ThuranX 02:02, 14 February 2006 (UTC) Hi, I've just discovered this project and would love to be involved if I can help. I've made contributions to a number of articles on Australian timbers, mainly on the things I know about: their uses. I've made a start by adding some Australian timbers to the list. Cheers MarkMarkAnthonyBoyle 13:25, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Alan Carpenter
This guy isn't famous in wood working at all. Why is he on this page?
 * I don't know why someone put him there. As there do not seem to be any relevant google hits for "Alan Carpenter" and woodworking, I will remove him. Luigizanasi 04:05, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the original poster was referring to Art Carpenter, who is a woodworker of note who died recentlyDavesdouglas 23:51, 3 June 2007 (UTC)DavesDouglas 3 June 2007

Tools
If someone was looking for new information, they might be thrown by the buffet of different tools available. Does it sound beneficial to sort them by categories? For example: Hand tools vs. Power tools. So that if they're looking for information on the safe use of a table saw, they don't have to scan through ball peen hammers to get there. Maybe even use of subcategories could help (ie. Hand Tools> Hammers, Wrenches, Pliers, Screwdrivers, Chisels, etc....)?

Sorry, forget about that last one...
My apologies, those obvious suggestions had already been done. I was looking at the project page and not the actual article.

Furniture is a COTW nominee
Furniture is a WP:COTW nominee. Vote on that page if you want it to be selected. Davodd 03:32, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Illustrated History of Furniture
Ran across this Wikimedia Commons category with hundreds of furniture images that may be of interest to you. I am trying to organoze stub articles about Molding (decorative), and also trying to come up with a good format for a Glossary of architecture. Do you have any suggestions or comments? Thanks —dogears (talk &bull; contribs) 22:57, 30 July 2006 (UTC)


 * great find. As for suggestions, I'd just say, write it offline, then go back a night or two later and re-read it, so you put a strong first entry up, instead of throwing up 6 or 7 edits in the first five minutes.ThuranX 13:52, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

woodworking adjustments
i help correct any errors bout woodshop. =)

Woodworking book?
I wanted to ask if any members of this project would be interested in working on a wikibook or series of books on woodworking. We have 2 stub books now (Carpentry and Woodturning), which need a lot of work.

If you'd like, we can import wikipedia articles to wikibooks for use as the basis of book chapters, which makes the transition from stub to book a bit less arduous.

Personally I would love to see this sort of book developed there (with "how-to" material)... I recently started using an Alaska mill (wonder if that will be a red link?), and one day might like to do some stuff with my black walnut and black cherry :). -- SB_Johnny |talk|books 12:37, 23 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, I would be interested - but whether or not I have time is a different kettle of fish. In some ways, my contributions would be better suited for a book. I always feel like I want to describe the techniques too but that goes beyond what we're supposed to be doing in Wikipedia. But there's already so much to do here, I can't see how I can justify the time. Maybe when the articles here are in better shape, we could use them as the basis. Joinery would be a good subject for a book. There are so many joints and different ways of making them. The concern I have though is what happens once you ship articles off to a book? As you know, articles here rarely settle down for any great length of time. It wouldn't take long for them to be out of sync.


 * Regarding Alaskan mills, it's a red link no more. I have one and they are great for milling smallish logs. You are lucky to have such nice timbers available to you. The native trees in my area are hardwoods and very difficult to work with. SilentC 01:11, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Settle down as in move around, or develop further? Doesn't matter much either way, as the first problem is addressed by templates, the second is actually supposed to be that way (once it's moved off-project, it's a content fork). I mostly work on a gardening book, and the chapters in the book tend to be much longer than the wikipedia articles they're basd on, though sometimes they're much shorter.
 * A book on joinery would be excellent. Especially if you have a digital camera :). BTW, I'll try to take a pict or two next time I'm using the Alaskan mill :). -- SB_Johnny |talk|books 10:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, settle down as in develop further. But as you say, it's a fork, so I guess it doesn't matter. I might have a look at wiki books anyway. I'm a bit annoyed with Wikipedia at the moment. What's the wikibooks policy on glossaries? ;) SilentC 22:28, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


 * No policy on glossaries that I know of, though I expect they must be typed ;). -- SB_Johnny |talk|books 11:14, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Project directory
Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 00:29, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Nice to meet you
Hello. I'm Erk, I did a lot of cabinetry and finishing carpentry with my dad before I graduated university and moved to a different country. I am not very experienced in the field, but I think I can contribute to the project, as I have enough knowledge to look up new material: it is a strong interest of mine that I have not had much opportunity to pursue (hard to build bookshelves in a 2-room 3rd floor apartment). I think woodworking is one of the areas suffering systemic bias problems, so I would love to contribute to the project. As I live in Japan now, I am going to start by revamping the article on Japanese saws - the pullsaw is a fascination of mine, and this article is quite simple at present.

One observation about this project: there seems to be no article grading system. It would be nice to have a graded Article Quality and Article Importance template to the WikiProject box, as in larger projects such as WikiProject Japan uses. They are frequently ambiguous and incorrect, but they do help draw new users into the project by drawing peoples' attention to articles which have received low grades.

Another observation: This is just my initial impression, so correct me if I am wrong, but is Wikipedia suffering a lack of more modern, practical woodworking/construction articles? The few that I have looked at seem to focus on woodworking in its artistic and historical reference, which is great... but what about, say, light-frame construction and other topics? What kind of focus is being placed on these less academic, more blue-collar topics of vital importance to day-to-day life?

Hope I can help. Erk|Talk -- I like traffic lights -- 06:29, 19 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Hello and welcome. We certainly need some new blood and enthusiasm. Mine waxes and wanes. You'll have to explain what you mean about systemic bias though, that one has me scratching my head a bit. SilentC 01:54, 20 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Just that things like video games, movies, et cetera get a lot of coverage on wikipedia. Practical skills that are unavailable to either (1) 15 year olds with too much free time, (2) university students with too much free time, or (3) academes with a vested interest in improving the body of freely available academic knowledge get the short end of the stick, I think. Erk|Talk -- I like traffic lights -- 02:03, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Improved Banner template
I think the banner is what people see most on the project, so I have touched the Woodworking project banner up very slightly. Most of it is in coding, not appearance, although it could definitely use some graphical spice as well. I will try to make an icon later tonight.

What you can do now, though, is add article importance ratings and quality ratings. This will not affect existing pages, only pages where the ratings are added manually. Format example:

As mentioned above, I think this makes it easier for outside editors to join the project efforts. Erk|Talk -- I like traffic lights -- 06:56, 19 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Erk. I have just put up a drawing of a handplane on wikimedia commons (here ) which I think might be useful for an icon, unless you have a better one. I will respond to your other good comments & contributions later tomorrow when I have some time. Keep up the good work & welcome. Luigizanasi 07:26, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Hey Luigi, that will do fine for now! I will see about cleaning it up and adding colour later, to give it some pizazz (sp?), but it will let me finish off the template until then :) Erk|Talk -- I like traffic lights -- 07:29, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Update: check it. I think it looks very nice. It would be good to have something more flashy later, but that gets the point across for now. Erk|Talk -- I like traffic lights -- 07:37, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Suggested article importance hierarchy

 * Top importance articles: critical to the field of woodworking. Things all users, even those with little or no interest in woodworking, associate with the field. For example, fundamental tools, major materials and techniques, and other central aspects of woodworking that form the basic core of the project. Articles should generally be agreed-upon by the project before receiving this rating (although given the size of this project, I don't think that is really necessary yet).
 * High importance articles: very important to woodworking. Major derivative tools that are not too specialised (eg. saw would be top importance, while miter saw would be high), well-known types of wood, more specialised techniques that are widely known. High importance articles have impact outside of the field of woodworking, and would be recognised at least in passing by nonspecialists.
 * Mid importance articles are important to woodworkers, but may not be well known by nonspecialists. Users looking up these topics likely already have some background knowledge.
 * Low importance articles are highly specialised and esoteric. That does not mean they are unknown, for example the Japanese saw, but that their reach is very limited within the overall scope of the project.

(oops, hit submit too soon) As you can tell from reading this, I am not entirely sure how to work this out, but a bit more expertise could clean this hierarchy up. Comments? Feel free to directly edit my list above. Erk|Talk -- I like traffic lights -- 07:04, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Autocategorisation!
I hope you guys like this. I think it is pretty spiffy. There are now automatic categories for anything using the template. Anything with that template is put into categories based on the rating and importance of the article. Check out Category:Woodworking-related articles by quality and Category:Woodworking-related articles by importance. I have been working on categorising existing pages but that's a big job. When you edit a woodworking page, check the Talk page to see that it has the right template at the top, and see if you can't assign it an Importance and a Rating while you are there! It makes picking pages to work on much easier. Erk|Talk -- I like traffic lights -- 03:43, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Userboxes
These help make us searchable by user name, and show off the project a little bit. I made two. The one with the smoothing plane needs some work, I want to make the box around the smoothing plane a different colour, maybe make that light coloured and then make the rest of it light text on a chestnut brown bg... although I really like right now that it looks like one of my dad's older woodworking magazines, can't remember which one off the top of my head. We'll see. Before that, I will see about making the woodworking project template categorise pages automatically, eg classifying pages as "top importance woodworking projects" and such. With the other WP I am on, I very often find pages based on their categorisation that way, and work on them. Plus it makes us look more serious. Erk|Talk -- I like traffic lights -- 22:39, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Article importance and quality ratings
I certainly don't want to throw a bucket of water on your enthusiasm for this stuff, FSM knows we need some organisation. There are a couple of things about this process that are concerning me though, so I'm going to air them.

First, looking at the ratings scale, there seems to be a big gap between B and A. I notice that you have rated Butt joint as 'B'. I may be a bit biased, since I wrote it, but really the following statements from the rating scale bother me a bit:

"Useful to many, but not all, readers. A casual reader flipping through articles would feel that they generally understood the topic, but a serious student or researcher trying to use the material would have trouble doing so, or would risk error in derivative work."

and

"Considerable editing is still needed, including filling in some important gaps or correcting significant policy errors. Articles for which cleanup is needed will typically have this designation to start with."

Now, I really can't think of too much more that can be said about butt joints. It's a pretty mundane topic. I think I pushed the limit without going into How Tos, which are verbotten. I'm not saying it's the best written article on Wikipedia but it seems to me that rating something as 'B' implies that there is a long way to go and that there are serious flaws in it. That's just based on the wording they have used. To me, Butt joint is very nearly a finished article and is probably closer to A than B. This is my issue with the whole idea of rating article quality. How do you make it objective?

Second, the idea of rating article importance. I understand why you would want to do this, but again, how are you going to decide that one article is more important than another? There are so many fields within the general category of woodworking and some topics fundamental to one field are irrelevant to another. I think it will be a controversial task to try and say which ones are more important.

Not disagreeing with the idea, just interested in other's comments on it. SilentC 04:13, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Feel free to update the rating. I only gave it a B at a glance, I would be the first to admit my ratings may be flawed. I just want to get some out there, and I suspect if users see a lower rating they will feel more inclined to contribute. By all means, raise the mark for articles that deserve it... butt joint is definitely a good article.


 * As for importance, the project I am basing the pattern on (wikiproject japan) has also got a huge range of interests. For example, miso is very important to cooking, while hiroshima is not. It only needs to be vital to one large part of woodworking to merit a High importance tag (and if it is vital to several parts of woodworking it probably merits a Top importance tag). It's all really fuzzy, but the tags are just to provide a guideline, not to add encyclopæedic content... it doesn't matter a lot if they are inaccurate :) the analogous WP:japan tags are all over the place and sometimes very contradictory, but they still make finding and dealing with articles about Japan much, much easier.


 * At the very worst, if you don't like them just ignore them, and you can still benefit from the category:WikiProject Woodworking articles which blankets all the articles with the template notwithstanding the fuzzy "rating" and "importance" values. :) Erk|Talk -- I like traffic lights -- 04:26, 20 November 2006 (UTC)


 * OK, well I guess we'll see how it pans out. It seems to be just another thing for people to disagree about but if the benefits outweigh that, well I'm happy to go along with it. I just suddenly felt like I was back at uni and the lecturer had given me a Pass instead of a well-deserved Credit! I'm a bit of a fringe dweller anyway, I stay away from the hot topics - too many other people with their own ideas ;) At least I know that if I stick with the low importance articles, people might leave me in peace. :) SilentC 04:40, 20 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I also sort of have a problem with the "A", "B" "C" ratings. I realize other wikiprojects use them, probably because so many wikipedians are schoolchildren, ;-), but they don't tell me anything. I don't think they are particularly useful. More important is what improvements does the article need: illustrations? better descriptions? copyediting? references? missing topics/areas?, etc. Maybe we could devise a rating system that tells us what the article needs rather than an arbitrary "mark". That would give new participants an idea of what they could be doing, instead of our usual: "Just dive in, there's lots of work that needs doing."


 * On the importance thing, some articles are obviously of top importance, such as cabinetmaking, but how important is spokeshave? (I haven't got one and don't really feel the need for it except to add to my tool collection :-), but if I ever get into more curved work . . . ) And is it more or less important than, say Japanese saw (again, another toy I don't really need, I am quite happy with and can do very accurate work pushing my saws although I do love my 26" Japanese tooth pattern Stanley Sharptooth handsaw)? Luigizanasi 07:21, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I agree a lot that a rating pattern more related to what the article needs would be really cool: easier to define, and much more useful (I'm a schoolteacher, so I think in "a" "b" "c" patterns too, but I can see how they have little practical application). It probably wouldn't be that hard to work one out. The main things articles need are, I think...


 * images
 * references
 * expansion
 * cleanup (POV, advertisement, errors)
 * can you think of anything I missed? As far as I can think in a brief scan, that covers most of the problems with an existing article.
 * Possibly the easiest thing to do would be to keep the Stub class - everyone recognises what a stub article is - and the A class. Those types of articles either need work everywhere, or only really need updating rather than improvement. Whether or not the article is GA or FA is pretty trivial. Likewise, the difference between Start and B seems to be entirely a judgement call, and the gap between B and A is huge in the current system. Therefore, perhaps for articles between Stub and A-class, the gap should be filled with 1-4 tags on what aspects are lacking, eg. something like - I think I could set that up easily enough. If executed well enough, who knows; maybe we'd make some ripples in the community as a whole.
 * Regarding importance, there is no big stigma to an article being low-importance. They are my favourite articles to work on in fact. I would say that all relatively specialised tools would be mid- to low-importance... for simplification we could always just merge those two categories too, and just have "top", "high", and "low" importance. Top importance would be articles fundamental to many branches of the project, High importance would be wide-reaching articles recognised by most people outside the realm of woodworking, and Low importance would be everything else - articles that are possibly important to a single specialist branch, eg. spokeshaves to anyone doing curved work, or laminate cutters to anyone working with laminate countertops. (eg. saw=top, table saw=high, keyhole saw=low).
 * Taking out the "mid" level category, in my eyes, removes a lot of the fuzz, although it means there is no distinction between a keyhole saw, which is fairly specialised but still a widely used tool, and a veneer saw, which is (I assume) rather less broad in its scope (I used a veneer saw all the time so I am just assuming there).
 * I hope I am not coming across as pedantic. If people don't like the categorisation it is no trouble for me to remove it entirely... I think it is handy, especially for people just entering the project, but I agree the system is clunky, and the points raised have made me question it further. I'm all for improving it and I do not mind shouldering the job of upgrading and/or simplifying the system. Erk|Talk -- I like traffic lights -- 07:58, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I've gone ahead and removed the "mid" level importance for the reasons stated above. I made it reversable. If an article is rated as "mid" the template just shows it as "low"... basically it recognises and captures the term "mid". That means if I revert the change, the "mid" category reappears instantly. Erk|Talk -- I like traffic lights -- 00:34, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Referencing
I thought I would move this discussion from the Butt joint talk page to here. The following two paragraphs are copied:


 * The references thing is a constant problem for me. Naturally I have read about butt joints (amongst other more interesting topics) in various places. I know they exist, and have even made few ;). I'm aware of the methods for making them and their potential uses, however this is all from my own memory, which is patently not a reliable source. I have a couple of books on joinery, one a very good one by Gary Ragowski called "The Complete Illustrated Guide to Joinery" which discusses various butt joints, but with a focus on how to make them. I guess what I am saying is that this book verifies (or at least I hope it does) what I have written but it wasn't the direct source of the information. So do I reference it so that we get a tick in the box? SilentC 05:23, 20 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I know where you are coming from. References are a pain. However, with Wikipedia it is much easier than with "real" academic work: you can use something that just verifies your info as a reference, like your Ragowski book, rather than having to use a source you actually used as a ref. while writing. And if the reference thing is too much of a pain, it's not like you have to do it, you're a volunteer ;) you can always leave it to someone more concerned with that kind of stuff. Erk|Talk -- I like traffic lights -- 05:38, 20 November 2006 (UTC)


 * OK, so you're saying the process would be to go find a book that backs up what you have written? It just seems over the top in such a practical subject. There shouldn't really be a lot of controversy of most of these topics. There is likely to be some over topics concerning the history of tools and techniques, and I can see references would be almost mandatory in those discussions, since there is no clear and well understood knowledge in some of those areas. I just find myself wondering if pasting a reference to the same book at the bottom of every article serves any real purpose. But I suppose if it 'legitimises' the article within Wikipedia, then it may be worth doing. SilentC 21:41, 20 November 2006 (UTC)


 * For practical arts, I think the reference serves two purposes: (1) it creates an erstwhile "recommended reading" list for people interested in the subject off-wikipedia (and/or a links list if you use html sources), and (2) it satisfies the academics in wikipedia, allowing the article to receive more recognition and publicity. I think (1) is the only truly important one, but for "meta" purposes unrelated to the topic itself, (2) is good as well. Erk|Talk -- I like traffic lights -- 22:34, 20 November 2006 (UTC)


 * (Edit conflict) I don't think we need to footnote everything, just unusual and potentially controversial stuff, or stuff that is not generally know (e.g. Egyptians using copper saws, which I will add to the hand saw article). Also, we need to remember there are a lot of myths and half-truths out there about woodworking, and we should not perpetuate them here. So it's more than just getting a tick in the box. However, all we usually would need is a "References" section with at least one book. A reader needs to be able to go somewhere to get more information. Maybe we should put together a bibliography so that we can cut and paste references easily. It would also force me to catalogue my woodworking library. Now for butt joints specifically (or most joints for that matter), any decent general woodworking book will deal with them, there are a gazillion references out there, but most of them will be how-tos rather than descriptions. SilentC's article, while not original research, is in effect a new organization of them (and a good one at that). We also did the same kind of thing on the Backsaw article and Elrysa did it to reciprocating saws as a class. It makes sense to reorganize and compile stuff for wikipedia in different ways that books do. So how do we deal with that, when no single book or reference quite organizes things the way we do? Luigizanasi 22:44, 20 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that a foot note is not required for everything. If there are pictures to acocmpany these articles it will help too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Elmmapleoakpine (talk • contribs) 23:36, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards
Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 18:24, 30 December 2006 (UTC)