Expert Resources

[Pete Dunk]

We are very fortunate to have members of this forum who are expert makers and repairers of concertinas. The Instrument Construction and Repair forum contains many golden nuggets of information that are buried in the 670 threads covering some 34 pages.

 

Would it be possible to have a pinned and locked thread containing links to individual posts of particular significance, a distillation of expert knowledge and advice. Members would be able to nominate a post but only a moderator would be able to add the link to the thread. Here's an example of the type of post I'm thinking of.

 

http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php...ost&p=58599

 

It may be that Paul and Ken are far too busy to set this up and maintain it but I'm sure it would be an invaluable resource if it were possible.

Edited May 28, 2008 by tallship

[Alex West]

Tallship

 

Seems like a great idea - I know I've copied a few threads for my own files which I refer back to occasionally/frequently.

 

What's the best way to proceed - build an archive in a separate folder somewhere?

 

Alex

[Ken_Coles]

Hello,

 

Interesting idea; I myself feel there are lots of repair gems here. As for me, busy is one thing, lazy may be another consideration (speaking for myself, not Paul!).

 

There are some considerations here. Someone who can judge what threads are most useful for reference could compile the thread of threads. We could pin it, but to keep it from growing and drifting in the usual way, we might even need to find a moderator for the Construction and Repair Forum to do it. If you have ideas or candidates, let us know and we'll take it under advisement (the boss makes the final decisions!).

 

Comments?

 

Ken

[Leo]

An optional idea in the mean time, is to go to control panel and change number of post per page to 40. Cuts down the number of pages in half. Or at the bottom of the main forum page and click on lo-fi version. It puts on my computer 150 threads with titles per page and cuts down the number of pages to 4.

 

Thanks

Leo

[Pete Dunk]

Tallship

 

Seems like a great idea - I know I've copied a few threads for my own files which I refer back to occasionally/frequently.

 

What's the best way to proceed - build an archive in a separate folder somewhere?

 

Alex

 

Actually that's not a bad idea; not in a separate folder or even perhaps as part of the forum, maybe it would be better as a reference section on the main Concertina.net site. For an alternative idea see below.

 

 

Hello,

 

Interesting idea; I myself feel there are lots of repair gems here. As for me, busy is one thing, lazy may be another consideration (speaking for myself, not Paul!).

 

There are some considerations here. Someone who can judge what threads are most useful for reference could compile the thread of threads. We could pin it, but to keep it from growing and drifting in the usual way, we might even need to find a moderator for the Construction and Repair Forum to do it. If you have ideas or candidates, let us know and we'll take it under advisement (the boss makes the final decisions!).

 

Comments?

 

Ken

 

Best way to keep it from drifting in the usual way is to keep it locked from new posts by members. Better that an appointed moderator reviews and updates a 'read only' categorised sub-forum than that he/she stifles the lively debates that appear in Construction and Repair as a whole. One thread could be left open for members to nominate posts for inclusion in a particular section.

 

The idea wasn't to moderate a whole section of the board ( ), but simply to have a reference section of 'edited highlights' with threads on specific subjects ('bellows', 'reed tuning' 'action' etc) showing individual posts of significant interest but also giving a link to the original thread so that interested parties can read the whole thing if they wish. Perhaps the idea is too unwieldy to put into practice but I thought it was worth opening up for debate.

 

I started this thread by saying that we are blessed with a number of contributors who are expert repairers and makers of concertinas, I should mention that there are also a number of gifted 'amateurs' and 'dabblers' who regularly add to our knowledge as a whole, so professional or semi-professional status certainly shouldn't be a delimiting factor.

 

*Ducks and runs for cover*

[JimLucas]

We are very fortunate to have members of this forum who are expert makers and repairers of concertinas. The Instrument Construction and Repair forum contains many golden nuggets of information that are buried in the 670 threads covering some 34 pages.

 

Would it be possible to have a pinned and locked thread containing links to individual posts of particular significance, a distillation of expert knowledge and advice. Members would be able to nominate a post but only a moderator would be able to add the link to the thread. Here's an example of the type of post I'm thinking of....

I now count 809 separate threads ("Topics") in the Instrument Construction & Repair subForum. How many posts is that? Which of them contain "nuggets" and which do not? I doubt that any two "moderators" would make the same selection.

 

As I see it, the main problem with your suggestion is that what is "important" or "significant" depends on your personal repair and construction needs. Should it include discussion of spring tension? Of making your own springs? How many of the various descriptions of bellows making? What about tuning to different temperaments? Or Rich Morse's essays on the different leathers from the different parts of a sheep, and how best to use them? Beyond that, there are many things that can reasonably be done in more than one way, and the answers -- or "highlights" -- become a matter of personal choice.

 

I think that what we already have is a far better solution: a Search facility. Don't stop at the simple "Search", though. Continue through "More Search Options" and finally "More Options". (Why does it require so many steps? Well, that's a separate question.) There one can specify a combination of words to search on or even to avoid (e.g., try +"spring tension" -Stagi), as well as name an individual contributor (too bad that's limited to just one at a time). Among the advantages of this method is that it is automatically kept up-to-date by the Forum's built-in database.

 

I think you should also realize that to do a good job of what you are asking for is probably more work than writing a book on construction and repair, even though (or perhaps because) others have written the text you might wish to include. Since Dave Elliott has already written such a book, maybe he would be willing to estimate for us how many hours/week would be required to keep your suggested list of links current? (We can make our own estimates of how much time would be required to respond to complaints about which posts were included and which were not.)

 

But if you still think that such a compilation would be worth the effort, you could always do it yourself outside of Concertina.net, then post it or a link to it in the Instrument Construction & Repair subForum. (Maybe that's something that could be pinned?) Others have successfully done that with their own ideas, including both Henk's Recorded Tunes Link Page and Stephen Mills' Map of C.net Players.