I think the forum should have a How to or Guide catagory

[YellowGTO]

Hey guys, I really like a how to or guide section for software and hardware sections. That way we can have a nice section for guide that doesn't get cluttered up with other topics.

[killbox]

that would be a Wiki, printrbot has one (top right hand corner next to the search bar) but it is out of date or not used, if you want a how to push people to help re-write/update it

[RetireeJay]

I agree that a Wiki is the right place for how to guides.

And I've put in my two cents: the section on Firmware Updating is recent, and is getting used. I wrote it only after walking the path myself as a newbie. I think that's important: Wiki entries need to be written when the experience is fresh.

But it is hard to keep things up to date. Printrbot changes their product lineup or product designs every two or three months.

C'mon people, volunteer to add to the Wiki! Keep it alive and up to date!

[MrWasabi]

The problem with Wikis is that they are often cumbersome to write specially for someone who has never made a page before and they have to go through the whole process of learning that also.
Forums are easier to post stepped instructions with embedded images and linked videos and can be done by almost everyone here.
We have a wiki at work (IT) and no one uses it, its constantly being pushed but we all default to writing and looking up word documents in a folder structure.

In saying that, there are some great threads in this forum with a lot of helpful advise, but no one takes the time to write a how to thread to sum it all up. Auto bed level thread is a good example, excellent collaboration between a few forum members and problems were solved and the thread evolved, but it is buried in a sea of posts which are not relevant or were just questions.

As you say RetireeJay, Printrbot are constantly changing their lineup, the auto bed level thread is now almost completely irrelevant as you can download new firmware which supports it. Asking people to take time out of their day to learn to write a Wiki and spend hours writing a document which will be ignored in a couple of months doesn't seem that appealing. Yes there are things which are constant throughout the lineup, and this sort of thing needs to be in some sort of "how to", but i think what is being asked here, is a section where we can write a quick and nasty short how-to that may be buried in a couple of months but thats ok because i spent less time writing it than this post. If this is the case, i would suggest that instead of a new sub forum, maybe post tags can be implemented to tag a post with [HOWTO], this way it can be searched for explicitly in the forums search engine.

[plexus]

I nominate you MrWasabi to write as many how to posts in the forum as you want. in fact if you want me to create your own separate forum that no one else can post to where we can hold your how to posts, im all for it. let me know what you need to get started

[MrWasabi]

Haha, nice one. I am happy to write a how to when i have something to write, up until now, ive been reading more than writing about this subject, but if i have something to share, i would share it. Also i wasnt agreeing to another sub forum, i simply offered an alternative

[YellowGTO]

Im going to have to agree with MrWasabi. Wikis are awesome, but as a collaborative community the wiki Glossary/Summery linked to threads with technical information seems best. At the least can we get a better wiki logo been using this site since Dec and never noticed it.

[plexus]

[MrWasabi]

Not sure who runs the domain for you, where its all hosted or anything but typically you can make a copy of the databases and code and run it parallel to this site, so you can test changes in the "lab" and then implement them into production.
Don't ask me how to set this up, i just know its possible. I haven't played with PHPBB since its 2.0 days and im not into coding any more

[plexus]

[killbox]

I'd be willing to put some time in to create a how-to sub forum. but i would also like to ask people to PM things that they have found to be relevant to the topic of how-to. but i think it would turn into a starters ghulid with set up and other information on basic mods and such. I would be dealing with mostly hardware issues and slic3r issues seen as only use slic3r. the rest i couldn't speak on

[RetireeJay]

How about the approach I used in this post? viewtopic.php?f=16&t=7033