Suggestions for Improving the RepRap Wiki

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MattMoses
It seems like we need to have a written policy about commercial links and commercial activity. I do not think we can fix the problem if we are all trying to enforce our own personally defined rules. Here is a first-draft-imaginary-just-for-discussion-purposes attempt at a unified policy:

• External links to these places are always allowed anywhere: GitHub, Youtube, Youmagine, Thingiverse, Reddit, Imgur, personal blogs, Hackaday, (and lots of other places that are hard to list all of)
• Pricing information on the wiki is always prohibited.
• External links to companies selling a product (or your ebay page) are always prohibited, except for the following cases
  [1] if you sell a product you developed, you may have a link to your company on your product's wiki page
  [2] every vendor can have a link to their company (or ebay page) in their Wiki User Page, Wiki Talk Page, and Forum signature
  [3] approved links are allowed on RepRap Buyers Guide
  [4] approved links are allowed on Filament Suppliers
  [5] approved links are allowed on Hot End Comparison

What do the rest of you think?

that pretty much covers it,

i think we need to look at enforcing licencing claims for certain things, we have a lot of printer in the reprap_options page which claim to be gpl but don't actually link to any sources and really only an incomplete list of stl's and the odd laser cut sheet , while we don't want to turn into the licencing police realistically we don't have a lot of choice while people are creating pages geared for the purposes of selling something rather than hosting development information.

I've taken the liberty of starting a page for such a policy http://reprap.org/wiki/Link_And_license_Policy

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thejollygrimreaper
I've taken the liberty of starting a page for such a policy [reprap.org]

Great! Both the suggested linking policy and the licence claim enforcement would make the wiki much more tidy.

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torbjornludvigsen.com

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MattMoses
External links to these places are always allowed anywhere: GitHub, Youtube, Youmagine, Thingiverse, Reddit, Imgur, personal blogs, Hackaday, (and lots of other places that are hard to list all of)

Reasonable. To some extents I'm not too happy with people effectively moving away from the wiki, placing just links into their blog here. This reduces collaboration, because external links are accessible to one person only. It also hardens the design <=> developer relationship ("This is your design"). For collaboration it'd be better to loosen this relationship, seeing developments as RepRap designs, not as designs of person X, Y or Z.

So I'm fine with video sites (YouTube/Vimeo/...) and file/repository hosters like Github, Thingiverse, but not so keen on blogs, Reddit, etc.

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MattMoses
[1] if you sell a product you developed, you may have a link to your company on your product's wiki page

... in the "How to get it section".

I think we have good experience with also allowing links to shops which make exact copies. That's one of the major intentions of Open Source: one development, many manufacturers/vendors.

Also only one section, else you have wiki pages with looong link lists.

Now, some Gen7 pages currently does have these long link lists. Like here. In this case not links into RepRap shops, but to more general vendors. Mixed feelings on wether this was a good idea. Does it help people to make their own copy or is it mostly an excuse for shop owners to put dozens of shops links into their descriptions?

P.S.: I'm fine with everything else.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2014 08:21AM by Traumflug.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

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Traumflug

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MattMoses
External links to these places are always allowed anywhere: GitHub, Youtube, Youmagine, Thingiverse, Reddit, Imgur, personal blogs, Hackaday, (and lots of other places that are hard to list all of)

Reasonable. To some extents I'm not too happy with people effectively moving away from the wiki, placing just links into their blog here. This reduces collaboration, because external links are accessible to one person only. It also hardens the design <=> developer relationship ("This is your design"). For collaboration it'd be better to loosen this relationship, seeing developments as RepRap designs, not as designs of person X, Y or Z.

So I'm fine with video sites (YouTube/Vimeo/...) and file/repository hosters like Github, Thingiverse, but not so keen on blogs, Reddit, etc.

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MattMoses
[1] if you sell a product you developed, you may have a link to your company on your product's wiki page

... in the "How to get it section".

I think we have good experience with also allowing links to shops which make exact copies. That's one of the major intentions of Open Source: one development, many manufacturers/vendors.

Also only one section, else you have wiki pages with looong link lists.

Now, some Gen7 pages currently does have these long link lists. Like here. In this case not links into RepRap shops, but to more general vendors. Mixed feelings on wether this was a good idea. Does it help people to make their own copy or is it mostly an excuse for shop owners to put dozens of shops links into their descriptions?

P.S.: I'm fine with everything else.

some of the link lists in pages weren't probably a bad idea at the time, however these days i would encourage against it, instead simply having one link to a supplier eg rs-components and then a list of catalog numbers or a simple list of components, I've come across a few pages where a significant number of the links that were broken , this was caused by the web-shop updating product descriptions.

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Traumflug
To some extents I'm not too happy with people effectively moving away from the wiki, placing just links into their blog here. This reduces collaboration, because external links are accessible to one person only. It also hardens the design <=> developer relationship ("This is your design"). For collaboration it'd be better to loosen this relationship, seeing developments as RepRap designs, not as designs of person X, Y or Z.

I agree completely that this is a good idea. As a developer of a new machine Raptosaur I would like to be able to share how it was made.
Knowing that I have limited time - I thought: I can post info to my website faster. But wanting to be more helpful I have registered in the WIKI. I've just checked, I did not realize how easy it was to create a page there. I've created a stub and will update it shortly.

There are a couple of other barriers:

Now I know I can build anything I want for my own use, and I will not be selling this printer, so there is no issue so far. But if someone else wanted to produce this printer for sale there might be a dispute regarding features like a temp controlled chamber. What of that?

I need to research GPL licensing. I'd like to perhaps licence this for non-commercial use, or receive royalties if someone produces it...

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My printer: Raptosaur - Large Format Delta - [www.paulwanamaker.wordpress.com]
Can you answer questions about Calibration, Printing issues, Mechanics? Write it up and improve the Wiki!

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Traumflug
Does it help people to make their own copy or is it mostly an excuse for shop owners to put dozens of shops links into their descriptions?

I've had limited success trying to use shop links from the Wiki. Shopping advice provided by local users or user groups are more relevant and works better. I mainly use the shop links as a shortcut to datasheets.

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Traumflug
For collaboration it'd be better to loosen this relationship, seeing developments as RepRap designs, not as designs of person X, Y or Z.

I think you're right. Heading off to put some stuff on the Wiki now...

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torbjornludvigsen.com

My Opinion..The Development index needs to be changed around abit.

When i click the 'Development Index' it takes me to (http://reprap.org/wiki/Development)

I would of hoped to see a list of current/previous/proposed future development in the field of reprap.

I would hope to see the following in this order

'Current Note-worthy Developments'
(admin chosen projects that are leading edge/current etc)
and then
a simplified 'Catagories Section'
including catagories such as
Current Printer developments, boards devs, firmware devs, hardware devs.
and each catagory links to an index of development in that catagory.
and project to be listed as current of outdated developments.

and then a small blurb linking to a whole new page about starting a development page.

and only projects that are 100% open and transparent
and not developments without proper documentaion or fancy licensing stopping anyone from taking part in the collaboration.

My Opinion...
Having open projects leads to large companies taking these ideas and finishing them quicker with their resources.
I like the license of - 'share and share alike non-commercial'

I think once the development is in process, it should be easy to see when it was started, and to stop companies from realeasing 'their' own versions of it.
companies wishing to use the development should be able to pay a 'license fee' of some sort, but if there is so many collaborators,

who would get get what sort of $money, if any...????

I think a development should have a 'Development co-ordinator' or 'Project manager' and he should be able to make decisions like this
But still, its hard.... who gets the licensing money? and at what ratio? 50% for Creator of development and 50% shared with collaborators? i wouldnt see more than 2-3 collaborators?

I think if a pretty young women (product development) was out at night (in public eyes) then she would be taken advantage of...

for me its a difficult topic,
i am for open-source, but still i need to eat.
i would be willing to publish 'some' of my work but why? when it could be taken advantage of?
greeed? no, im not greedy... but i see with the Prusa i3...
Dozens of companies have been formed producing Prusa i3 Kits... they even use the 'i3' or 'Prusa' name...
and i am sure Mr.Prusa is recieving little to NONE, of any sort of royalties or licensing fees.

In a real world
a project should be started.
a 'contributors section' is created
Creators are listed in the "contributors section"
Collaborators list them selves and write what they have contributed.
project is finished, and left alone....
let people produce for personal use.
and license product design out to commercial seller and manufacturers...

It would stop the 'Commercial Seller' from bending us over and having their way...

If you make money from another person ideas, isnt that bad... is that not theft in itself?

With proper documentation of the original idea, as a community, we could act on infringments of that intelectuall property.

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pushthatbolder
I would of hoped to see a list of current/previous/proposed future development in the field of reprap.

A list like this would be nice, since I know other people have a better overview than I have. The list would be very long, and the people writing it would have to invest a lot of effort to keep it complete and up to date enough to be useful.

I think the whole discussion on licences belongs in another thread. My stand on commercial links is similar to that MattMoses suggested in the link policy.

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torbjornludvigsen.com

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pushthatbolder
i am for open-source, but still i need to eat.

That's the challenge with open source :-)

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pushthatbolder
Dozens of companies have been formed producing Prusa i3 Kits... they even use the 'i3' or 'Prusa' name...
and i am sure Mr.Prusa is recieving little to NONE, of any sort of royalties or licensing fees.

That's likely right. With Gen7 I tried hard to go this road, but willingness to share a buck is very very close to zero. Quite a number of people promised to do so, but actually didn't. Two exceptions with companies in France, Paoparts and eMotion tech. They held their promise and allowed me to make a few Euros. Thank you to these two.

Thinking of it, it doesn't look like this could ever work. Making a derivative is all too easy and then it's no longer under the control of the developer.

To get food onto the table you have sell hardware. Kits, printed parts, machined parts (e.g. hotends).

Knowing this can lead to strategies for enhancing collaboration. Reduce the temptation to make a derivative and collaboration will raise. As community controlling the wiki this could mean to display only "originals". Show the i3 and if somebody comes around with a derivative, put it in kind of an attic. Also look carefully at this derivative, verify wether its changes bring in improvements and apply these improvements to the original model.

Done well this whould mean the "original" is always close to the best of all printers and also that developers might change their strategy towards bringing in these improvements only, not whole derivatives.

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thejollygrimreaper

the other type is where someone lists a source of a component they used or someone running a web-shop goes through the wiki linking their entire catalog with explicit links everywhere, what happens down the track when a change is made on the webshop that breaks the link or the webshop goes under is that all those links are broken and the webshop owner never actually comes back to remove links or update them (not that any actually keep a record of pages they've edited) some of these links are still being removed years later, the worst and most abused is the links to Ebay "searches"

Some of those may not have been searches to start. When an ebay listing expires ebay generates a search link based on the content in the expired listing/auction. That's one of the downsides to using ebay as a primary market. They now have an out of stock feature where the listing will stay up if it's from a seller with an ebay store. Still not optimum linking directly to an item from the Wiki. For sourcing I find the forum and general Google searches to be more current and informative.

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MattMoses
It seems like we need to have a written policy about commercial links and commercial activity. I do not think we can fix the problem if we are all trying to enforce our own personally defined rules. Here is a first-draft-imaginary-just-for-discussion-purposes attempt at a unified policy:

• External links to these places are always allowed anywhere: GitHub, Youtube, Youmagine, Thingiverse, Reddit, Imgur, personal blogs, Hackaday, (and lots of other places that are hard to list all of)
• Pricing information on the wiki is always prohibited.
• External links to companies selling a product (or your ebay page) are always prohibited, except for the following cases
  [1] if you sell a product you developed, you may have a link to your company on your product's wiki page
  [2] every vendor can have a link to their company (or ebay page) in their Wiki User Page, Wiki Talk Page, and Forum signature
  [3] approved links are allowed on RepRap Buyers Guide
  [4] approved links are allowed on Filament Suppliers
  [5] approved links are allowed on Hot End Comparison

What do the rest of you think?

It's completely appropriate. I don't see an issue with implementing as is.

How would the decision be made on who would be an approved vendor? That could be pretty subjective.

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vegasloki

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MattMoses
It seems like we need to have a written policy about commercial links and commercial activity. I do not think we can fix the problem if we are all trying to enforce our own personally defined rules. Here is a first-draft-imaginary-just-for-discussion-purposes attempt at a unified policy:

• External links to these places are always allowed anywhere: GitHub, Youtube, Youmagine, Thingiverse, Reddit, Imgur, personal blogs, Hackaday, (and lots of other places that are hard to list all of)
• Pricing information on the wiki is always prohibited.
• External links to companies selling a product (or your ebay page) are always prohibited, except for the following cases
  [1] if you sell a product you developed, you may have a link to your company on your product's wiki page
  [2] every vendor can have a link to their company (or ebay page) in their Wiki User Page, Wiki Talk Page, and Forum signature
  [3] approved links are allowed on RepRap Buyers Guide
  [4] approved links are allowed on Filament Suppliers
  [5] approved links are allowed on Hot End Comparison

What do the rest of you think?

It's completely appropriate. I don't see an issue with implementing as is.

How would the decision be made on who would be an approved vendor? That could be pretty subjective.

not really subjective, it's just a case of a simple checklist, eg is all the information they have provided correct? , do they carry counterfeit/produce counterfeit products? ... etc

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Please don't threadjack with licensing discussions. Another thread is more appropriate but first study up on the differences between copyrights and patents. Under current law in most of the western world unless you have a patent you have no legal standing the the functional part of the design. Anyone is free to copy it. If you are concerned with copies it's best not to post the source. If it's that good someone will buy one, take it apart and make copies. Legally. If you are concerned about people using the name of your project, trademark it.

Addressing Marcus' comments about moving away from the Wiki and reducing collaboration, I would find it difficult to find evidence the Wiki promotes collaboration. It certainly provides the sharing of information but as for actual collaboration of design iterations I don't see it and haven't in the not quite three years I've been involved with building machines. Github is a much better collaboration tool and has the functionality to provide that service that a Wiki lacks. IRC and forum pages provide for more collaboration. A Wiki is a good tool but I don't think it's a good tool for collaboration. It's an information and reference source. Tools help collaboration but in and of themselves they don't promote it.

Collaboration happens organically between like minded humans, not necessarily because of where or what structure a particular part of information may lie. What I see in some of the posts are how individuals think it should be and not necessarily how the resource or even the development of the machines take place. The idea of community owned/generated designs isn't the norm now in hardware nor has it been in the time I've been involved. In the last few years it's been about being one person's design with derivatives based on the original design many times (most of the time?) using the same name as the original design. That's not a Wiki issue, that's how hardware evolves. In other words, you can't change the developer community to conform with a documentation standard or development methodology when those standards or methodology aren't the prevailing way in which the development is accomplished. It's better to look at how development happens and provide the tools and structure to facilitate the reality of how it happens rather than conforming it to a method that may not represent how the work is created..

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thejollygrimreaper

not really subjective, it's just a case of a simple checklist, eg is all the information they have provided correct? , do they carry counterfeit/produce counterfeit products? ... etc

The determination of if the info is accurate or if something is counterfeit is absolutely objective. Take hot ends for example. JHead has become a generic term. Unfortunately he didn't trademark it. As you are aware most hotends that call themselves JHeads are either poor copies or nothing like a JHead. Let's say you have a good hot end that's not a JHead design but they say it's a JHead MK700. Is that counterfeit? How about a PEEK hot end attempted to be made to Brian's specs but is absolutely horrible in manufacturing quality but provides all the sources, links, attribution, etc. In other words, the maker means well but isn't very good. Which one gets in? Both? Neither? You have to be subjective to come up with a decision.

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vegasloki

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thejollygrimreaper

not really subjective, it's just a case of a simple checklist, eg is all the information they have provided correct? , do they carry counterfeit/produce counterfeit products? ... etc

The determination of if the info is accurate or if something is counterfeit is absolutely objective. Take hot ends for example. JHead has become a generic term. Unfortunately he didn't trademark it. As you are aware most hotends that call themselves JHeads are either poor copies or nothing like a JHead. Let's say you have a good hot end that's not a JHead design but they say it's a JHead MK700. Is that counterfeit? How about a PEEK hot end attempted to be made to Brian's specs but is absolutely horrible in manufacturing quality but provides all the sources, links, attribution, etc. In other words, the maker means well but isn't very good. Which one gets in? Both? Neither? You have to be subjective to come up with a decision.

A "jhead Mk700" would obviously not be a counterfeit provided it was not sold as a genuine jhead , the kind of people i'm referring to are the ones who advertise their variant of the jhead as the genuine article as if it were actually made by Brian, or imply it has been made according to the sources provided by Brian , we have in past caught a few sellers on eBay selling obvious Chinese clones and even claiming they were the original designers of he jhead

to be clear , we are calling their activity "counterfeiting" the product they sell is technically a variant, all they have to really do is stop selling it as the genuine article,

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