WR encyclopedia

[RaZias]

Since the creation of this forum there is some information that as some value.

The problem is that specific information is lost between a lot of posts.

Imagine the number of posts in this forum in 10 years, how can you see the precious ones between all of thoses posts ?


There should be a section of WR Encyclopedia (like Aircommand did), with max psi values, glue names etc...


The users will not be able to post in that area, because in that area there will only be putted the bests treads
(from all sections outside the encyclopedia one) choosed by the community.

Only the admin will be able to post.

So it will be a knowledge-museum for the future.


For exemple there was a post about an epoxy glue that sticked well to PET and I don´t know where it is.

Why not create a "glue section" in the "WR Encyclopedia section" ? Just at least to post the name of the glues.

(Vise, PL Premium, Sika Bond-T2, ...,multiple stage systems posts...,assymetric splicing posts...)

I even wonder if George from Aircommand wouldn´t mind us to post some data from is site, specially:
- the parachutes systems
- impulse tests (9mm, 22mm, foam test)
- CD nozzle with and without foam.


I am not demanding to the admin seek all the information on all of this treads already posted,
that would be a colossal task.

I am just asking to at least choose and save some precious future treads on that WR encyclopedia (no need to edit them).

[air.command]

Hi Razias,

I think it's a very good idea to be able to easily find the important bits of information when working on a particular project. I know of at least one attempt in the past where a water rocket wiki was set up to try to capture information like this.

I also think it would be a huge task for someone, or even a few people to maintain if they are the only people that can enter/edit the data. I think the wiki approach is still a good one where you can have anyone contribute data (perhaps you have to have a registered account) and then you would have a number of moderators that would help maintain the integrity of the information but more importantly classify and move and tag the information in the database to make it easier to find. It can be difficult for a contributor to know exactly where their experiment results should be classified in relation to all the other data. You will often have a particular set of results that when more data is later obtained you need to split the results into different more subtle categories.

Making lists of forum threads that relate to a particular topic would be useful, but sometimes you need to read through a lot of noise to for example find the burst pressure of a particular piece of FTC. Having that bit of information in the database would be much easier to find, but you might not have the other bits of important information a person mentioned later in the thread. You could of course have both.

I even wonder if George from Aircommand wouldn´t mind us to post some data from is site, specially:
- the parachutes systems
- impulse tests (9mm, 22mm, foam test)
- CD nozzle with and without foam.

I'm more than happy for any of the experimental data to be used elsewhere if people find it useful. That was why we created the labs section to make things easier to find.

The other nice thing about having a centralised database would be to have access to the same data from different people which helps eliminate test setup bias.

- George

[U.S. Water Rockets1]

We think it would be a great asset to have a easily navigated repository of water rocket information. There are a lot of people asking the same questions in the forums over and over because there is quite a lot of info accumulated over time that most people shy away from searching. If there was a community type wiki where people could contribute their information, it would be great. We agree with George's comments about the amount of work involved, but if it were open to the community then the work would be done by many people over time and it would not be long before the archive is really comprehensive.

The only negative with this arrangement is there could be a lot of spam or vandalism attacks, so if there was a way that people with access need to be moderated or something until they are validated as legitimate contributors.

If this could be done, it would be really great!

[RaZias]

One alternative that is less work-demanding than this wiki would be a "best topic zone" for each forum area.

For exemple in the "General water rocket discussion" the "best topic zone" would have saved topics about for exemple making a multi-stage rocket, and other nice topics.

That way we could navigate better on the forum to search information instead of trying to find something between hundreds of "help topics" posted by members that are making the first steps.

Other alternative would be a "cleaning action" from time to time.

For exemple after 3 months a basic "help topic" would be deleted since the member that posted surely (I think) was already had the help he wanted from the community.

This is important, otherwise imagine the forum in 10 years...