How a Captive Nut turned into a How-To-Make-a-How-To-Thread

[Phil Waterman]

Moderator's note: these posts were split off Chevrolet C8 1940 Cab 11 restoration, The Netherlands:


Hi Alex

Excellent how to on one of the most common CMP restoration problems. Your posts are an example of helpful restoration tips that could be stand alone Restoration threads to make them easy to search and find.

Again well done.

Cheers Phil

Checking a search phrase HOWTOWELDNUT howto

[Alex van de Wetering]

Thanks Phil!
Yes, I agree...a special area where we can save special techniques and HOW-TO's would be a great addition to the forum, but I guess it all depends on what is possible withing the forum software (?).

I just noticed today that I need to make a few more cages for the front nose panels!

Alex

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Alex van de Wetering

Yes, I agree...a special area where we can save special techniques and HOW-TO's would be a great addition to the forum, but I guess it all depends on what is possible withing the forum software (?).

I can move your postings into a separate thread on caged nuts in the restoration sub forum. We could mark this type of thread with a "how to" label, or any type of label we can think of - compare with the "for sale", "wanted", etc. labels in the for sale subforum.

Let me know what you guys think.

Thanks,
Hanno

[Phil Waterman]

Hi Hanno

So we don't break the continuity of the original threads can we, just copy them into a "How to" thread?

What ever we do we need to have people really think about Post heading so that it will be an easy searched term. Such as in this case Making Weld Nuts.

Cheers Phil

[Alex van de Wetering]

So we don't break the continuity of the original threads can we, just copy them into a "How to" thread?

Exactly what I was thinking. I am not always a fan of splitting part of a thread into a new thread...or the opposite, merging different threads into one. It does often make info easier accessible, but on the other hand it sometimes breaks the context, making it difficult to read and understand who is responding to what. So, I agree with Phil..maybe we could make a sub-forum only for how-to?.....part of treads copied from somewhere else. But I have no idea if this is possible within the software and if it means loads of extra work for the moderators?

Alex

[cletrac (RIP)]

In Making Weld Nuts the search would only find making. Words need to be 5 letters or more.

[Jordan Baker]

I never use the search feature on MLU because of the word letter count limit. I simply go to Google. Type what I'm looking for followed by ", MLU forum". I can find almost anything I'm looking for.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

One of the no-go's is copying the same information twice on this forum. That would clutter it all up too much - just think about one guy responding to one thread and the next guy to the other. That is why I often clean up and merge threads - to keep info in one place.

Anyone can search this forum for words of a minimum of four letters, or use google. If you add "site:mapleleafup.net" to your search, google will only search for your key words on the mapleleafup.net domain. If I would copy info into separate threads the number of hits on your search would at least double.

Also, anyone with an interesting "how to" subject can post his own new thread adding a link to other threads and vice-versa. So Alex could post his own thread on caged nuts and add a link to his restoration thread, plus the other way around. That would give the readers the context they need.

Lastly, but not unimportantly, copying (parts of) threads can only be done by moderators, which would mean a lot of extra work to be carried out by only very few guys.

So the subject of making captive or caged nuts stays in this thread, or it gets moved to its own thread. Up to you, Alex

PS: do you want me to clean up this thread and move this discussion into it's own thread?

Thanks for the input,
regards,
Hanno

[Grant Bowker]

I think it could work to put the information in one thread and post a link to the original information in the other thread, reducing storage and bandwidth demands, reduce work for moderators (as anyone can create the link) and provide information flow.

If the above is practical, I think I would prefer to see the full information in the restoration thread which would let me see the information with the context of why the how-to was needed, how it works and the result of the inventor used it, then the how-to thread might just be a series of links to other threads.

On the other hand, I can recall postings of how-to that were not related to a restoration - just a technique a member wanted to share.

[Alex van de Wetering]

All fair comments I think.
The HOW-to's could be made into short articles on the mapleleafup website or copied posts made into new threads, locked for comments to reduce clutter(?)....but Grants suggestion might be the easiest and less labor intensive for all of us.....it could be one HOW-to "sticky" thread with links to all sorts of interesting techniques displayed in other threads.

And yes Hanno...contrary to what I said earlier, I think the discussion on HOW-to's is better of as a separate thread in TAC HQ

So the subject of making captive or caged nuts stays in this thread, or it gets moved to its own thread. Up to you, Alex

I rather keep it here, Hanno.

Alex

[Chris Suslowicz]

Definitely a "Hints and Tips" topic would be a good idea.

Searchable title, brief description and a link to the post with the details?

(Of course, you'd most likely end up with the "TVtropes" time sink problem, where following any link causes the entire thread to be read, to the detriment of getting any work done, but still...)

Chris.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Grant Bowker

I think it could work to put the information in one thread and post a link to the original information in the other thread, reducing storage and bandwidth demands, reduce work for moderators (as anyone can create the link) and provide information flow.

If the above is practical, I think I would prefer to see the full information in the restoration thread which would let me see the information with the context of why the how-to was needed, how it works and the result of the inventor used it, then the how-to thread might just be a series of links to other threads.

On the other hand, I can recall postings of how-to that were not related to a restoration - just a technique a member wanted to share.

Anyone on this forum can start a new thread on a specific topic, and insert links to related threads and posts on this (or another!) forum. You can link to a thread by:

1) going to that thread and copying and pasting the title;

2) copy the URL in the top of your browsers (starts with http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/showthread.....);

3) then select the title and click on the "insert link" button above the message box - an "insert hyperlink" popup opens;

4) paste to copied URL in the URL box and click OK

Example: Chevrolet C8 1940 Cab 11 restoration, The Netherlands


You can also link to a specific post by looking up the post, click on the number (to the right of the date header). You are then viewing a single post in your screen. Create a link to like explained above: make a few new cages (or just post the link: http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/sh...&postcount=188 )

I you want to make it really fancy, you can click on "thread" on the right of the "view single post" header and insert that link: make a few new cages - in this case anyone clicking on this link will jump to the specific post in the thread, while keeping it in context with the rest of the thread.

I would like to encourage anyone to try this, I can always fix things if you make mistakes.

Good luck and let me know if you need help!

Hanno

[Hanno Spoelstra]

I have now added two thread prefixes for the restoration sub-forum: "How To:", "Info needed:" and "Reference". I can add more thread prefixes (or labels) if you like. What would be the appropriate prefix for someone's restoration thread? "My restoration"? Can't come up with an appropriate one right now.

Anyone posting a thread can now select a prefix, just like in the For Sale sub-forum. I have added some of these prefixes to existing threads as an example.

It helps to give a better overview or you can even search for threads with a specific prefix via the search function under search options.

Let me know what you think about this.

Thanks,
Hanno

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Alex van de Wetering

The HOW-to's could be made into short articles on the mapleleafup website or copied posts made into new threads, locked for comments to reduce clutter(?)....but Grants suggestion might be the easiest and less labor intensive for all of us.....it could be one HOW-to "sticky" thread with links to all sorts of interesting techniques displayed in other threads.

As a test, I have added a thread acting as a reference to information on a particular subject to be found somewhere on this forum:

Reference: Caged or captive nuts

I can see anyone looking for certain information finding useful threads, and groups them in a new "reference" thread so others can benefit from what was found.

It does mean anyone gathering information on this forum needs to go through the trouble of acting as a sort of editor.

Is this what you mean?

Thanks,
Hanno

[Alex van de Wetering]

This is what I had in mind, Hanno. (and also how I read Grants comment(?))


One HOW-TO thread....preferebly a sticky with links to HOW-TO info elsewhere on the forum.
This way people interested in techniques, tricks etc. can start by accessing this thread, which is easy to find...always on top of the list in the resto-forum. If they can't find the info there, they could always use the search function or google.
Maybe the thread should even be locked to avoid people responding to the links instead of responding to the actual HOW-TO as displayed within other threads or stand-alone HOW-TO threads, like the ones posted by Phil for instance. When a new batch of HOW-TO links is available, they could be added to the thread by a mod and than locked again(?).


Feel free to delete or move the new thread....I just made a thread to illustrate what it could look like.

Alex