One of the most important things we try to get across here is the modularity of these systems.
One of the things I've been working with in the last 6-12 months has been building my designs in terms of modules and the idea seems to work Ok... but I came across a couple of things in my explorations...
1. I have maybe 10 'modules' as circuit diagrams/schematics that are 'postable'... but I've held-off doing so until I draw 'wiring layouts' (that is, a physical representation of what wires connect to what lugs, etc). The 'Electronics & Wiring'->'Design Modules' sub-board would be the place to post these...but do we want to have some 'standard of submission' for there? Mostly, it seems the schematics are posted... but they don't necessarily help those people who aren't 'schematic-savvy' to modify their guitars, hence the idea of also supplying 'wiring/connection diagrams'.
2. Part of the idea of the modular approach is that things can be (more) easily debugged at the module stage and the 'interaction' of modules can be better managed/defined... and debugging these modules would be something most any/all of us could have a go at. Once the modules become incorporated in a full design, the debugging of the 'interactions' could probably get beyond a lot of people.. and this is where our experts come into the picture...
I 'spose I'm sort-of thinking of a way for everyone to get involved in the design process y'see...
3. I think it's a good idea to have something (a [sticky] FAQ? Eeewww!) to explain TheProcess(tm) that we use on this board. For example, I'm still fairly 'new' but I see the 'Electronics & Wiring' board as the place to post a design for comment (or redirection to where the design is/has been described before)... and then the knowledgeable people (both old-hands and newer members) should/could contribute their thoughts and the development of the design could be a true community effort; this seems to be the way things run anyway and seems to work pretty well... I haven't really seen anyone saying '...but it's MINE' about the designs, really...
Once the design is finalized, someone does a build... and we will (probably/likely) have a debugging session on the design until it's working as required. Only then, would it be posted as a finished design, with schematic, 'wiring layout', construction notes, 'gotcha's', photos, etc in the 'General Guitar Schematics' sub-board.
4. There are whole sections of the board that I very rarely visit (ex: Lutherie, Acoustics)... so I don't have any comments to make about those areas (yet!)... but I wonder if there's anything in the ProBoards site/software that can provide a 'utilization' thing. I mean, my gut feel is that a lot of the activity goes on in the wiring part of the board 'coz that's where the board came from, being derived from the original 'GuitarNutz' site. I wonder if the 'groups of moderators' would also be 'managers' of their respective sections of the board and they can/might best assess how those sub-sections can be arranged... *shrug*
- = - = -
Overall, the big thing about the community here is the sense of helpfulness and patience... and that's something that could be 'flogged' a bit more, I think... unless we don't want a lot of extra people coming in to use the board...?
To my mind, I think it would probably be helpful to have FAQs per (sub-) board, so that people can find the info they need... and ya, I'm and old internet bod going back to the early '80s BBS things (FIDO, FrontDoor, etc) as well as UUCP-based internet... so I have that mentality of establishing a structure that works much like UseNet, so people can more-easily find the info they are after.
To that end, I wonder (here's more work) if it would be worthwhile to forget about using this board for the resource side of things and move that function off to a wiki of some sort. That sort of system allows people to 'walk the structure' if they want OR they can simply search for the info they want... In any event, we probably DO need to think about how we can get some keywords into the discussion postings..
Mannnnn... Talk about raving. It's late and my brain isn't working too flash... Sorry about the random thoughts.. but I just wanted to get something into this discussion while I had things in my head....
Continuing to monitor.......