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Project Classifications

4K views 7 replies 8 participants last post by  Chipncut 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Hey Martin:
Since Google shows Lumberjocks ahead of my own website when I type in my name "Mark DeCou", it shows that the lumberjock site is really come along quickly. I have had my website for three or four years. Sad, but true, but I am thankful for the 1,025 "page loads" I have had on my site this week alone, about 1/3rd from lumberjocks linking.

So, here is a question I have for you:
As this thing grows from 50 some projects to hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands of different projects. It will become overwhelming if a jock is trying to find new ideas and people to ask questions of, as all the projects will be shown together in one listing.

Here is my thought: What if you started adding a project description, from a provided list, that every project that a jock adds would be categorized with?

For Instance:
Main Category: Furniture, sub category Living Room, subcategory Couch
Main Category: Carving, sub category cane/walking stick
Main Category: Pyrography, sub category Horses
Main Category: Outdoor Items, sub category Bird Houses
Main Category: Furniture, Sub category Bedroom, subcategory Dresser
Main Category: Musical Instrument, sub category Native American Style Flutes

and so on. I'm thinking that this might help us a year from now find a person to talk to about a project.

Then, it hit me that some of us are trying sell our work, maybe there could be a category for "Proshop" where marketing, tax, profit/loss, crying on each other's shoulders, loans made available for small businesses, donations for those in trouble, employment listings for those looking to hire more help, or quit the business and work for others, etc.

This could be a separate category from the "projects" where people could go to find out what the pros are doing to sell their work, what shows are good, which ones are a waste of time, how to get help with developing an "image" that buyers find attractive. How to get press releases published, how to find authors writing decorating books about projects where jocks could get their work published. On and On. From a Proshop perspective, the work of running a business can far outweigh the work building the stuff you're selling. I totally underestimated this part of being in business for myself. I thought if I did good quality work, it would all "work out" in the end. To some extent it has, but there are so many issues looming, that I hardly know where to go, except maybe just go back to work and sand, or carve something and try to forget it for awhile.

Another thought I had: Last night I looked around the WoodNet forum, and found a question about how to cut a tenon on a long board. I, and several others, offered the fellow some ideas, and I added a couple of photo links to my website of the two projects I did this year already where I used long boards with tenons on the end.

So, here is the question: could the project description also include key attributes that others would be searching for some day? Like the Keywords list, but maybe even more detailed. For instance, when I was describing the 84" Couch I made with through tenons, I could put a tag that showed "Long Board Tenon". That way, a year from now, a jock looking for ideas of how to attack a project problem, could find a similar project, and poke a question to the person that has already accomplished this feat.

I did this for Phillip's Sam Maloof chair project, as I am working on dining chairs with carved wood seats, and wanted to know if he had some ideas that could help me.

that ought to be enough to digest in your off-work hours. Good night, and thanks for making this site available for all of us.

What do the rest of you think?

thanks,
Mark DeCou www.decoustudio.com
 
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#2 ·
I think that you are onto a good idea Mark. Starting to make changes like this when the projects are in a managable number "should" make it easier for Martin to make. Of course keeping this concept flexible would be a good way to add/modify groupings in the future.
 
#3 ·
i think it would be a very good idea. i could sure use the information. thanks for the ideas.

and i have a question of my own. cause i dont understand it.

on the entries in the contest ,the rating of them how does that work? i looked this morning and my horse had a 6.8 rating. now it is a 6.5 rating? i am sort of confused?
 
#4 ·
Hi Pat, on the ratings, I watched my table do the same thing. Each vote must cause the tally to re-average. Even if I'm pulling up the rear in points, I'm only second in views!
 
#5 ·
Yeah, I'm not so sure the contest was a great idea. I had a project that had been rated at 9.5 pre-contest, and it dipped to 4.2 after the contest started. Don't get me wrong, I don't really care about the contest, and I really want honest feedback. But if we're seeing people drop in low ratings to boost their own chances in a contest then we've lost the integrity of the ratings and they become meaningless.

Just my 2 cents…
 
#6 ·
What was the topic? O ya! Loved the music stand so i gave it a 10! Anyway one of the things i that keeps me coming back is the wide variety here. The journals i've pretty much ignored cause i know how to build a box,table,shelf,ect.. What i need is the inspiration i find here. Being a professional i can get bored and burnt out. I foget that i LOVE what i do. I would really like to see categories based on different styles: Modern, Arts and Crafts, Rustic, Shaker, ect.
 
#7 ·
Thanks for sharing the ideas.

I'm aware of the project classifications issue. The problem with some pre-made lists of categories is that they are not flexible enough. Also as you can see in this discussion, Mark suggested classification by the project type and Dennis suggested the one by the project style. There are numeruous ways to categorize woodworking projects - not just one…

Instead I decided to implement tags based organization. In essence tags are keywords (or Gmail is calling them labels) that you can attach to each of your projects to make it easier to find by others. Tags are very flexible because you can tag your project using its type (furniture coffee table), its style (arts crafts), materials used (maple oak), techniques used (carving), tools used (table saw) etc. This way you are creating projects organization that is very organic and is evolving each day.

Tags based organization is becoming very popular and works well for such popular sites as the moern photo sharing website flickr.

I will be working on many enhancements in using tags to browse the LumberJocks in the future. The list of used tags is growing.

Let me know if you have more ideas and suggestions to this, please.
 
#8 ·
Hi Martin,
I didn't really understand tags very well until I got on lumberjocks, it works great. Whatever you want pops right up when you click the word.
 
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