New Category Layout Proposal(s)

Currently, the Wiki's category structure is a mess

We (that means you too) are going to improve it. Please review the current proposal(s) here: Main Page Discussion Area

During the Wiki Contest (which will be concluded on the 7th of Jan. and winners announced on the 11th), we are unable to edit articles we did not create so please comment here. This may also help give you ideas if you are still trying to think of something to write for the Wiki Contest.

BeBerlin has introduced a proposal for a new tree, which is a vast improvement over what we have now. Please take a look at it here. Below is a short proposal I have worked out along the lines of my own personal thoughts of how to throw everything together. Of course, specific pages and articles relating to pasting strops, how to shave around moles, who George Wostenholm married, etc, will be filed under appropriate categories or subcategories.

I. Equipment

A. Required Equipment

1. Straight Razors

a. Manufacturers
b. Physical Description & Kinds of Razors
c. Where to Find Straight Razors

2. Strops

a. Manufacturers
b. Physical Description & Kinds of Strops
c. Where to Find Strops

3. Other Necessities

B. Additional Equipment

1. Brushes
2. Soaps & Creams
3. Aftershaves
4. Styptics
5. Scuttles & Mugs
6. Hones

a. Manufacturers
b. Physical Description & Kinds of Hones
c. Where to Find Hones

C. Equipment Storage

II. Shaving

A. Before the Shave

1. Beard Preparation
2. The Shave
3. Post Shave

B. Other Shaving (Head Shaving, Shaving Goats, Etc.

III. Regular Maintenance

A. Stropping
B. Honing

IV. Repairing & Restoring

A. Necessary Tools & Equipment
B. Additional Tools & Equipment
C. Restoring & Repairing Blades
D. Restoring & Repairing Scales
E. Forging New Blades
F. Making New Scales

V. Other Topics

A. Safety
B. Photographing Straight Razors
C. Glossaries

Makes sense to me. I like it.

Looks good to me. Straightforward and modifiable.

Nice one, and mostly implemented already. Three cheers to Lee for all the hard work!

Just in case that any of you should be wondering what all the fuss is about, this article on Wikipedia has some more detailled background. In a nutshell, we are trying to find a way to organise and structure information in the Wiki in a fashion that will make it relevant for new users and old hands alike. Categorisation of articles will be essential in this endeavour, because it will allow us to create different views of article groups for different purposes. Simple example: Introducing a (hidden) category Beginners:Walkthrough will allow us to pull all articles in this category in one page, resulting in a "Straight Razor Shaving 101".

The main challenge in my opinion being their differently structured approaches to information. For completeness's sake, I am including my initial suggestion in a slightly abridged version:

1 Background

1. History of straight shaving
2. Historic shaving tools
3. Straight razor makers
   
   1. Straight razors in Europe
   2. Straight razors in the US
   3. Straight razors in the rest of the world

2 Straight razor shaving equipment

1. Basic equipment [razors and strops will fall under this category, for the rest, please cf. Lee's suggestion above]
2. Recommended equipment
3. Extended equipment

3 Straight razor shaving explained

1. Preparing your face
2. Shaving with a straight razor
   
   1. Basic techniques
   2. Advanced techniques
3. Treating your face after the shave

4 Maintaining straight razors

1. Background [e.g. when and why to use oil, etc.]
2. Stropping
   
   1. Regular strops
   2. Pasted strops
3. Honing
   
   1. Basic honing
   2. Advanced honing

5 Repairing or restoring straight razors

1. Repair
   
   1. Blade
   2. Scales
2. Restoration
   
   1. Blade
   2. Scales

6 Related reading

1. FAQ
2. Acronyms
3. …

I came up with this category "tree" by trying to remember how I started learning about straight razors. With the Wiki strongly being aimed at people wanting to learn, rather than communicate (forum or chat), I still like this structure a little better. Not least because it answers the questions in the following (real life, I believe) workflow: 1) What is straight shaving? 2) Okay, sounds interesting, what do I need? 3) Okay, I can afford that, how do I do it? 4) Works for me, how do keep my equipment in shape? 5) Dang, I dulled or broke something, now what? 6) Phew, I'm glad that worked - now then, what else is new?

P.S. Yes, I am back, for which great, big kudos to the moderators of this forum. Thank you, mods!

Woohoo! The BeBerlin Wall is down!!

Good to have you back, Robin. Big thanks to you for all your work on the wiki.

And for the future, try this instead : Home :)

I like the hidden category idea and the "related reading" section

Thanks for your time and effort; I am excited about helping make the wiki an easy reference for quick information access and your ideas and skills continue to improve it, I'm glad you're back to be pestered!

Welcome back and thanks for your work on the wiki.

The hidden category seems like a good idea to me, as the tree layout will make the learning process more intuitive IMHO rather than having to read through lots of different threads in the forums, and since the forum often contains opposing(?) information it would be easier to have the 101 page as a starting point.

Robin, nice to have you back.

" P.S. Yes, I am back, for which great, big kudos to the moderators of this forum. Thank you, mods!"

And a lot of your friends that did not forget about you and kept asking about your return... ;-)

Al raz.

Is this previous guy a spammer?

Al raz.

Looks pretty good. Might want to consider putting safety a little closer to the beginning.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AFDavis11

Looks pretty good. Might want to consider putting safety a little closer to the beginning.

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When a safety article has been written, it will either be linked from the main page or from a disclaimer that will appear on every page, as its category assignment won't really make much difference. There really is no ranked order of articles within categories as far as I know