Aftermarket Festool Manuals

[Matthew Schenker]

Everyone,
I have Jerry's manual ready for posting.
Can we try to form a quick list here of all the manuals we want to include?  Let's get together the authors and the names of the manuals we want for this project.
Thanks,
Matthew

 

[Matthew Schenker]

Everyone,
I've posted two of Jerry's manuals to the gallery.

Currently, I'm calling the category "ENHANCED FESTOOL MANUALS."  We can change the name if people want.  As a matter of fact, this whole venture is experimental, and we can change things as we go along.  Go into the gallery and check out the way it's arranged. 

You can find the enhanced manuals here --> Enhanced Manuals

If you know of other manuals you'd like to see posted in the gallery, let me know.  Or you can write one yourself!

Thanks,
Matthew

 

[James Metcalf]

Enhanced Manuals is a much better name and this site and idea will be a great plus for all. Thanks for all your time that you put in FOG. It is not taken for granted.

 

[Jerry Work]

Matt,

It likely would be helpful to also post my VS600 and MFS manuals as well.

Jerry

Everyone,
I've posted two of Jerry's manuals to the gallery.

Currently, I'm calling the category "ENHANCED FESTOOL MANUALS."  We can change the name if people want.  As a matter of fact, this whole venture is experimental, and we can change things as we go along.  Go into the gallery and check out the way it's arranged. 

You can find the enhanced manuals here --> Enhanced Manuals

If you know of other manuals you'd like to see posted in the gallery, let me know.  Or you can write one yourself!

Thanks,
Matthew

 

[Matthew Schenker]

Jerry,
OK, I have added them to their own albums in the "ENHANCED MANUAL" section.
Matthew

 

[Tom Ryan]

I'd like you to include Rick Christopherson's Domino and FT55 manuals, and any others he's done.

 

[Matthew Schenker]

I'd like you to include Rick Christopherson's Domino and FT55 manuals, and any others he's done.

I agree it's a good idea.  I'm waiting to hear from Rick, to make sure he is OK with this.
Matthew

 

[Dave Ronyak]

Matthew,

Regarding my "Festopedia" suggestion, I was not and am not intending to suggest that anyone and everyone be free to edit and rewrite any manual and thus risk loss of the coherent expression of the original author.  Rather, I was suggesting that the original be preserved and posted and also another copy be posted that could be edited and annotated, provided the holder of the copyright [normally the author unless he has assigned his rights] grants permission to the posting and preparation of derivative works.  You are correct in noting that Wikipedia is not to be taken as necessarily accurate, and courts have ruled that it cannot be trusted as such. 

But on rethinking about how to improve the manuals, perhaps a better approach would be to allow annotations - footnotes or links to other messages - to a copy of the original manual.  These could be superscipted or [] numbers appearing in the text of the derivative copy of the original manual and the note number would lead the reader of the original manual to the comments of the person who provided that particular annotation.  This could be somewhat similar to the formatting used for scientific and other research papers and legal briefs, except that multiple contributors would be involved.

Is it possible to insert in the annotated copy of the manual hypertext links to the FOG messages that comment on particular aspects of a manual?  Hyperlinks would enable a reader to quickly jump to additional information about any particular point in a manual, e.g. photos of a setup or results of use of a particular technique, or whatever. As an example of the power of this technique, go to Google and pull up a recent US patent using Google's Advanced Patent Search screen  [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=advanced+patent+search], then note and try any of the many hyperlinks that appear within the page display for the original target patent.  It is a very powerful tool to find related technical information.  Here is a the URL for display of a Festo patent to an electric motor. http://www.google.com/patents?id=9DAcAAAAEBAJ&dq=saw+OR+jigsaw+inassignee:festo&as_drrb_ap=q&as_minm_ap=1&as_miny_ap=2007&as_maxm_ap=1&as_maxy_ap=2007&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=1&as_miny_is=2007&as_maxm_is=1&as_maxy_is=2007

To repeat, my admittedly very personal objective in regard to these manuals is to enable myself to quickly zero in on information I am seeking to do a particular job with or related to Festool products.
Dave R.

 

[Matthew Schenker]

Dave,
Even though I am negative on Wikipedia, I'm open to any idea that makes information better and more responsive to members' needs.

Tell me if I'm wrong, but there seems to be a couple of points to address here: (1) We would need to hear from the authors, so we can be sensitive to what they want to see happen with their works.  (2) Because this sounds like a pretty extensive undertaking, we need to know who wants this, and more importantly, who would manage it technically.

Opinions and ideas?

Matthew

 

[Ned]

Matthew,

Like you I'm aware of Wikipedia's weaknesses, and I'm concerned about its effect on society, but it's important to make a distinction between the concept of a wiki and the particular implementation of Wikipedia.  I have been involved with wikis whose charter was much narrower, and whose community much smaller, than Wikipedia.  Those can work well.  A FOG wiki would be more like those than Wikipedia.  Wikis don't have to be wide open--there's a difference between working collaboratively and "let's all be the quarterback!".

I would not like to see any attempt to modify or even annotate the professional work of Christopherson or Work.  It's unlikely that we'd make those presentations better, even if there is information we'd all like to see added.

The problem we're trying to solve is this:  How can someone who wants an answer to a specific question, or wants the collected wisdom on the use of a particular tool, find this without rummaging through a bunch of past threads?

Here's a possibility:

Why not organize a wiki (or perhaps something more orderly) as an outline and reference to the Festool universe?  The wiki could contain both information and links.  Reference links could point to sections of the aftermarket manuals or perhaps relevant threads.  The balance between articles in the wiki and external links?  Don't know, let's see how it works out.  Personally, I lean toward the wiki as Encyclopedia Festooliana--and I'd argue the reason a largely static model like that would work is that the topic is largely static.  (No insult intended. Festool models have very long lifespans as small electrics go, and Festool concepts even longer lifespans.  A good tip is likely to stay good for a decade or more.)

I have no current knowledge of wiki platforms, and so can't recommend any.  I would be willing to help in the selection and implementation of this kind of thing.

Ned

 

[Matthew Schenker]

Ned,
Thanks for your informative response.  Maybe I was too harsh on the whole wiki concept!

I see that we could have established manuals, like Rick's and Jerry's, and then we would have additional ones that would come under the wiki umbrella.

I think this is worth an experiment.  I'll check in with the SMF community to see if anyone has done this before, and if so, what wiki applications they have used.  In the meantime, I'd like to hear from more members about ideas for implementing this.

Matthew

 

[Steven in Iowa]

Speaking of Rick's Domino manual, when is the official version coming?  I'm sure Festool is giving it the once over, but I'm ready.

 

[denverdad]

This is a great thread, I really look forward to using the Encyclopedia Festooliana or the Festopedia. I also like reading the potential names for it.