Proposing new forum for design review

[jwb]

I propose a new forum for diyaudio.com. The new forum would be called Design Reviews. People with completed designs would start threads including their drawings and other documentation. Site members would review and comment upon the designs.

This would be a good service for the designers, who want some confidence before building, and for new members whose first design might be somewhat scary. It would also create a convenient repository of completed designs, which would be helpful to readers of the forum. When a question arises about the feasibility of some design, forum members could reference existing reviewed designs in the Design Review forum. Of course the forum would also collect a few bogus designs, which could be used as educational counterexamples.

Thoughts? Should I mail this suggestion to the webmaster or is he likely to see it here?

[Sch3mat1c]

Sounds great! Don't forget to seperate into tubes and squalid state.

Tim

[SY]

We see all and hear all.

How is what you're suggesting not being already served? It seems to me that people are putting designs up for review all the time in the forums appropriate to their technology. And the designs are drawing lots of comments and discussion.

With the newly-revamped Search function, it's easier than ever to find design discussions.

Basically, I'm asking, "What do you perceive to be the problem that needs solving?"

[jwb]

I think even with the new search features it remains extremely difficult to find anything on this forum. The new forum would not provide new content to the site, but it would conveniently categorize what is already here. The posts in the Design Review forum would include only completed, or thought-to-be-completed designs. They would be the complete package: schematics, bills of materials, PCB layouts, or technical drawings. Furthermore, all these materials would be included in the very first post, with the rest being discussion or refinements.

Take as an example this extremely common question, which pops up on the forums from time to time: where can I find the schematic for a Jung regulator? If you search for "jung regulator schematic" you get several threads, and only one of them actually contains the schematic for a Jung regulator. I happen to know this is in the "Reducing Noise in Voltage Regulators" thread, but only because I've been using this site for a long time. Most of the rest of the threads don't include the schematic, but they do include someone *asking* for the schematic, which over time only makes the search feature less useful.

The search is also very hard to use because it doesn't take you to the exact post that matches your search, and in dozen-page threads this is extremely frustrating.

Furthermore, I think the sites categorization fragments the content too much. If I am looking for designs for a headphone amplifier, I might have to look in the Solid State forum, the Tube forum, and the Pass Labs forum to find what I'm interested in. Too much fragmentation, and a very high question-to-answer ration.

What I hope for the Design Review forum is that someone could limit their search to that forum, and have a reasonable expectation that they would find the design documents they are looking for. Perhaps I should have thought of it as a "Completed Designs" forum. In any case, the idea is that forum users would be able to easily find such things as drawings for Jung regulators, and be able to reference them in threads on other forums.

Of course I'm also thinking that the Design Review/Completed Designs forum would be moderated. Nobody would post a thread unless a moderator had already confirmed that the thread contains sufficient discussion and documentation. This would ensure that the forum was rich with good information, and lacking in vagueness and confusion.

[SY]

If I am looking for designs for a headphone amplifier, I might have to look in the Solid State forum, the Tube forum, and the Pass Labs forum to find what I'm interested in. Too much fragmentation, and a very high question-to-answer ration.

FWIW, it took me about 15 seconds with the search function and scanning through the hit list to find a schematic for a nice headphone amp (thanks, Dan Banquer!).

[purplepeople]

What I mean is:

1) What search terms did you use?

2) What toggles did you set in the options?

I find that using good keyword phrases like "headphone* circuit*" do not usually do the job without mindless searching through a number of threads. While it could be that I have become too google-minded, there is something to be said for having a search react in a similar manner.

:)ensen.

[kelticwizard]

Perhaps we could implement the suggestion informally. A person who wishes to do what jwb proposes, from here on in, can put "Design Review:" voluntarily in their thread title. We would have people starting threads like, "Design Review: Parametric Equalizer" or "Design Review: Output Transformerless Tube Amp", etc.

Then when somebody wants to look up something, they simply write "Design Review" in the Search feature, and all the "Design Review" threads get listed right on the screen.

If a poster asks for a Design Review but does not put it in the thread, the Moderator can mention that it has become customary to start off such threads with "Design Review:" in the thread title.

It sounds like it might be very convienient without having to open a new forum.

[subwo1]

Originally posted by jwb

The search is also very hard to use because it doesn't take you to the exact post that matches your search, and in dozen-page threads this is extremely frustrating.

One search feature that might help is the check box to show results as posts instead of threads.

[JOE DIRT®]

jwb...do you propose a new >FORUM or do you mean thread>?? because after reading all of these replies after a long day I have no idea what you mean...your lucky to have what you get and if you are to lazy to find something then you deal without and if you have tried then you ask its a simple phylosophy which I moderate in other forums....not to be crasp..but I think this forum is moderated and setup pretty good and thats why I come here

Regards, JOE DIRT®