MaterialWiki:About
From MaterialProject.org, the free architectural material catalog
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About the MaterialWiki project
The MaterialWiki project was started in the Fall 2005 semester as a printed research collaborative of graduate students studying Advanced Materials and Methods at NESAD in Boston, MA. The collaborative was lead by Professor Douglas R Seidler and continued into the Spring 2007 semester. The written collaborative and resulting knowledge base was migrated to the MaterialWiki project in the Spring 2008 semester.
As of today, there are 178 articles in the project.
project goals
The MaterialWiki Project is a material & building reference that anyone can edit. This type of community edited knowledge base provides an opportunity for design professionals and graduate students to share their material research and building research with each other as an accurate and evolving investigation on material in design.
project overview
Each semester, students studying Advanced Materials and Methods maintain two existing materials from the MaterialWiki project and contribute one additional material to the MaterialWiki project.
For each material, students contribute written analysis for their materials including historic information, typical uses, and photographs when available. Students may also generate 2D and 3D diagrams/drawings of the material to illustrate its application in construction. The goal is that these drawings combined with the research will help students identify:
- written analysis, technical data, material costs
- material performance, dimensional restrictions, opening restrictions, assembly methods
- embodied energy, geographic considerations
- flame spread, coefficient of friction
- research bibliography, manufacturer information, material use / building bibliography
student contributions
Students studying Advanced Materials and Methods have contributed directly to this project since the Fall 200 semester.
If you are a professor or student and would like to contribute to this project through your institution, please contact Douglas Seidler.
Making the best use of MaterialWiki
Exploring MaterialWiki
Many visitors come to this site to acquire knowledge, others to share knowledge. In fact, at this very instant, articles are being improved, and are also being created. You can view changes as they happen at the Recent changes page. You also can view random articles. You may also search for articles, using the search box on the left side of the screen.
Using MaterialWiki as a research tool
As a wiki, articles are never complete. They are continually edited and improved over time, and in general this results in an upward trend of quality, and a growing consensus over a fair and balanced representation of information.
Users should be aware that not all articles are of encyclopedic quality from the start, and may contain false or debatable information. Indeed, many articles start their lives as partisan, and it is after a long process of discussion, debate and argument, that they gradually take on a neutral point of view reached through consensus. Others may for a while become caught up in a heavily unbalanced viewpoint which can take some time — months perhaps — to extricate themselves and regain a better balanced consensus.
MaterialWiki vs. paper references
MaterialWIKI has advantages over traditional paper reference books. MaterialWIKI has a very low "publishing" cost for adding or expanding entries and a low environmental impact, since it need never be printed. Also, MaterialWIKI has wikilinks instead of in-line explanations and it incorporates overview summaries (article introductions) with the extensive detail of a full article. Additionally, the editorial cycle is short. A paper reference stays the same until the next edition, whereas writers update MaterialWIKI at every instant, around the clock, ensuring that it stays abreast of the most recent events and scholarship.
Contributing to MaterialWiki
Visitors do not need specialized qualifications to contribute, since their primary role is to write articles that cover existing knowledge. With rare exceptions, articles can be edited by anyone with access to the Internet, simply by clicking the edit this page link. Anyone is welcome to add information, cross-references or citations, as long as they do so within MaterialWiki's editing policies and guidelines.
- For example: if you add information to an article, be sure to include your references, as unreferenced facts are subject to removal.
There is no need to worry about accidentally damaging MaterialWiki when adding or improving information, as other editors are always around to advise or correct obvious errors, and MaterialWiki's software, known as [[MediaWiki], is carefully designed to allow easy reversal of editorial mistakes.
editing pages
MaterialWIKI uses a simple yet powerful page layout to allow editors to concentrate on adding material rather than page design. These include automatic sections and subsections, automatic references and cross-references, image and table inclusion, indented text, and listed text. Most of these have simple formats that are deliberately very easy and intuitive.
MaterialWIKI has robust version controls. This means that poor quality edits or vandalism can quickly and easily be reversed or brought up to an appropriate standard by any other editors, so inexperienced editors cannot accidentally do permanent harm if they make a mistake in their editing.
content policies
MaterialWIKI content is intended to be factual, notable, verifiable with external sources, and neutrally presented, with external sources cited.
The MaterialWiki project is framed around three content policies:
- Verifiability (V)
- Neutral point of view (NPOV)
- No original research (NOR)
Jointly, these policies determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in MaterialWiki articles. Because the policies are complementary, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another, and editors should try to familiarize themselves with all three. The principles upon which these policies are based are non-negotiable and cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus. Their policy pages may be edited only to improve the application and explanation of the principles.
content guidelines
The guidelines for contributing to MaterialWiki are:
- Assume good faith - In allowing anyone to edit, we work from an assumption that most people are trying to help the project, not hurt it.
- Material research - Guidelines for contributing new materials.
- Suggest a material - Guidelines for suggesting new materials.
- Building research - Guidelines for contributing new buildings.
- Suggest a building - Guidelines for suggesting new buildings.
Feedback and questions
MaterialWIKI itself is run as a communal effort. It is a community project whose end result is an encyclopedia. Feedback about content should, in the first instance, be raised on the discussion pages of those articles. You are invited to be bold and edit the pages yourself to add information or correct mistakes if you are knowledgeable and able to do so.
Contacting individual MaterialWIKI editors
If you need more information, the first place to go is the Help:Contents. To contact individual contributors, leave a message on their talk page. You can also reach other contributers via e-mail.
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