[Siri]

Originally Posted by lbarger

That is the whole reason I started this thread!

The knowledge of the CD community is much more vast than the knowledge of any single individual. However, having no experience with open documents and being a registered Professional Engineer, I am curious to learn how one can ensure the accuracy of information provided by 'the public'. If the information is not accurate, it could be worse than useless. It could be harmful.

Lee,
Firstly, are you not invited on the Google Doc? (Apologies, I thought you were.) If you'd like to be, I think R.C. can fix that. Sorry

Public Editing: Good question. Google Docs is actually pretty good about this. Currently, the working document is private, so it's only editable to people (or rather, email addresses) who are expressly given permission. However, the presentation itself can be made visible (not editable) to the general public, if desired. This reduces the danger of 'publicly provided' information to that of any other well-informed CD discussion. Does that seem suitable? Of course, it can also be exported in a variety of formats and published on CD-Media as well.

Originally Posted by lbarger

I strongly encourage a white paper format versus a presentation. Done correctly, there would be just too much information to throw at people in one sitting. Besides, most people would only need information on a select few materials. Its just that there are so many material available, each with good and bad qualities. One or more presentations could be condensed from the white paper once it has a good selection of material.

I'd like to see this end up as a white paper as well. It's easy enough to create a Google text document, either in tandem with the presentation or afterward. However, Google Docs has some trade-offs for presentations versus text documents. Personally, I've found that presentations are easier to keep organized with multiple editors, given the different actual slides. Text docs are just one long sheet, though you can insert horizontal lines or even make multiple documents. Presentations can to be nicer to photos/graphs as well, though they tend to crash the longer they get and the more people edit them simultaneously (more so than text docs).

Given this, I'd wonder if we don't want a text document for each chapter, with the presentation having the "gloss" version R.C. was looking for. Actually, I usually make section-by-section 'scrapsheet' documents and then open 'final' doc(s) once all the information is mostly gathered. (It really aids with organization.) Feel free to correct me: Google Docs I'm pretty good with, but I'm no P.E.

Originally Posted by lbarger

The outline I have is divided into chapters based on material types. Within each chapter, the paper would discuss the different variants available in more detail. Based on input I've seen thus far and my own ponderings, the guide is looking something like...[list]...Within each material class, we should highlight the most commonly used variants and variants with unusually good characteristics. (A Variant would be a specific aluminum or steel alloy, specific plastic or wood, etc.)...[list]

This is about what I was thinking (sans lubricants, that's a good idea). Would you like me to make these chapter documents, or should I hold off?

Originally Posted by lbarger

I hesitate on including correlations (Strength vs. Cost, Strength vs. Weight and Stiffness vs. Weight) as these involve both material properties and geometric forms. This could/should be a complete white paper in itself.

Good point. Personally, I haven't really thought about a length limit (or a number-of-papers limit, for that matter). If there's interest in pursuing this angle, I think it'd be useful, but need not be in the same paper. Honestly, I was just going to link to whatever charts I found, but I don't really know enough about the analysis to expound much further anyway.