We have a great new Wiki / Manual which is actually being I think very helpful for all of us.
But there is a Huge - Seemingly Intractable Problem. At least in my estimation of things:
No the Iris isn't the problem, It's a really great 3DR copter, probably the best one available for the price - period.
Mostly its just here to get your attention and point to the actual problem.
The problem is the wiki is viewed as the exclusive property of 3DR: essentially for the dissemination of information about 3DR products and the firmware that runs on them.
This is not true for the DIYDrones website, only the Wiki and it has produced such significant conflict that I resigned as director of the wiki because of the conflict my more liberal approaches were causing.
Don't get me wrong, 3DR is underwriting this whole venture including the DIYDrones web site, but the Wiki is the persistant and coherent reference that allows us to put information important to us in a place for all to see.
Neither DIYDrones Blogs or Discussions have the sort of persistence and coherence necessary for a body of reference and instructional material.
I am especially distressed because I was truly central in importing almost all of the files from the previous wiki to this one and in updating most of them considerably.
I think it is fair to say that at this point at least 75% percent of the wiki pages contain major editing and additions by me and the only reason it is that small is that lately their have been more contributors - especially Randy.
Indeed, I also think the wiki should primarily support our open source firmware and hardware and such hardware as works with it and favoring 3DR is certainly understandable.
But I also feel very strongly that DIYDrones now serves as a central information hub for people who know nothing about Multicopters and drones and that we are missing both an opportunity and an obligation by not also thoroughly addressing those needs as well.
In particular I have written the following pages that are currently living in the APMCopter Wiki section that are at the moment a considerable cause of discord:
http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/what-is-a-multicopter-and-how-does-it-work/
http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/build-your-own-multicopter/
http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/dji-f330-flamewheel/
http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/hoverthings-flip-sport-quadcopter/
http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/common-fpv-first-person-view/
http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/advanced-copter-design-and-methods/
And Particularly
http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/advanced-multicopter-design/
Which I consider one of my best.
Several of the pages are directly built off of members Blogs, answers to repeated forum or Blog questions and they all seek to provide guidance in areas of obviously common interest to many members.
Lately I was told that these were not considered appropriate for the Wiki because they didn't stick close enough to the mandate of providing information for APM firmware and hardware installation, set up and tuning.
And I was directed that a DIYDrones Blog or discussion would be more appropriate.
My consideration of this is that they are completely inadequate for this and simply fade into non-existence in a few weeks.
And they do not provide anything like a rich enough format for this sort of important information.
I went to a hell of a lot of trouble to learn about the Wiki and how to edit optimally in it and to make full use of it's features in the belief at the time that it was a democratized wiki for all to contribute to.
And now I am told to say what I think is important in a format without persistence or form.
Of course I am not happy about this, but it is, in fact, entirely beside the point.
What is the point is how can we get this information to be available for our DIYDrones users without either conflicting with 3DR or with the Wiki / Manuals primary reason for existence of providing information for our Open firmware and Open hardware.
I would think either a separate Wiki section within each major wiki section or a separate wiki section entirely.
But in either case it is necessary to convince 3DR of the necessity for this because as it stands they view their ownership position as not having room for this - in so far as I have been led to believe and understand.
If yoiu do not care or think that this descision is 3DR's tomake and should stand as it is fine - repond and let me and 3DR know you are in complete agreement with them.
If you think that there needs to be a centralized, persistent and non specific to APM/Pixhawk hardware and APM firmware resource on the DIYDrones site speak up or forever hold your peace.
And suggestions of form and method are also appreciated (though I think the WP wiki which I have spent over a year learning the ins and outs of are pretty excellent).
Best Regards,
Gary
Comments
I ran into some errors in Gary's posts while building my first quad.
1) That's why it should be in the format of a wiki. I would have happily fixed those errors if I could have modified the pages
2) I am terribly happy Gary wrote what he wrote, errors and all, because it was something to start with that contained a whole lot of correct information.
Craig omg thank you
I was starting to get sad that people were talking so angry and I didn't see any problems.
I did not even consider that someone would write WRONG instructions
I think someone needs to suggest where those "second set of instructions" need to go.. If there is not a place for them, make one, and lets not delete work, that just sounds wrong to delete stuff people spent time on.
I wouldn't even care if it was called the mis-information section, haha.
And Thanks AARON for the ideas it seems like a maintained site for that stuff would be better than having a wiki
Gary, I hear your frustration but your posts were edited and deleted by those in authority (that would be the lead developers of the ardupilot flight code) because they contained factual errors. We have had this discussion before and I hope you and the rest of your readers can understand the problems happened when for example the lead developer of the copter code wrote one set of instructions and you would write a second set that were not consistent with what had already written.
Hi Aaron,
Definitely plan on covering some of the more advanced and off center uses, really like the DF13 connector idea, interestingly was already thinking along that particular line myself.
I hate DF13 connectors, but for a while at least they are a fact of life and might as well learn best how to live with them.
In the meantime check out this video by Scott F: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KukqBYL2ghQ
and these tools are a complete giveaway on EBay:
Hi Swift,
I wish the wiki we have was actually a wiki, but 3DR refers to it as a manual, and it is anything but open.
I left, because my entries were being actively deleted by those with authority to do so and nothing I put in was in any way derogatory of 3DR, DIYdrones or our endeavors in any way.
It was felt to be superfluous of not in alignment of the "manuals" prime directive of relaying only specific information relating to the incorporation, implementation and use of the Pixhawk or APM.
I have always thought that the Wiki / Manual; was for the over all benefit of the entire DIYDrones community and all aspects of their interests, but I was told that was what the Blogs and discussions are for.
Those are all gone from sight in a week and are not organized in any coherent way and thus do not serve as a encyclopedic information resource.
That is why I am doing my own encyclopedic web site - to fill in the information that I feel is being not given adequate attention by the current "management".
At this point I'm not even really upset with them anymore, I'm just happy I can find a way to help the DIYdrones community in spite of the barriers I have encountered.
I will NOT be causing trouble within the community and my only interest is in providing information that will be of use to it, I truly love and respect 3DR and will only be using genuine 3DR boards myself (unless somebody else makes a genuinely better one).
I am just not easily sidetracked from what was my initial purpose of providing truly open and most useful information to the DIYDrones community, a minor dispute and I am undeterred.
Best Regards,
Gary
PS I will be announcing and opening the site within a week or so, I trust be an accepted and useful asset.
Best Regards,
Gary
Oh, that ardupirate googlecode site is certainly not useful any more! I was just referring to the fact that there has now and then been a healthy rebellion against the 3DR leadership, even before it was called 3DR. In the case of the ardupirates, it was an independent group who felt things were moving too slow at ArduPilot and so started their own codebase which was excellent and much of which was incorporated eventually into the ArduPilot trunk. And actually I expect some of the ardupirates are working for 3DR now. But my point was just that the beauty of open source is that when we are unhappy with our commercial sponsors / overlords, we can simply ignore them and do our own thing. Write our own wikis and code and build our own hardware if we feel like it, standing on the shoulders of all 3DR's massive investment.
Hey looks good, but it is a little old looking.
I am taking some archives from there though. Thanks
I decided I don't want to make a wiki, I want to make it similar to the APM site with instructions and update it myself. That way I can curate the info that is relevant to my frame design project.
Thanks Aaron and Gary.
BTW Gary If you want to do a forum on godaddy I can help you because that what Iuse for my forum.
It is not that versatile but it will do the job, and its completely editable you control all the code and scripts.
Long live the ardupirates!
Hi Chrisa,
Because of the ongoing difficulties I have been having placing information I thought to be relevant to the DIYDrones community into the wiki I have withdrawn from further contributions to it.
I am not at odds with the way 3DR and some of the developers want to manage the wiki I just have a very unpleasant reaction to having hours of work I have put in on my own and at other request simply erased and told to contact them before inserting anything on my own.
Nothing I ever inserted in any way conflicted with or interfered with their information and it was basically completely thwarting me doing what I thought could be most beneficial to the DIYDrones membership.
Unfortunately the concept of a separate more general wiki page set was never followed up on.
I am producing one of my own which should be available for use of DIYdrones membership within a couple of weeks and I will be happy to include any information potentially worthwhile to our members (although at the moment I will have to enter it myself as my base site is written in raw HTML and CSS).
Eventually I intend to include a bulletin board or forum where information can be more freely exchange.
This site will also be in support of DIYDrones and 3DR and one thing I am most certainly not interested in doing is becoming a forum for disputes with their policies.
I want to deal with the important stuff how to get it to work and how to do what you want with it.
Best regards,
Gary
I would suggest you contact either Craig above or Alex Paskulin at 3DR regarding any contributions you wish to make.
Hey seriously I printed out some of the good ones.
I agree that there needs to be a nice new wiki site that has build info.
I found a lot of stuff on instructibles, and am in the process of writing an aluminum build
That being said, I have a few paragraphs and pictures that would help out anyone interested in that and I wanted to add that to the wiki, so how should I do that, I could send it all to you if that's the best way, or can I copy the page and add my own info and then host it on my own site. I was considering archiving some good wikis and discussions just to have a backup in case anything happens to DIY or APM sites.
Thanks
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