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Home Improvement + Arts & Crafts -> some sort of "makers" community?
In response to a proposal to broaden Home Improvement, an answer counter-proposed merging Home Improvement with Arts & Crafts into a broader DIY community:
There is a significant overlap in scope and knowledge of the two proposals. For example if there is a question about how to cut out a piece of metal, it doesn't really matter if the piece will be used to fix a chair or create a piece of jewellery. If there is a question about how to clean a paint brush, it doesn't matter too much if the brush was used to paint a kitchen or prime a canvas.
Based on the activity levels of the existing Codidact communities, I think the resulting scope wouldn't be too broad.
This is an interesting idea and the answer has gotten a few upvotes, but I'm looking for broader input and especially from people participating in Arts & Crafts, hence this new question. To be clear, this would be instead of broadening Home Improvement to "Homes", which was not a popular idea.
The Arts & Crafts proposal includes digital art, which might not fit cleanly -- I think most people who see "DIY" (do it yourself) are thinking of physical doing. Everything else in that proposal seems to fit with this suggestion, and there haven't been any incubator questions yet about digital art.
Should we merge Home Improvement and Arts & Crafts and launch? If so, what should we call the new community? When I hear "DIY" I think "handyman" not "art", but maybe I'm unusual. I sometimes hear people talk about "maker spaces", which seem to serve crafters of various sorts who need access to shop equipment and similar, but I don't know enough about the crafting community to know if that's a useful concept to include in a name.
Home improvers, DIYers, artists, crafters -- what do y'all think about this merger proposal, and how do you collectively identify?
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As the one who originally proposed (and promptly more or less forgot about) Everyday Science (as it ended up being called), I strongly endorse this proposal, and can imagine that many of the sorts of questions I imagined could also (with some hammering) belong in Makers (and I think that's a fine name as is!). Knowing why something happens is arguably the first step to doing something about it (or exploiting it).
Regarding "artistry", I think that it cannot really be separated from the practical. Real-world "makers" are necessarily concerned with both. Of course, it's important not to stray too far into the subjective; but in my mind, questions about techniques for achieving form ("how can I polish this surface?") belong in the same place as questions about techniques for achieving function ("how can I prevent this from tipping over?").
When people speak of "arts and crafts", practically speaking just the word "crafts" would normally suffice. This much seems clear from the questions proposed so far. Practical questions for a Q&A site can't be just subjective judgment of aesthetics; consequently, a good question related to aesthetics will generally be about achieving an aesthetic, even if it's just a scent or a simple geometric figure.
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We should keep artistic things separate from science and engineering based things. The two require very different skill sets, and a significant fraction of the users of one community will be annoyed by discussions about the other.
Therefore, Arts and Crafts should be its own community.
Broadening Home Improvement to a "Maker" community makes sense, especially since the community will start small. It can be split later if/when volume grows, but I don't see that happening any time soon. At that point it would also be much clearer where exactly the split should be.
Please help me understand: how are questions about sanders or stains or hinges different if one is making a door versus making a jewelry box?
If it's about the mechanics of sanding and staining, then it would be on topic on "Home Improvement" or "Makers" or whatever you want to call it regardless of what item it applies to. That's because it's not about the artistic aspects. If it's about what color, what kind of designs, or what's a "pretty" latch, then it's art. That's quite different from how to apply stain or how to get a particular paint finish.
I would be fine with including crafts, as long as the artistic aspects are kept out of it. Artistic things are subjective, there are no right answers, and discussions can go down endless ratholes. That's not a good fit for a Q&A format. It's also annoying noise when you're trying to learn how to apply stain or what the tradeoffs are between different types of paint.
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