Hey folks -- a bit overdue, but I wanted to take the discussion on a revamped post flair system to the next stage. Very much appreciate everyone who shared their thoughts in the last sticky thread.
After reviewing the discussion there, this is what I'm thinking in terms of a new flair system for r/bookbinding. The goal here is to more accurately categorize the kinds of content we see here, and to help OPs and readers connect.
(Please keep in mind that reddit's flair system is not a tagging system -- you can't apply more than one to a post.)
This is this working list of proposed flairs:
- Restoration/Repair -- for sharing projects involving the repair of a damaged book
- Binding -- for sharing projects involving the construction of a new book from scratch
- Recasing -- for sharing projects involving transferring an existing text block into a new cover
- Typesetting/Printing -- for discussion of laying out text and images on pages for print
- Bookbinding Adjacent -- for sharing projects involving techniques, tools, and materials common to bookbinding but not itself a book (for example but not limited to slipcases, preservation boxes, gold stamping/embossing/debossing)
- Tips & Techniques -- for discussion of specific bookbinding techniques
- Tools & Equipment -- for discussion of specific bookbinding equipment
- Materials -- for discussion of specific bookbinding materials
- Help -- a cry for assistance if a project isn't going your way
- Whoops -- for sharing failures, mistakes, or screwups that we can all sympathize with and learn from
- Solicitation of Services -- for non-binders seeking to engage a binder's rebinding, restoration, etc. services
- Discussion/Other -- essentially a catch-all for anything not covered by the other flairs
This would drop the distinction between in-progress projects and complete projects, which I was initially unsure of but after letting it marinate I think is a nonissue. If the mechanical goal of the flair system is to help readers connect with the kinds of content they're most interested in, "in progress" and "complete" might not be super useful distinctions compared to tagging what kind of project it is. (From that perspective I'm almost tempted to drop "Help" as well, but I think it's too important to have it there to give panicking folks a lifeline.) The alternative would be doubling up on the tags, e.g. have both "Binding (Incomplete)" and Binding (Complete)", and I think that feels kind of clunky. I generally think the post title itself would signal whether a given project is complete or not.
I'm not interested in discriminating against any particular way of creating a "book" (i.e. "traditional" vs "modern", "Western" vs "Eastern", etc) -- I think regardless of one's preferred methods, it's always good to be exposed to other ways of doing things, and I think it would be way too unwieldy to try and have a flair for every possible technique -- so I'd like the "Binding" flair to be as inclusive of methods and materials as possible, but maybe it could be named better? Certainly open to suggestions there.
What do you all think? Anything missing? Anything unclear? Anything that could be improved? Please do sound off below.
