FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Are you affiliated with Stephan's Florilegium?'
Encyclopedia Newbica is in no way affiliated with Stephan's Florilegium. We do like to think of this Website as a spiritual successor to the Florilegium in that both websites were created using the technology that the internet afforded at the time of each site's creation and that both sites were created with the intention of preserving and sharing the skills, knowledge, and research of their community.
What crafts and skills do you need?
We are interested in having almost any skill that can be done by hand, even if modern conventions generally use machines. For example, Sewing on a machine rather than by hand, cooking on a stove instead of a campfire, and polishing metals with a bench wheel instead of using a rag.
What qualifies a skill for inclusion in the wiki?
1. It needs to be something documentable before the Industrial Revolution. No purely modern crafts or skills. Modern equivalents are acceptable. see "What crafts and skills do you need?"
2. LARP-related crafts are acceptable. There is a lot of skill overlap between Fantasy LARP and Historical recreation groups. Both use costuming that ranges from simple to elaborate, and youth combat in the SCA uses boffers just like fantasy LARP does. For this reason, we are allowing LARP weapon, armor, prop, and costume skills.
3. Because self-sufficiency and repairing your broken items is a hallmark of the medieval lifestyle, we would like to consider allowing articles on repairing old manual and electric small tools. tools that came before the age of "planned obsolesce" may have care and repair videos submitted. Items like Jigsaws, hand drills, and some larger items driven by exterior motors.
4. Because we are oriented towards helping newbies with as little as zero experience, any craft or skill that requires a large investment prior to beginning is generally out. this includes crafts that uses 3d-printing, Laser cutting, CNC machines.
How will this differ from other similar sites (Brilliant, YouTube, eHow.com)?
Generally, when presenting a project via video, the entire project is in a single video, requiring you to search for a specific mark if you just need a single step, which can be difficult on mobile devices. Encyclopedia Newbica will encourage formatting so that each step, or collection of closely related steps, is its own video, which will make finding the specific step you need much easier.
Additionally, I have encountered issues in the past where though a project was listed as "beginner", it still assumed that you had some prior knowledge. Our intention is to present all of our projects and skills using assumptions that a user has no prior knowledge of the materials, tools, or methods involved in the skill or craft we are offering.
Finally, our intention is to offer more than just a single method of learning a new skill. Our end goal is to create a community behind our videos. As well as this wiki, we are also set up on YouTube, Facebook, and Discord so that there are several different options if one has questions. The community members that provide our information are encouraged to have a presence on as many of our platforms as is feasible so that there is a place to go with questions. This will hopefully allow us to be responsive and provide the knowledge that is needed, instead of what we think is needed.
I want to contribute videos but I don't want to make a youtube channel. What are my options?
If a member of the community desires to create videos but does not have the desire to create a youtube channel, we will be happy to host these videos for them. copyright will always remain with the content creator with an agreement that Encyclopedia Newbica is allowed to share the videos for educational purposes.
Will you make money off of this wiki?
In short, yes. Specifically, We intend to create a Patreon account in order to allow donations to cover the cost of Domain name Registration and web hosting services. The initial startup cost was approximately 50$ and renewal is expected to be around 200$. all excess donations would be kept in a separate account and used for projects that further the educational spirit of Encyclopedia Newbica.
What is the difference between an art and a craft?
The differentiation we are making between Crafts and Arts in this wiki is that a process that is used to make a finished product is a craft, while anything that would make an item pretty would be an art. Using sewing, for example, stitches, seams, and cutting patterns would be considered a craft while adding beadwork or embroidery would be an art.
A Project would be using a combination of arts and crafts to make a finished product.