In early 2012, two colleagues on opposite coasts—Harold Kyle in Syracuse and Jenny Wilkson in Seattle—decided that an up-to-date manual of letterpress printing was needed, one with the capabilities to expand along with the letterpress community. They agreed that in spite of letterpress printing’s renaissance, many would-be printers were finding it difficult to access reliable information on printing instruction. Some of the best books on printing are out of print, and don’t often suit the needs of contemporary letterpress printing. Jenny and Harold felt that wiki-style website, where the community could contribute information and point to resources in an organized and easily accessible fashion was the answer.
Mission
Letterpress Commons is built by the community, for the community and fosters the exchange of accessible, authoritative, and inspirational letterpress information for letterpress printers by providing a free venue for online articles and multimedia.
Features
Although originally conceived as a wiki, Letterpress Commons is built on the WordPress Content Management System to make editing more intuitive for you. Any logged-in visitor can edit an article or equipment listing on Letterpress Commons by simply hitting the “Edit” button. These revisions are reviewed by volunteer site Editors before being published. In order to help foster the community here and off-line, Letterpress Commons also features an integrated chatroom and Print/Trip, a searchable map of letterpress resources.
Values
Letterpress Commons will use the following values to guide decision making:
- Foster free and open exchange of letterpress information. Our license allows all published work to remain freely accessible forever.
- Adopt Wikipedia’s policies and procedures for editing, conflict resolution, etc. When in doubt, Wikipedia’s policies will serve as our model.
- Avoid in-fighting and controversy within our community. The site will not become a forum for confrontation and dispute resolution.
- Avoid endorsements or marketing. Explaining techniques is fine, recommending products is not.
FAQ
What is Letterpress Commons, exactly?
Letterpress Commons is a user-created and user-edited WordPress website. All material is licensed under the “copyleft” Creative Commons SA-NC-BY license. This means that all information is freely available for non-commercial use as long as Letterpress Commons is cited as the source.
Who can contribute to Letterpress Commons?
Anyone! Registered users are free to add or modify existing articles, and even suggest new topics. All contributions are moderated by an Editor with the goal of only publishing objective and substantive material. Registration is free and open to the public.
What do Contributors get for their work?
To maintain impartiality and in the spirit of free exchange of information, contributors are not compensated for their contributions. They are, however, contributing to preserving letterpress for posterity. They retain ownership of their text.
Who is a Core Contributor and how do I become one?
Core Contributors are anyone who has contributed several unique articles or provided significant support in editing our content. If a Core Contributor wishes, they will receive a bio page on Letterpress Commons.
Who is behind Letterpress Commons?
Everyone in the letterpress community! Please register and share your knowledge. Boxcar Press hosts and administers the website.
Why Boxcar Press?
Boxcar Press publishes Letterpress Commons in order to freely share substantive information on letterpress printing. Boxcar Press can not use Letterpress Commons to endorse any of its own products, and has no plans to monetize this site. Boxcar Press has been educating its own customers in letterpress printing for many years, and Letterpress Commons is a natural evolution of Boxcar Press’s mission to support and inspire the letterpress community.
Where can I go to ask questions or suggest improvements?
The individual pages of Letterpress Commons do not allow commenting in order to encourage contributions and edits to the actual text. If you would like to brainstorm additional topics or provide other feedback about the website, please visit the Feedback Forum.
About the Creative Commons License
We license all content under the Creative Commons SA-NC-BY license to ensure that everything is free to use forever. You can incorporate content from Letterpress Commons into training manuals, class syllabi, public safety messages, etc. The only stipulations are that you a) cite Letterpress Commons, specifically with the name “Letterpress Commons” and with a URL link (when possible), and that b) you don’t charge any money. No one should ever profit off this knowledge, and everyone should feel comfortable sharing here.
Terms of Use
In brief, this site is not used for marketing purposes, so you don’t have to worry about what we do with your personal information. Any information you put here is meant to be shared with the entire letterpress community. Share and share alike. If you want to see how our lawyers crafted this idea, please visit our Terms of Use and Privacy pages.
Contributors
Harold Kyle, Developer