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Proposal: Arts and Crafts

The proposal description has always said that this proposal is for practitioners of arts and crafts, and has given a list of a few examples to give people ideas.

Q&A for professional/hobbyist practitioners of all crafts, including painting, drawing, textiles, papercrafts, crochet, sewing, jewelry, sculpture, beadwork, wood carving, origami, miniatures, stamping, découpage, stained glass, paper mâché.

But despite the use of the word "including", some people seem to think that the scope is limited to those crafts that have been listed, as evidenced by several meta questions:

Worse, the description has now changed to agree with this! It no longer says it is for "all crafts, for example XYZ". Instead, it says it is for "crafts, which are XYZ". It sounds like if I have a question about a craft which isn't XYZ it's off topic!

Q&A for practitioners of crafts i.e. painting, drawing, textiles, papercraft, crochet, sewing, jewelry, sculpture, beadwork, wood carving, origami, miniatures, stamping, découpage, stained glass, paper mâché, pottery, ceramics, printmaking, furnishing design

Important thing 1: There is no way we can list all the possible crafts.

Important thing 2: We tried listing a few examples and it didn't work.

Perhaps what we should do instead is to give people a definition of what an art or craft is, that is broad enough to include all the above.

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  • The reason I removed the word all is that there was no space to include the names of other crafts. If you can create a new and better definition please write that as an answer.
    – Aquarius_Girl
    Commented May 4, 2015 at 14:42
  • @TheIndependentAquarius IMO it's the "i.e." that's more of a problem. But I'm not sure what you mean by a "new and better definition"? At the moment, we don't have a definition at all (just a list), which is why I'm proposing that we use a definition instead.
    – starsplusplus
    Commented May 4, 2015 at 14:46
  • I am not a native English speaker. I thought that I.e must mean for example. Don't take my words too literally. Sorry for the wrong term new and better.
    – Aquarius_Girl
    Commented May 4, 2015 at 14:50
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    @TheIndependentAquarius Ah, no. i.e. means "that is" or "which are" (it stands for id est in Latin). I'll try and think of a good definition for "crafts" later but it would be good to hear if the community thinks it's a good idea first.
    – starsplusplus
    Commented May 4, 2015 at 14:53
  • Google's definition of Arts and Crafts is "decorative design and handicraft.", that's a bit too short and brief, but perhaps we can expand on that?
    – Nick Udell
    Commented May 7, 2015 at 9:16

2 Answers 2

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A list is definitely confusing and no matter how many words you include or substitute for others, "art" is so subjective a term that you will always manage to offend/exclude/intimidate some people. Much better idea to simply state the purpose of sharing information and expertise in the areas of art or craft.

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Cambridge dictionaries defines Arts and Crafts as:

The skills of making objects, such as decorations, furniture, and pottery (= objects made from clay) by hand

So I propose:

Q&A site for hand-made enthusiasts, creators and consumers.

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    I say that the definition should be easily understood by non native English speakers. Hand made enthusiasts wasn't very clear to me at a go. I think Cambridge dictionary's definition is much clearer.
    – Aquarius_Girl
    Commented May 11, 2015 at 16:01
  • Sounds good, add as an answer and I'll probably vote up
    – Nick Udell
    Commented May 12, 2015 at 13:44
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    BTW, do you think your definition does also explicitly include "drawing/painting"?
    – Aquarius_Girl
    Commented May 15, 2015 at 7:47
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    That's a good question, and I'm unsure it does.
    – Nick Udell
    Commented May 17, 2015 at 14:27
  • Thanks for following up. I think we might have to attach the words drawing and painting explicitly somehow to the definition of crafts.
    – Aquarius_Girl
    Commented May 17, 2015 at 16:36
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    I would consider painting and drawing in "decorations" from the Cambridge definition.
    – Eris
    Commented Jul 25, 2015 at 22:25

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