Re: Summary: Comments made on 1st Run FAQL Format

Mark Moraes (Mark-Moraes@deshaw.com)
Fri, 26 Nov 93 19:39:19 -0500

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Tom Lane <tgl@netcom.com> wrote:
| Steve makes a very good point about maximum return with minimum work.
| Let me extend his point by suggesting that at least 99% of the value
| of any formatting standard would lie in precisely two things:
|
| 1. A recognized way to identify section headers.
|
| 2. A recognized way to give pointers to other resources (files available by
| FTP, other FAQs, Gopher holes, you name it).

I like this point very much and wish to re-affirm it.

Some random reflections:

- The effectiveness of a standard format depends on the number of FAQs that
adhere to it. If a small fraction follow it (eg. the RFC1153 adherents),
then it's only an option, not a standard.

- The number of FAQs that will conform a standard format likely depends on
the simplicity of the format and its non-intrusiveness.

- As adoption of a standard format spreads, those who do not follow the
format will be asked "Why don't you use the standard format". So whether
it's made mandatory for news.answers or not, a widely-used FAQ format will
become de-facto. Better make the standard something that the majority of
faq-maintainers can live with...

- The people dealing with tools for network text search/indexing (WWW et al)
want a standard format to extract structure from documents. Typically, they
come up with ornate and complex formats that cover all forms of text, and
faq-maintainers react "no way are we using that thing, it's too
complex|ugly". If the faq-maintainers adopt a standard with simple
structure, the WWW folk can then just rely on that format.

- The primary "customers" of our FAQs are still the people who read them as
ordinary articles, possibly using simple string searching. Something
non-intrusive would avoid the nuisance that we'd have to convert (often
someone else's) nicely written and cleanly organized text to a format with
all the appeal of a <insert-your-most-disliked-programming-language-here>
program. In many cases, good organization in a FAQ can change it to a *fun*
document to read.

- While some FAQs are large, heavyweight documents (lots of info, need
structure), don't forget that there exist simple Q&A FAQ formats where
questions make for "lightweight" section headers, or just short unstructured
prose.

To emphasize: The simpler the format, the more likely its widespread
adoption becomes.

Mark.

Next message: Mark Linimon: "Re: Summary: Comments made on 1st Run FAQL Format [long]"
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