1. I strongly protest anyone making life more difficult for FAQ
maintainers. From the discussions a year or two ago, a fair number of FAQ
maintainers didn't want to post to news.answers because they considered
the _current_ header requirements too onerous. Forcing people to use
something more complex such as the hypertext format-of-the-month is a bad idea.
2. Any proposed FAQ format shouldn't make the FAQ ugly. I don't want random
formatting commands in my FAQ. Either the format should be very unobtrusive,
or separate ASCII posted versions and archived marked-up versions should be
generated automatically.
3. I see two viable ways of getting people to switch formats voluntarily.
a) The changes could be nearly trivial, such as using standard format
for specifying ftp sites or standard labels for questions.
b) More interestingly, more people would be willing to switch if the
new format made life _easier_ rather than _harder_. I envision
something where I add simple formatting commands to my FAQ and in
exchange some program automatically generates a table of contents,
numbers the questions, marks changed content, fixes up the formatting,
posts a nice human-readable ASCII version, and archives the
machine-readable FAQ. With something like this, the new format would
help FAQ maintainers, and it would be to their benefit to switch.
4. It would be nice to see a demonstration of the benefits of using some
standard format. Is there some WWW or xmosaic or whatever site where I
can see the great things that can happen with a "properly" formatted FAQ?
I would like some assurance that using a new format will actually help
people, preferably me, and will not just slake some control-freak's lust
for power. As it is, the searching of ASCII FAQs via WAIS meets my needs
for looking up information, and without imposing requirements of FAQ
writers, so I would like to see additional benefits.
5. FAQ maintainers face a mostly thankless task and should be commended for
their effort. I resent any comments that they don't adapt a new format at
the drop of a hat because they are stubborn, lazy, capricious, and fear
change. There are too many sponges on Usenet who soak up other people's
effort and demand more, without doing anything positive themselves.
Ken Shirriff shirriff@cs.Berkeley.EDU
[
Usenet Hypertext FAQ Archive |
Search Mail Archive |
Authors |
Usenet
]
[
1993 |
1994 |
1995 |
1996 |
1997
]
© Copyright The Landfield Group, 1997
All rights reserved