>This has been more or less my experience as well. Two of the
>main reasons I began the comp.lang.c FAQ list were in hopes that
>I'd see the incidence of FAQ's posted to the newsgroup decrease,
>and that I'd get some warm fuzzies from people's feedback. I've
>had to learn to satisfy myself, most of the time, with neither of
>these; my only reward now is knowing (or, at least, having the
>arrogance to assume) that I'm doing a good job, and that can get
>pretty lonely sometimes.
I guess I've had better luck than you. I get a few messages of thanks
a week for my FAQs (most recently yours :-) and about the same number of
suggestions or corrections. I've also seen the incidence of certain FAQs
decrease markedly in my newsgroups.
>Since the number of people who post without *ever* reading the
>newsgroup is high, the questions which the FAQ list answers are
>still asked Frequently. I can derive some satisfaction from
>noting that, some of the time, the FAQ list's answer is cited in
>followups, and the cascading rediscussion is reduced.
I suspect you're on the extreme end of this phenomenom since they're so many
people who use C but aren't interested in following a newsgroup about it.
>The only response to this update was a raft of about 40 messages
>from my two chief nitpickers, pointing out all the little
>mistakes I'd made and the deficiencies in the wording of the new
>entries, and one longer message from another correspondent who
>had several suggestions and who did manage to stick in a few
>words about how he'd particularly liked a couple of the new
>entries (thanks, Stan!).
I guess we've got different personalities. I much prefer to get
INTELLIGENT nitpicking and corrections than vague messages
of thanks. Of course about half the criticism I get of my FAQ
is either wrong or something I considered and already rejected.
Still it's generally more interseting than, "Thanks, you did a great job."
Of course I also have the satisfaction of the extra income, free
software and new contacts my FAQ lists have pulled in.
-- Elliotte Rusty Harold Department of Mathematics elharo@shock.njit.edu New Jersey Institute of Technology emh0362@hertz.njit.edu Newark, NJ 07102
[
Usenet Hypertext FAQ Archive |
Search Mail Archive |
Authors |
Usenet
]
[
1993 |
1994 |
1995 |
1996 |
1997
]
© Copyright The Landfield Group, 1997
All rights reserved