However, I now believe that the FAQ format as we have known it is essentially
obsolete. Or, at least, that it is heading so rapidly towards obsolescence
that it is no longer worth my time to maintain a FAQ format for the resources
I publish.
The reason I believe this is, of course, WWW. I have made all my FAQs
(including, for example, the PC-Clone UNIX Hardware Buyer's Guide) available
as Web resources. Each of my access points allows the browser to download
a text-only form of the resource (for single HTML files, this is the raw
HTML; for multiple-file resources, I do as-needed generation of a flat-file
version using lynx -dump).
Having done this, my users get the advantages both of the Web and of being able
to download a text document. I get the advantages of not having a fixed
posting schedule; when I want to update, I just do it, and the update is
instantly available in both forms.
There are two drawbacks to this. One, of course, is that not everybody has
the Web yet. This doesn't concern me, as I think the tend towards WWW for
everybody on the Net is such that it will achieve universality in no more than
a year from now, and my money is on six months or less from now. Anyone want
to bet the price of a good dinner against that? No? I didn't think so.
The other drawback is that there aren't yet good mechanisms for advertising
and indexing WWW resources. Given that the Web is going to make USENET
distribution of FAQs obsolete very soon, the FAQ system as it has evolved
has a strength that's worth preserving. That is that rtfm and its databases
provide a sort of rendezvous point for FAQ authors and FAQ seekers. And the
FAQ-submission process functions as at least a rudimentary quality filter.
The challenge I'm posing the list is this: stop thinking so bloody tactically!
Too much of what I've seen on faq-maintainers in recent months resembles
people debating the fine points of sandcastle architecture with their backs
turned to a tsunami.
The real questions before all of us aren't technotrivia about digest formats
or conversion tools. They're strategic questions like:
1. When should I convert to WWW? (not "Should I" but "When should I")
2. How long after conversion should I maintain a parallel FAQ form?
3. How, in a WWW universe, can I recapture the useful properties
of the FAQ format, distribution modes, and archiving?
4. What, if anything, is the function of rtfm and worthies like
jik and tale in a world where the "rendezvous database" is
mostly pointers to WWW documents?
I've answered questions 1 and 2 with my actions. Question 3 still vexes me,
hence this broadside. Question 4 ought, I think, to be concerning the list
maintainer(s), lest they wake up irrelevant some fine morning not so many
months from now.
I have some ideas about 3 and 4. But, having issued my wake-up call, I'd like
to see either a refutation of my underlying assumptions or a consensus on the
list that these really are the big issues facing us before I propose
specifics.
-- Eric S. Raymond <esr@locke.ccil.org> WWW: //www.thyrsus.com/~esr/home.html
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