Re: The FAQ system approaches obsolescence. What do we do now?

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AShtoN (ashton@netcom.com)
Tue, 6 Dec 1994 18:09:31 PST

On Dec 6, 6:36pm, Pat Berry wrote:
>jsewell@iu.net (Joe Sewell) writes:
>
>> How about providing an example here? I don't see the distinction between
>> an FAQ that's "clearly focused on a particular newsgroup" vs. one that's "a
>> newsgroup's informational topic."
>
>My Red Dwarf FAQ is an example of this. It's about the TV show Red
>Dwarf, and it's intended for Red Dwarf fans everywhere, not just readers
>of alt.tv.red-dwarf. If that newsgroup ceased to exist tomorrow, I
>would continue to maintain my FAQ and to distribute it to interested
>parties by whatever means were available.

Greetings from Alt.MagicK.Chaos where we have no FAQs ...
No, really, the questions just don't repeat.
(discounting "Why are you all so rude")
We also have very poor distribution of the newsgroup so the reference
files and mailing list serve more of the community than the group
full of lurkers. :>

The periodic postings are more a collection of material and pointers
that might be of use to practitioners. Only the 'Rogue' file what warns
new readers about the 'Protectors of the Faith' is related to the newsgroup.
This file will stay in the group and 'flat ascii' forever.
I wrote the files with NN and rn in mind but the 'all in one' browsers
like netcom's netcruser make the format painful (to say the least).

The pointers to net resources is much better served by html. But, the files
really do need to be 'peeled' off into ascii and posted for those without
web access. I can't see that need going away.

Have you tried to author a page with double postings?

<li><a href="ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/Sh/Shub/Chaos/amc.html">
Go:</a> Ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/Sh/Shub/Chaos/amc.html

Ugg! But, if you're going to post it, and you don't want to have
to reformat it, that's what I'm doing. (Word for Windows ... right ...
next week ... yea, right! ... Dec 32nd is more like it!)

So, my answer has been multiple relatively large files and only the
updated ones are posted, a very active ftp site and mailing list,
and I am only now committing some of the files to html.
Similarly, the Alt.Horror.Cthulhu faq got so big that the author
just stoped posting them when they hit 12 contigious files.
Now, he only posts a very short pointer to the actual files.
Posting the pointers to these files in the group headers would be great ...
in the mean time how about getting 'frequent posters' to put them
in their .sigs?

My files would be better served by relatively small files broken up by subject.
Which means a royal pain piecing them together for the ascii version.
I'm not finding a lot of 'comradery' between the NN and HTML formats.

Specifically, this kind of 'Subject/From' format to allow digests in NN
and the '01.' in the first columns to allow /^01. searching.
My attempts at producing this in html have been criminal ...
loathing is the only word that springs to mind for the code.

=======================================================================
HORNS
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Subject: Defn
From: Horns

00. Horns

This a component of the Alt.Magick.Chaos REFerence files.
This specific file is a main stub.
This file is kept by ashton@netcom.com.

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Subject: Changes
From: Horns

01. Changes.

I finally pulled the group listings out of the skeletons ...
I pulled the Statement of Intent and History Lection out of
the FAQ into main ... and that makes up the bulk of the file.
The Index still does not match the file ... it might never ...

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AShtoN the UnSubtle

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