So we need more user support by software. How about a news reader that
automatically selects the FAQ postings, if available, upon entering a
new group? It's as simple as putting
/news.answers/Hnewsgroups:.
in the global "memorized commands file" (trn in this case) but with
graphical user interfaces, it could get as sophisticated as you want.
> My guess is that many of these new users come to the 'net from individual
> dial-up accounts. In that setting off-line access to pointers and
> traditions is very limited if it exists at all.
It's only a matter of using not-too-primitive user agents and set it
up right for new users. See above.
> I wish there were a way to build a "pointer" to the FAQ archives into
> every newsgroup post -- something like a URL among the headers which
> web-aware newsreading software could "link" to and which at least
> provided a hint for people using other software that such a thing existed
> and where to find it.
That's sensible. But it could be made even easier with some minimum
way of standardization: Define a URL for FAQ retrieval once and for
all, set up a server that returns either the FAQ or a page that simply
says "no FAQ for this group available" (instead of a httpd error
message). (How about http://faq.org/<group>?)
> > 2. Not everyone has WWW access. WWW access requires IP, and not everyone has
> > that.
> I wonder why this particular myth is /so/ hard to stifle. I use lynx to
> access the Web all the time and it works just fine. I don't get to see
But you still use *TCP/IP* to access it, graphical or not. There are
enough sites that use only UUCP or similar off-line protocols (Fido
comes to mind), which simply can't access online services.
One possible solution: Create a mail server that returns WWW pages
upon request of an URL. Preferrably, it should return all pages that
are linked together to form a single document (e.g. multi-part FAQ) on
a single request. Of course you need some technique to figure out
which links are "inside" and which "outside" the document, this would
need some formatting standards. And you need a file format for
returning a multiple-file document that is directly understood by the
browser (e.g. don't return shar archives since not all the world is
Un*x).
Then a user could click on the "get FAQ" button and receive the FAQ in
next morning's email, and could read it using the same user agent.
Olaf
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