Re: The FAQ system approaches obsolescence. What do we do now?
Peter J. Kappesser (pjkappes@mailbox.syr.edu)
Sat, 10 Dec 1994 08:01:10 -0500
Recently Olaf Titz <uknf@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de> wrote:
>[previous attribution lost]
>> But, sad to say, the FAQ system doesn't really work as well as it should
>> in meeting this goal. In particular, the very new users who are most in
>> need of access to the FAQ are (a) least likely to know anything about the
>> whole system (b) impatient with barriers to enjoying the wonders of the
>> 'net and (c) inexperienced with the tools that might help them use the
>> FAQ system to overcome those barriers.
>
>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.
Just a nit: it's probably more efficient (on systems that support it) to use
/news.answers/HXref:.
The Xref header of each article is commonly included in the NOV file which
trn retrieves upon entering each newsgroup; the "Newsgroups:" line is not,
forcing trn to fetch all of the article headers to complete the search. I
tried this in news.lists and it selected the articles virtually instantly.
(Hey, I got -on- this list because I maintain the trn FAQ...!)
(BTW, with all the bounced mail, it seems more like I'm posting to
alt.test...)
--
pjkappes@mailbox.syr.edu (Peter Kappesser)
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