> After stewing over Breebaart's comments overnight I find some of them
> somewhat annoying, and I'd like to respond.
Maybe it's just me, but I find it rather condescending and therefore
unpleasant to be referred to by my last name like that. And for what
it's worth: it wasn't my attention to be at all annoying to anybody.
> First Mr. Breebaart says that building up the FAQ structure over the
> future is going to be difficult and problematic, but then he says
> that the current infrastructure is totally adequate for a long time.
Perhaps my original message wasn't clear enough. The "difficult and
problematic" was in reference to my views on the future of FAQs, in a
global "what's-it-all-about-and-what-do-we-really-want-out-of-FAQs"
context. The "totally adequate" was specifically in reference to the
existing infrastructure of the *.answers newsgroups and the rtfm
archives. No contradiction.
> First, the goal of making FAQs as easy as possible to write and
> `publish' is a noble one.
I wish you wouldn't constantly keep making non-arguments like this.
They clutter up your posts, and you're preaching to the converted here
anyway. Or do you think that foreseeing and pointing out problems
somehow makes us fanatical enemies of the entire idea?
> But it is not an archive maintainer's role, IMHO, to judge the
> `quality' of FAQs-- at least this should be minimized with the goal
> of publishing everything.
Oh God -- I know what my default .signature says, but I thought that
in this forum people would be sensible enough to realize which parts
of my writings are actually 'official' *.answers/rtfm pronouncements,
and which parts are merely my own views and opinions. I mean, come on!
> >WWW and gopher are *not* the
> >solutions to everything. They don't scale very well.
> oh really? why not? what are you talking about?
About exactly the same thing as you are. With more and more
distributed services (be they FAQs or gopher links or home pages or
your PP's or whatever) becoming available, there will be (and already
are) severe problems managing the information available. Having 600
FAQs on one subject is a *problem*, not a solution, as you seem to
think.
The larger gopher space and the Web become, the more difficult it
becomes to find what you want, and the more inefficient browsing
becomes (fun, yes -- but not very useful). Xarchie, Veronica and other
meta-browsers are a first attempt to bring a form of hierarchic
structure into play. But they are too primitive, and the nets are
quickly becoming too large for them to handle.
Personally, I think our best hope for the future lies in intelligent
agents who are able to go out and actively *find* information that you
want and present it to you. These agents can either be human
(moderated newsgroups are a very good example) or software (killfiles
don't even *begin* to be a good example), and that latter area is
where *I* get stars in my eyes when I contemplate the possibilities.
I have nothing against your PP/ratings server idea (although I'm not
crazy about it either), and I'm even prepared to agree with you that
something like that may very well be unavoidable. But I do fear that
you're thinking too locally, and with not enough eye for the
difficulties involved. Look at FAQs: they are nice, but it took a
global, centralized resource like *.answers and rtfm to *really* make
the concept shine. Ditto for ftp and archie (and even that is a far
from perfect setup). The same holds, in my own personal opinion, for
the rest of hyperspace. I stand by my statement that gopher and WWW
and FAQs as purely distributed services do *not* scale very well in
their current form.
> The point is that Gopher coupled with FAQs and hypertext is a
> fantastic resource that is evolving as we speak. let's commit to it!
> let's be a part of it!
No kidding, Sherlock. Why did you think I became a *.answers moderator
in the first place? Just because not everybody wants to do it *your*
way... Sheesh.
> [...] I can't wait to see the brilliant flames that lambaste me for
> irreverently tickling the status quo.
Any minute now and you're going to compare yourself to Galileo...
-- Leo Breebaart -- [speaking for himself this time]
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