Re: Salvation in Cyberspace

Alex Lopez-Ortiz (alopez-o@barrow.uwaterloo.ca)
Sat, 5 Feb 1994 13:12:08 -0500

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>
>Mrs. Medusa mathew@mantis.co.uk (Snakes of Medusa) writes some blather:
>
>>There are some tasks which a good FAQ editor performs which cannot be
>>performed simply by making a link to an existing document. To me, a
>>good FAQ is one which condenses and summarizes information, and
>>presents it in some sort of prioritized order, with a sense of "flow"
>>from section to section. You can't do that simply by transcluding
>>other people's text verbatim.
>
>I stand by my comments. the distinction between FAQ writing and good
>hypertext document creation is blurring into oblivion. Yes, there is an
>art to both. But *anyone* can do this. It is nothing but *good
>editing*.

False in two counts. Hardly anyone can do good editing. Compare the
present and former editor of the New Yorker, to see how two "anyones"
do their editing. The second count is that the FAQ list is more than
editing. Many a FAQ mantainers writes, on occasion the answer to a
question in the list.

>I don't understand what you are saying. Is it-- `faq writing
>is hard. therefore, we should limit the people who are allowed to do
>this.' well, @#$%^&*

Anybody is free to do whatever they wish, but at some point a mechanism
to distinguish between FAQ's based upon quality may be needed. Specially
if we see an exponential explosion on their number (I doubt this will
happen).

>[FAQs as merely links]
>>True, there are many
>>FAQ files that are like that, but we shouldn't rush to assume that
>>that's the way FAQ files *should* be.
>
>I see. Well, God, how *should* FAQs be? if your definition includes any
>terms like `they should be approved by an elite corps' or similar
>cliquish exclusionary euphemisms, I think I don't give a @#$%^&* about
>what you think of how FAQs should be, and frankly I don't think anyone
>else in future cyberspace will either.

There plenty of insults in the statement above and very little content.

> The most important aspect of
>FAQs today is that *anyone* can write one and submit it into a public server.

No, it is not the most important aspect. What really defines FAQ's today
is that they provide the _only_ summarized, authorative source of
information in the ASCII dump that the internet is.

>>Not really. I still need to know which of the ten million people on
>>the network can be relied on to have pointers to good stuff.
>
>I am not claiming that *everyone* should create their documents that
>point to their favorite resources. I'm saying that everyone should be
>*encouraged* to.

Bzzzzzzt. Wrong. Why should we encourage somebody who knows nothing
about say woodworking to make their own collection pointer collection?

>The valuable information will naturally rise to the
>top as some people delegate to others, *voluntarily*. but any system,
>which your rhetoric seems to mask, where there are *imposed* decisions
>from an elite cadre of FAQ Priests, I say we can eliminate *immediately*.

I don't think anybody here is proposing a set of FAQ priests. And trying
to equate a moderator's work with a clique in power is completely out
of touch with reality.

Alex

-- 
Alex Lopez-Ortiz                             alopez-o@neumann.UWaterloo.ca
Department of Computer Science                      University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario                                                   Canada

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