I agree that the moderator has other considerations, and knows what
structures work much better than I do, but on the other hand, she's
far less familiar with the content and structure of this huge
multipart FAQ, nor does she necessarily understand the newsgroup
environment from which it arises, and therefore the suggestions she
gave would have led people to misunderstand what the FAQ was about,
and in some cases people would have been forced to download sections
without much knowledge of what their content was other than a section #.
In a 20-some part FAQ where each section has its own unique topic, that
could create a lot of frustration among people trying to find a
section on a particular topic without downloading the whole thing.
I don't want to rehash the entire problem, but I think you can understand
why a *dialogue* between the moderator and the submitter would be
appropriate here, so we can work something out together. It's not
a dialogue if I have to send something to the moderators' mail queue,
wait two weeks for a random moderator to get to it, have them misunderstand
something which I could have clarified in three seconds' worth of email,
and then have to go through the whole two-week process of submitting
hundreds of K worth of files and explanations again, get probably a
*different* moderator, have them probably misunderstand something
*else*, and so on...
>> seems to me that it would be a lot more efficient for all involved
>> if, once an FAQ wiggles its way to the top of the submission queue,
>> further correspondence on the FAQ could be expedited so that the
>> overall approval time for an FAQ could remain fairly low.
>
>And how would *YOU* know if any of the other FAQs in the queue aren't
>like yours?
I wouldn't. But if there are a lot of FAQs like that, then they
certainly ought to consider processing them a little differently.
It's much more efficient for a single moderator who understands the
nature and problems of a particular FAQ to continue to work on that
FAQ until it's in good shape, than to have a random moderator pull
something off the mail queue without much knowledge of previous
discussions on the topic.
>> This on a network
>> that prides itself on getting articles transmitted worldwide in
>> minutes, hours, or at worst days. Meanwhile, the readers
>> of the (non-*.answers) groups are wondering where this FAQ is,
>> and I can't tell if I should post it to the groups or not, since
>> I don't know whether it's about to be approved or not.
>
>Whoa--nothing is holding you from posting your FAQs to the
>non*.answers groups. In fact, my Meta-FAQ is posted twice a month on
>the relevant newsgroup, but only once a month on *.answers. If you
>have people waiting with bated breath in your relevant group, just
>post it to that group without include "news.answers" or "sci.answers"
>in the Newsgroup: header.
Yes, and then have the FAQ be approved by the moderators, and then
finally released for posting on all the groups on the list, and then
have 20 sections of FAQ posted *twice* on the same group within a few
days? Tell me that wouldn't be a nightmarish waste of bandwidth.
Had I known the process would take months, I would have posted to
the home groups; the trouble is I had no idea how long it would take.
I submitted the FAQs two weeks before they needed to be posted thinking
that that would be more than enough time for them to be approved.
>[More complaining delted.]
>> ...I really start to question whether it's even worth trying
>> to have the FAQ crossposted to sci.answers and news.answers, and that's
>> not right. There ought to be a way to improve this system.
>
>"That's not right"? It's also not right that you want to insist on
>trying to jump through some hoops to get some shortcuts for some
>things the moderators think needs further work on. It is for that very
>reason (that your FAQ is important), that you must ensure that the
>headers appear properly. Surely, you wouldn't want to make it more
>difficult on your many readers to have difficulty retrieving your
>files via ftp?
I'm not trying to "get some shortcuts for some things the moderators
think need further work," I'm trying to establish a dialogue with
a single moderator in order to improve the efficiency of the
approval process. It's precisely because I care about the proper
appearance of the headers that I would like to be able to discuss them
with the moderator directly. It creates a tremendous amount of work for both
me and the moderator if I have to ask a question knowing that it
won't be answered for two weeks and knowing that it will probably be
answered by someone who has no familiarity at all with the particular
problem in question. If there was a single moderator who could take
responsibility for *discussing* the header lines with me and was
therefore *familiar* with the situation, it would drastically reduce
the amount of context I would need to send along with a given question,
save the moderator a tremendous amount of reading, and therefore save
everyone time.
And as I said above, it's *because* I want the headers to make it easy
for people to find and retrieve the files that I would have liked to
have a dialogue with my moderator.
>> Sorry for ranting and raving but would someone please provide me
>> with some guidance on how to navigate this nightmare more efficiently?
>
>Yes. Take a breath and go read a newspaper on the potty. Then go and
>meditate--relax and try to be patient. If you are a scientist, YOU of
>all people should know how long it takes to "publish" a peer-reviewed
>article. There is nothing holding you back from posting to your group.
>And those who want to read about your subject probably read the
>newsgroup, I'm sure.
I certainly hope *you're* not a *.answers moderator, if that's your
attitude.
*********************************
Robert F. Heeter, rfheeter@pppl.gov
Graduate Student, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
Conventional Fusion FAQ Maintainer
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