Re: FAQ format

Thomas A. Fine (fine@net.ohio-state.edu)
Tue, 11 Jul 1995 16:06:56 -0400

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The first thing you need to do is more clearly define your goals:
Make it easier for the new FAQ writer
Improve overall organization
Improve WWW organization
Define standards relating to ftp storage
Define standards relating to HTML
Define document conversion standards in general.
Improve the user's view of the documents (offer style guides)

I don't think you can accomplish all of these at once.

Minimally, I think that the standard should mainly address organization
between documents, and general structure within a document, and
ignore (mainly) how things look. If you are dealing with problems of
organization and indexing, then how it looks is meaningless.

Second, you should not have a single format. Different people have different
goals, and different audiences. So you should offer a set of recommendations
that cover different people. For example, some people couldn't care less
about WWW appearance. Others think it is first priority. Some people feel
that the Digest format is ugly (rightly so). Others feel the structure
you gain is worth it, especially considering all the mail readers and
news readers (and my own software) that can deal with it.

tom

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