> Here's a question I've been wondering about for some time: How and why
> do people get into the FAQ-maintaining business? I know some newsgroups
> have a formal selection process with a vote and everything, but I
> suspect this is the exception. I'd be interested in hearing how you
> became maintainers.
>
What a neat thread! I started the alt.food.chocolate FAQ back in December
of last year, when the group was quite young. People kept asking that
Original Frequently Asked Question - where's the FAQ? The person who had
created a.f.c didn't have the time to maintain the FAQ, so I volunteered,
thinking how hard could it be? I put together a modest list of questions
- basically things I thought people *might* ask, since the group was too
young to have any questions come up repeatedly. I posted it with a bit of
trepidation, and was overwhelmed by the response I got.
Had that been the end of my involvment with a.f.chocolate, it would have
been enough. But I had to get curious.:) Someone asked me if I kept
archives of all the posts to the group, she was looking for a recipe that
she wanted to try, but it had scrolled off her newsreader. Fortunately,
it was still on my newsreader, so I copied it and e-mailed it to her. I
started thinking that a lot of people might like to have the list of
recipes that went by the group in the month, so I started maintaining The
ChocolateArchives and posting it along with the FAQ. The first two
months, the archives included about 12 recipes, nothing too time
consuming. A.f.chocolate was only seeing around 20 or so posts a day.
In March, I expanded my recipe archiving to rec.food.cooking and
rec.food.recipes and the recipes including chocolate from those two
groups, again in response to a request. In one month, my archives shot up
from 12 to 52 recipes. I was having trouble posting the list this large to the
newsgroup, and people were starting to ask for it, so I posted a note
saying that I would e-mail the list to anyone who was interested. Wow,
talk about a newsgroup full of lurkers! I got about 200 requests in the
first 2 days alone. So I turned the archive posting into a read-only
mailing list, which I expect will reach the 500 subscriber mark this month.
As for the FAQ, it has been growing nicely since December. But then a
campaign to start rec.food.chocolate began - and was successful.
Alt.food.chocolate saw 20 posts, rec.f.c sees about 120. Even though I
didn't post the original charter suggestion for the group, a lot of
people look at me as kind of the overseer of the group. For all the work
that it involves, it is very rewarding. Most of the requests I get to be
placed on the archive list, include little notes of how rec.food.chocolate
was one of the first groups they encountered on the net, and the FAQ the first
thing they looked for on the Web or through FTP and the thanks I get
there outweighs any flames I might get for forgetting to include something.
Someone else asked how long we spend mantaining our FAQs. Including
archiving the recipes, I spend an hour or so every day. It's also brought
opportunities to work with several big chocolatiers - I can't wait for
the free samples to start rolling in!:) It's time consuming, but I
wouldn't give it up for anything.
Thanks for asking, sorry for the length of this - I get carried away
talking about my baby!;)
<(*)> | Ask your sysop for rec.food.chocolate!
"Life is like a box of chocolates... |The *new* sweetest newsgroup on the Net
You never know what you're gonna get" |
<(*)> | Monee C. Kidd, mkidd@wariat.org
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