Re: FAQs - to spam or not to spam

Michael C. Taylor (mctaylor@mailserv.mta.ca)
Wed, 5 Jun 1996 17:16:28 -0300 (ADT)

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On Mon, 3 Jun 1996, Mitchell McCann wrote:
> I recently wrote the Formula One Motor Racing FAQ which I post monthly to
> rec.autos.sport.f1 and rec.autos.spot.info (a moderated group). I have
> received a couple of complaints from people who say that although they
> appreciate the FAQ they do not appreciate having to download it twice a
> month as it is quite long. One person actually likened it, in a polite and
> reasoned way, to spam. Even though it is long (about 100k), I thought
> correct netiquette was to post it to the groups concerned. It is available
> on a Web page and I've had it approved so if I can ever figure out what it
> is I'm doing wrong, it'll also be posted to the 'answers' groups.

> What do you think? Should I continue to post it in its entirety to rasf1 and
> rasi, or should I just post monthly pointers.

When posted the one FAQ is cross-posted to

To: rec.auto.sport.f1,rec.auto.sport.info,rec.answers,news.answers

correct? This should most clients from getting the FAQ twice.

When then include a section (near the netiquette section) about the Kill
File FAQ. The people in question can either use a kill file, configure
their software not to "download" the FAQs i.e. "Ignore thread" under many
clients or tell them answer _all_ the newbie questions _everytime_. :-)

A FAQ is not a spam, spam: massive cross-posting to various newsgroup for
commerical purposes without regard to newsgroup focus.

The reason behind posting the FAQ to the newsgroup is it helps newbies
find it. It also reduces the complexity of getting it to the newbie. Some
newbies still do not have FTP/WWW access. Fidonet and uucp for example.

-Michael

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