I'm not sure the hardware they have is important, when and where a person
reads an FAQ is. If I read it online and I notice there's a web page I might
go there instead of reading the local copy. If I'm reading offline I'll usually
take either an electronic copy of the FAQ on a laptop (mostly ASCII) or a
paper copy stuffed in a briefcase for reading when I can't use the laptop.
# But while reading, you get interested in a certain topic, and wouldn't it be
# nice if some clickable links were present in that interesting paragraph? You
# happen to have a browser (and many people have nowadays!, also those
# involved in newsgroups discussions:). So I think a good point was made that
# URLs should be put in the text version as well, giving a perhaps somewhat
# awkward HTML master document like
# <a href="http://your.url">your.url</a>.
If the author used a URL: Auxiliary header line then the reader can easily
choose what best suits them. They can use the contents of the URL: header
to get to the FAQ's homepage.
And a pet peeve of mine... If they see a need to read offline, cryptic
HTML commands in the ASCII version simply confuses the reader. Not everyone
knows what an HREF is. But since you said HTML master document, I assume
you are not planning on the raw HTML appearing in the text version.
Maintaining an FAQ in HTML is not a bad idea but you need be be sure that
when you word things, they make sense in the ASCII version as well. Quite
often I encounter pages that have words within paragraphs hyperlinked. The
links make sense on a web page layout but much would be lost if that page
was directly converted to ASCII and posted to news.answers... FWIW.
-- Kent Landfield Phone: 1-817-545-2502 The Landfield Group FAX: 1-817-545-7650 Email: kent@landfield.com http://www.landfield.com/ Please send comp.sources.misc related mail to kent@uunet.uu.net.
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