FAQ formatting and HTML conversion just aren't filling up our
mailboxes enough; here's another topic. :-)
There's a lot of news about the FAQbook project, and although it's not
exactly conclusive yet, it's time for an update. (I tried
unsuccessfully to send this to the old faqbook mailing list. Is it
dead?
Brief summary for those just joining our program: About a year ago,
approximately in response to yet another "shovelware" CD-ROM that
included many FAQs without their maintainers' permission, the FAQ
maintainers' community (as represented by the members of this mailing
list) decided, if it's going to be done, we might as well make sure
it's done right. We decided to put together our own book about FAQs,
most likely with a CD-ROM, possibly with an associated WWW site, whose
proceeds would support some worthy cause. Soon a new faqbook mailing
list was created to ease the mail burden on uninterested people.
Nancy McGough volunteered to head the collaboration, and O'Reilly and
Associates (ORA) became interested in publishing it. An outline was
created and several people agreed to write chapters, help organize
FAQs, and so on.
Now the news. To make a fairly long story short, Nancy is no longer
planning to be "point man" for the project, although she is definitely
interested in helping out and writing a chapter or three. Barring any
objections, I hope to step in and take over the role of organizer and
publisher's liaison, and I've been trading email with the folks at
O'Reilly about that.
Unfortunately, ORA is no longer quite as enthusiastic about the
project as they once were. Tim still likes the idea and thinks it has
good potential, but he's worried about how much of their time it's
going to occupy. Personally, as I've told them, I don't think that's
a problem; I'm confident in our collective ability to get a book
pretty close to production-ready, and I'm able and willing to devote
the time for the editing and reorganization that will no doubt be
needed. They haven't yet firmly agreed to anything, but the more we
can show them that's already been done, the better our prospects will
be. With that in mind, I'd like to get back to work, collecting
chapter drafts and discussing FAQ categorizations and such.
I've been in touch with the people who volunteered contributions last
year, but it's been long enough that not only might their schedules no
longer permit them to help out, but also we've got a lot of new people
here who might be interested. I'm trying to get a copy of the old
proposed book outline, which I'll make available on the WWW as soon as
I can. (The outline for Chapter 1, "What is a FAQ?", is available at
<http://www.optics.rochester.edu:8080/users/pgreene/whats-a-faq.html>.)
Hopefully we'll also be able to bring the faqbook list back, or create
another one.
Meanwhile, comments and ideas are welcome, and I'll do my best to
answer any questions you may have.
- Pam Greene
wearer of many hats
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