-Danny
BOOK REVIEW - THE FAQ MANUAL OF STYLE
by Danny Faught (faught@convex.hp.com )
_published in the Dallas/Fort Worth Unix User's Group newsletter, June
1997. Copyright 1997 by Danny Faught._
I was in the Internet section of the bookstore recently. Internet
this, Internet that, blah, blah, blah. Nothing there that you can't
learn by reading source code. Then I saw the title "The FAQ Manual of
Style." A book written for the tiny little niche market of FAQ
maintainers? Hey, I'm one of those maintainers! So I bought it, and
here's my review. You might just learn how the book can help you too,
and why people might hate you for it.
The FAQ Manual of Style: Creating Great Frequently Asked Questions
Lists, by Russell Shaw, 287 pages, list $24.95. Published 1996 by
MIS:Press, ISBN 1-55828-498-2.
Overall, I'm impressed with the book. Shaw included many annotated
examples of good and great Frequently Asked Questions files, and he
interviewed a number of my fellow FAQ maintainers. Shaw is a
journalist whose beat includes the Internet. He makes very few
mistakes with the technical terminology, which is very impressive
compared to most articles about the Internet that I've read. He gets
the definition of "browser" right, which even Dave Barry couldn't do
right in Dave Barry in Cyberspace (many writers confuse web browsers
with web search engines).
I was a little skeptical that anyone could make a profit on a book
that focused on Usenet FAQs, but the book's focus is actually on
institutional FAQs. This includes commercial FAQs, and a few mentions
of FAQs for educational institutions and organizations. Shaw calls
these "Web FAQs" since they are usually associated with an
institutional web site. This focus significantly broadens the book's
potential audience. He does also cover issues related to maintaining a
FAQ for a Usenet newsgroup. I estimate that half of the book is
relevant to Usenet FAQs.
The book has come under fire from the Usenet community because of its
commercial slant. Many Usenet FAQ writers are offended by the
potential for commercial bias because some readers associate the name
"FAQ" with an altruistic and nonbiased presentation of answers to
common questions. Commercial FAQs will necessarily be biased toward
the company that wrote them. There are different ways a company can
approach this. A company can make an honest attempt to answer common
questions that their technical support department receives, and point
people to more information about their products. This can be a very
useful service to their customers and potential customers. However,
there is a temptation for a company to skew or omit some of the facts
in order to make their products appear superior to their competitors'
products. While this possibility is sufficient to make us wary of the
information in any commercial FAQ, I have not heard of any particular
examples of commercial FAQs that are heinously misleading. Shaw does
go to great lengths to show how a FAQ can be a marketing tool, but he
never suggests using a FAQ to twist the truth.
The book covers many of the basic issues that concern a FAQ writer,
from deciding when to create a FAQ to maintaining it and keeping it
relevant. He uses examples extensively to make specific points, though
not every possible issue is covered. The author has explained that he
did not want to duplicate the large body of information about the
mechanics of FAQs that is already freely available on the Internet
(see below).
I was disappointed with the book's editing. There are many errors
throughout the book, mostly grammatical. The depressing thing is that
I'm used to this sort of quality in highly technical books. It seems
that a publisher's attention to quality is proportional to the number
of copies they expect to sell, with not much of a minimum standard. It
was just a little surprising to see the phenomenon in a book that's a
little more mainstream than most technical books I've read. Also, the
author's journalistic background shows through in the informal
paragraph construction style. It's a style I enjoy in shorter pieces,
but it probably should be tightened up for a book-length work.
To sum up, I recommend the book for anyone who is involved with
writing a FAQ of any kind. There's very little competition in this
subject area, and any potential competition would have to really do
their homework to make a better offering in this same subject area.
For more information about Usenet FAQs, start with the "FAQs about
FAQs" file in news.answers and on the web at
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/faqs/about-faqs/.