rtfm.mit.edu is great when you want to retrieve the entire
posting. What faqs.org does is to break up a posting
formatted in minimal digest form and create an index for
the posting which links to the individual pages. This is
not just a set of # URLs into a complete posting, it is
many pages made from one posting.
This helps those who want to click into each section and
back to the index. It also possibly results in better
indexing by the web search engines, since each page will
have a more focussed topic.
faqs.org also recognizes URL material embedded in text and
creates true URLs for web browsers. This kind of function
is starting to be built into the client side, but that's
highly nonuniform now and putting it on the server still
adds significant value. faqs.org does URL recognition for
both the hierarchical pages and the original flat text.
Personally, I usually prefer to read through an entire
posting. But faqs.org provides a hierarchical view for
those who prefer it, and clickable URLs for all of us.
Edward Reid