We *always* allow new FAQs on the same subject - I think there are already
some newsgroups with competing FAQs. In the specific case you're talking
about, we have also allowed "stage 2" FAQs to be taken over by someone else if
the old maintainer allows it or whose mail bounces.
The best process for you to follow, I think, is
- Try contacting the old maintainer yourself. All we do is contact people
listed in the FAQ (from, reply to, or sometimes an obvious contact address
near the start of the FAQ; reading the whole FAQ for a cleverly buried
spam-protected address is a bit beyond what we're willing to manage).
- If they're out of contact (eg don't respond for several days, or mail to
them bounces, write a new FAQ and submit it with the same archive name as
the old one. Usually we ask people to mail their FAQ, just as it will
appear in the news group, to news-answers-submit@rtfm.mit.edu. In this
specific case it would probably be wise to add a short sentence to the start
of the body of the FAQ saying you've taken over and why.
The important issue with taking over a FAQ is copyright. You don't get to
copy the old FAQ and edit it, because any country that signed the Berne
convention treats writing as 'born copyrighted'. If the old maintainer is out
of contact, there is no way to get permission for copying. With my 'finding
e-mail addresses' and 'college e-mail' FAQs, Jonathan Kamens and Mark
Kantrowitz, respectively, officially handed over the FAQs to me, and they now
bear copyright notices for both authors (them until the handoff year, me after
that).
If you're enough of an expert in the area, though, you should be able to write
your own FAQ, and of course the *ideas* in the old FAQ can't be copyrighted
(just the particular expression).
In any case as a practical matter all we can do as *.answers moderators is to
ask if you've taken care of the copyright issues, since we don't have the time
and energy to *check* for copyright violations. [I guess I'll add a belated
plea not to start another instance of the generic copyright discussion here;
there are other newsgroups for that]
>
> PS - if better handled off this list tell me who to contact by direct mail. Thanks.
It seemed like something other active maintainers might want to know.
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