>> Jari's note prompted me to send this one with some small comments on the
>> future of FAQs.
...
>> 2. Things are starting to get a bit creaky, e.g.
...
>> - increasingly often, FAQ writers are keeping web-only versions and thus
>> not posting, so rtfm and it's echoes aren't quite the repositories they
>> used to be.
>> 3. To avoid confusing the existing software and mirrors, which expect to find
>> textual USENET postings, we'd probably need yet another set of directories
>> for holding HTML faqs. I dunno how the actual rtfm maintainers would
>> react to this; I don't know them or their environment very well [*.answers
>> moderators are essentially guests at rtfm]
>> 4. The bunch-of-new-directories approach strikes me as a short-term one;
>> perhaps with the new millenium approaching we need to rethink the whole
>> issue of how FAQs are handled. I have *some* software development time
>> available this year, and Pam also might later in the year, but we all need
>> to think through what the *right* approach would be.
>>
>> If anyone else has any further thoughts, feel free to make suggestions.
I believe the right approach was the (defunct) initiative by FAQLib.
This was a repository (with world wide mirrors) of FAQs written in
HTML. When you submitted your FAQ you had two options:
1) Submit the pointer and FAQLib would store only a link to your FAQ.
2) Submit the actual FAQ in HTML and a home URL. The FAQLib server
would automatically check the home URL once a week to see if the
FAQ had changed and, if it had, would download the new version.
This struck me as a very elegant and low-maintenance solution.
For reasons that I do not understand, the FAQLib inititive has
collapsed. The main site no longer exists and the e-mail address of
the guy who ran it no longer works. Two of the mirror sites still
exist, so you can see the idea in practice. Annoyingly, the mirrors
are now *very* out-of-date and I cannot find anybody to delete
them. (I will not bore this list with a diatribe on out-of-date FAQ
versions.) The mirror sites are at:
<http://www.ba-karlsruhe.de/faqlib/>
<http://www.vol.it/mirror/faqlib/>
The domain `faqlib.com' was owned by the guy who set it up. I don't
know if that is still the case, but note that `www.faqlib.com' is no
longer in the DNS.
Regards,
Martin
E-mail: mleese@omg.unb.ca
Web: <http://www.omg.unb.ca/~mleese/>
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