>Indeed, even when an FAQ is specifically tailored to a
>newsgroup, Usenet isn't a very good distribution mechanism.
>Ideally, news servers keep articles for 30 days (at least
>those crossposted to news.answers), new users know to look
>for FAQs, and newsreaders present FAQ articles
>preferentially. It ain't so. FAQs need to be continuously
>available, and today that means the web.
>
>The problem is directing the person who needs the
>information (wherever he/she enters the net) to appropriate
>information (wherever it is, on the net or otherwise). This
>is not an easy problem. (and I'm choking on that mouthful)
>
One useful approach is pointers in people's signature files.
At least one poster to alt.polyamory has a pointer to the
Website with the newsgroup's FAQs in the sig she uses when
posting to that group. It also helps that some newsgroups
have people who make a point of welcoming new posters and
pointing them to the FAQ pages; even lurkers are thus likely
to see FAQ pointers regularly.
As the keeper of the FAQ for rec.arts.sf.fandom, I point
to the version on my Web page in my posts to that
newsgroup (but not elsewhere--I doubt people who are
reading rec.food.drink.tea or rec.arts.theatre.musicals
are dying to know where the r.a.sf.fandom FAQ lives).
Of course, that's a special case: the FAQ really is at
least as much about the newsgroup as it is about
sf fandom more generally, and it has very little to
say about science fiction--if you aren't reading the
newsgroup, you probably won't want to read the FAQ.
Many (most) FAQs are useful independent of their
newsgroups.
<rest snipped>
-- Vicki Rosenzweig vr@interport.net http://www.interport.net/~vr
[
Usenet Hypertext FAQ Archive |
Search Mail Archive |
Authors |
Usenet
]
[
1993 |
1994 |
1995 |
1996 |
1997
]
© Copyright The Internet FAQ Consortium, 1997
All rights reserved