We mostly hear about three ways of presenting FAQs: standard
periodic posting, pointer posting, and web presentation. We
might count greeting practices too, though I'd call that an
enhancement of the other methods.
Has anyone experimented with anything else?
The only other idea I've come up with is rotational posting.
Split the FAQ into its individual sections, which for mine
are clearly defined because I use minimal digest format.
Post a couple of these daily -- "a couple" having been
precisely calculated to yield a rotation of about a month.
I would do a little bit of logical grouping rather than
totally random breaks. Unless I could find software to
manage this, I'd need to look at the existing packages for
managing multiple output formats and see which I could most
easily extend for this function.
This would be in addition to the normal postings and would
go only to the relevant newsgroup, not to news.answers.
Would this help? I don't know. In misc.health.diabetes,
several of the most frequently asked questions keep popping
up as though no one had read the FAQ. I expect that
newcomers won't always look for an FAQ, but what's more
disturbing is that many regular participants seem unaware
that these topics are addressed in the FAQ. (Thankfully,
many others demonstrate that they do read the FAQ and even
keep up with the too infrequent changes.) This leads me to
wonder whether posting the individual topics -- with their
individual topical Subject: lines rather than the generic
"here comes the FAQ again" -- would lead more people to
read sections that interest them.
Five years ago I didn't care -- newsgroup traffic was light
enough that a bit more was not detrimental and perhaps even
helpful. Now traffic is heavy (250/day) and complaints are
frequent. The main issue is talk but every old question
spawns a thread of talk. Of course the group needs a split,
but no one has taken on the task of figuring out how it
should split, much less doing the work.
Other ideas?
Edward Reid
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