Re: Looking at were we are...

---------

John Novak (jsn@cegt201.bradley.edu)
Fri, 21 May 1999 22:24:00 -0500 (CDT)

> 1. Authors aren't updating faqs as often anymore.

Are you defining an update as an actual change of wording, or as any
post at all? Since the Web archives came on line, I scaled back on my
posting the entire document for my newsgroup, but instead deputized a
few people to post pointers as appropriate. The nature of mine is
such that it is largely static for a year or so at a time, and is then
updated as events in the real world overcome the information all at
once. When it is updated, I post it, thus ensuring that the archives
are updated at the same time as everyone is made aware of it.

If this is the phenomenon to which you point, I think it is a positive
thing; an adaptation to a better-suited technology.

If you mean the FAQs are literally not changing as much, then this is
probably not a positive thing.

> 2. FAQs are moving away from Usenet and more and more to the web.

> Second, of the 3402 FAQs checked, 1261 of them have URL auxiliary
> headers that point to the FAQ's home page. While this is a good
> thing to include due to the timeliness of updates on some archives,
> it indicates a perception by the authors that the web is the
> authoritative point for their FAQs.

Is this, in fact, a negative point?
I do not think it is.

I'm sure there are strange situations where one may have e-mail and
Usenet available, but not web access (specifically including lynx) but
I find it hard to concern myself with such a vanishingly small population
of reader.

-- 
John S. Novak, III       	jsn@cegt201.bradley.edu
The Humblest Man on the Net

[ Usenet Hypertext FAQ Archive | Search Mail Archive | Authors | Usenet ]
[ 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 ]

---------

faq-admin@faqs.org

© Copyright The Internet FAQ Consortium, 1997
All rights reserved