The process does not allow having someone take over a topic area and update
an existing FAQ without the permission of the maintainer abandoning it. I
don't wish to get into a copyright discussion here. It also does not allow
someone to replace the existing FAQ posted with the name of the abandoned
one with a brand new one free of any copyright problems. Since the moderators
don't wish to make anyone mad they have chosen to force new names for faqs
while the abandoned one continues to exist and confuse the readership as
to why it is there.
# I wrote a FAQ about DOS and Windows 3.1. I've abandoned it, and nobody
# took it over, presumably because these operating systems are much less
# used than they were in the past.
#
# But some people are still using DOS and Windows 3.1, so I figure that
# the FAQ should still be made available to them. I don't intend to
# declare DOS obsolete whether people agree or not. ;-)
If it is not posted on a regular basis, how is the readers going to know it
exists ? I would think it would be useful to post a pointer in that case.
You are right though that this is a topic that probably isn't going to be
needing alot of content updating. Some reference to it needs to be posted
or the people that need it may not even know its there.
# I have no idea whether abandoned FAQs can be removed; I assume they can.
To date that has not been documented as part of the process and abandoned
FAQs that should have been removed, still exist on the archives.
# However, I think that, in most cases, even the oldest FAQ can still be
# useful to someone, so why remove it?
I think this has been adequately responded to by others.
# You've stated that 34 FAQs were last updated in 1993. Perhaps you could
# post the list, and then we could discuss whether they should be removed
# or not.
That was considered but that is not what this thread is about. This thread
is about figuring out where to go considering the changing landscape, how to
encourage authors to keep contributing quality content and how to better
engrain this into the Internet infrastructure so we really are a vital part
of providing answers.
# > :) By stating what you just did you told the reader to go to the web
# > first. :-) You could have said get it from rtfm.mit.edu but you didn't.
# > In the perception of the reader is appears you prefer the web over the
# > Usenet distribution. That was my point.
#
# To me, "Usenet distribution" means posting and reading the FAQ in a
# Usenet group, not getting it from an FTP archive.
#
# I do make it a point of having the Esperanto FAQ, which I consider my
# most important FAQ, available in a number of ways: Usenet, WWW, FTP,
# E-mail server, etc.
As you should. Many people in various parts of the world only have email
and to them web is still a future technology. We need to follow your lead
by making sure we have the broadest access to our content.
-- Kent Landfield Phone: 1-817-545-2502 Email: kent@landfield.com http://www.landfield.com/ Email: kent@nfr.net http://www.nfr.net/ Search the Usenet FAQ Archive at http://www.faqs.org/faqs/ Search the RFC/FYI/STD/BCP Archive at http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/
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