Re: Looking at were we are...

Craig Cockburn (craig@scot.demon.co.uk)
Sun, 23 May 1999 09:24:48 +0100

Messages sorted by: [ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ]
Next message: era eriksson: "Re: Looking at were we are..."
Previous message: Thamer Al-Herbish: "Re: Authority (was Looking at were we are...)"
In reply to: Paul Hilling: "Re: Looking at were we are..."
Next in thread: Edward Reid: "Re: Looking at were we are..."

Ann an sgriobhainn, <04cb01bea4b6$2b18c7c0$ab39a8c2@nospamthanks>,
sgriobh Paul Hilling <p.hilling@bigfoot.com>
>>From: Kent Landfield <kent@landfield.com>
>
>># Sometimes I answer a question by saying "this is covered in the FAQ:
>># see section 7". It's a lot more useful to continue by saying "... and
>># you can get the FAQ at http://...", rather than "... and wait 2 weeks
>># for the FAQ to appear in the group".
>>
>>:) 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.
>
>Blame it on the clueless newbies.
>
>With my FAQ, all the questions are bookmarked individually (the HTML writer
>I've been using until now automatically does this). So in the long run
>what is easier for the clueless person.
>
>http://www.bigfoot.com/~p.hilling/atx-faq-2.htm#q8
>or
>ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/faqs/tv/xena-wp/usenet and it's question #8 (Or do
>bookmarked links work on a ftp server?) Which is the Usenet text version.
>
>Even http://www.faqs.org/ only archives the Usenet (and therefore
>bookmarkless) version, which I can't automatically point a user to.
>
>In the end it's plain simpler to give the newbie, one link to the answer.
>
I've done this automatically with a tool I wrote. For a question [x.y]
in the FAQ, the answer is to be found at http://<faq directory>/x_y.html

Q-HTML manages this and splits the FAQ automatically into the
appropriate files.

This is makes life easy if you want to point people towards the web
version quickly.

With over 300,000 visits, the FAQ format seems to be popular too.

The tool is free to rtfm.mid.edu FAQ maintainers, more info at
http://www.scot.demon.co.uk/q-html.html and sample output is at
http://www.scot.demon.co.uk/scotfaq.html at the "contents" link.

-- 
Craig Cockburn ("coburn"), soc.culture.scottish FAQ author.
Find it at http://www.scot.demon.co.uk or http://scotland.home-page.org 
Port na Banrighinn, Alba. (Queensferry, Scotland)  PGP key available.
Sgri\obh thugam 'sa Gha\idhlig ma 'se do thoil e.

Next message: era eriksson: "Re: Looking at were we are..."
Previous message: Thamer Al-Herbish: "Re: Authority (was Looking at were we are...)"
In reply to: Paul Hilling: "Re: Looking at were we are..."
Next in thread: Edward Reid: "Re: Looking at were we are..."

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