Tom Holub wrote:
> At the risk of incurring the Wrath of Curmudgeons, this loss of
> information is why I decided to keep my FAQ's in HTML format only, and
> post them that way. If people want to lynx -dump them, let them
> remove the information themselves.
At the risk of incurring the Wrath Of People Who Attempt To Fend Off
Sensible And Easily Anticipated Objections By Labelling Those Who Raise Them
Curmudgeons :) let me suggest in return that with a few very specialized
exceptions, it is difficult to imagine any subject oriented FAQ that
actually requires HTML in order to express its contents usefully.
Certainly most of the B/STRONG/EM/IMG/FONT sorts of tags are just window
dressing that don't add anything to the information a FAQ imparts.
As for HREF's, it is true that most FAQs these days need to mention a number
of Web URLs, and it is true that HTML lets you turn mentions into hyperlinks
in a very flexible way, it is NOT true that FAQ users are necessarily better
served by the HTML-only style of hyperlink. For example, in a pure text FAQ
we might have said
[1] Jeff keeps a list online: http://abc.jeff.org/gnomes/list.html
whereas in a pure HTML FAQ, using the A HREF container, we could say
[2] Jeff keeps _a list online_
and if you are lucky enough to be browsing the original HTML, clicking on
the phrase would take you to the page. But which form is really better?
Using modern email and Usenet clients, the URL in form [1] will be clickable
anway; it's probably clickable in this message of mine, although it's a
bogus page (i hope :)). And you can actually SEE the web address, instead
of trying to glimpse it on a status bar or decode it from source.
If you happen to PRINT OUT or take a screenshot of the FAQ, form [1]
preserves the full information for readers later on, while form [2] is
frustratingly unusable.
I understand the desire to create one's own beautiful publication. But I
suggest that the needs of the community relying on each FAQ should be
paramount. Getting the information to as many of them as possible, in the
clearest possible format, should be the top priority. If a beautiful
version is made, it should still be usable from a printout.
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