On Mon, 23 Apr 2001 charles.macdonald@hrdc-drhc.gc.ca wrote:
> Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 15:30:38 -0400
> From: charles.macdonald@hrdc-drhc.gc.ca
> To: faq-maintainers@rkive.landfield.com
> Subject: [faq-maintainers] Close up shop?
> Sender: owner-faq-maintainers@landfield.com
> The systems at MIT have not had major software updats as far as I know in
> many years. They represent state of the usenet art from 5-10 years ago. We
> should be grateful that they have not been turfed out as a source of trouble
> and confusion long ago. We should all thank Kent for keeping FAQs.org
> running so well to deal with the "other end" of getting information out.
... and a few others that never get mentioned :-).
I have followed (and archived) news.answers since it began.
There have been at least 204475 news.answers postings.
It's readership (usenet, web) is enormous.
The news.answers setup is traditionally very conservative;
and with very good reasons. I think, however, that the time
is ripe to entirely redo the software and moderation process.
You can create a system that would run again for 10 years with:
-- a reliable database (like postgreSQL),
-- a php enabled http server,
-- perhaps a dozen php pages.
I assume every faq maintainer has access to the web.
-- There must be a central store of faqs, posted periodically
or my maintainer command.
-- Anybody (properties: name, email) can become a maintainer.
-- Any maintainer can submit a faq (properties: subject, summary,
version, url, newsgroups, etc)
-- consisting of parts (properties: partname, part-sub-subject
and content)
-- A moderator can approve a faq (assign file names to parts)
and possibly update basic properties
-- certain changes of basic properties would require
re-moderation (re-approval by a moderator)
-- faqs are posted from the central store
-- an annotated change log is kept per faq
Benefits:
-- since more is generated, less things need approval
-- clear separation of content and meta-info
-- system allows automated checks on insert/update/upload
Policy:
-- stop a faq that has not been changed for a year; send warnings
monthly to the maintainer; kill the faq after 18 months, or
something like that.
-- avoid problems (crossposting to moderated groups, crossposting
to too many groups, and anything that can't be automated, like
content, etc)
Implementation:
-- the transition can be entirely automated; all info is on rtfm.
-- With only three roles (sysadmin, moderator, maintainer)
and two kinds of objects (faq, part) this should be an
easy project for a few enthusiastic students, an experienced
supervisor (and one good sysadmin :-).
Issues:
-- faqs could be (but need not be) related to usenet
-- beside the hierarchical name spaces (file space,
newsgroup space) other name spaces can be used.
> Charles MacDonald - Labour Information Management
My two cents. Regards.
Henk Penning
Henk P. Penning, Dept of Computer Science, Utrecht University \__/ \
Padualaan 14, P.O. Box 80.089, 3508 TB Utrecht, The Netherlands. \__/
Telephone: +31-30-2534106, fax: 2513791, NIC-handle: HPP1 _/ \__/ \
News.answers http://www.cs.uu.nl/cgi-bin/faqwais \__/ \__/ \__/
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