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Re: [faq-maintainers] Close up shop?

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On Tue 24 Apr, Henk P. Penning wrote:
> On Tue, 24 Apr 2001, S L Painting wrote:
>
> I would strongly advise a harsh bottom line scenario.

Fine. Just be aware that it would be a positive disincentive to
maintainers whose FAQ contents are static or near-static. You
would be forcing them to make changes to a document that would not
otherwise need alteration.

> > On a not-entirely-unrelated point, is there any mileage in splitting
> > FAQs into "current" and "historic" categories? I'm thinking of the
> > "historic RFC" as an analogy, in that the information may be of some
> > use to certain people provided they are fully aware that it is no
> > longer current. Just a thought...
>
> Hm, maybe. When I said 'kill the faq' I meant 'stop posting'.

Point taken.

> Archiving old stuff has problems: filename clashes; maintainers who
> insist on deletes or small updates for legal or personal reasons.

I didn't mean "archive all previous versions"; I meant "archive the
*latest* version (however old that is)". Is that any better?

> Who is going to do the work, make the decisions ?

This could be largely automated: a maintainer could have some
mechanism for deleting the archived copy if they so chose; otherwise
all no-longer-posted FAQs would remain in the archive as "historic".
If someone else started posting a new FAQ on the same subject it
would replace the "historic" one: this should get round any problems
of clashing filenames.

> Also, people find
> faqs through search engines; they don't distinguish 'old' en 'current'.

I was thinking of adding a few lines to the top of the "historic" copy
held in the archive, clearly stating its historic status. This would
necessitate a repost (so that mirror sites got the amended document)
but I suspect I'm getting too far into detail here.

-- 
S L Painting <postmaster@zedtoo.demon.co.uk>
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• Next message: Coyt D. Watters: "Re: [faq-maintainers] My 2 cents worth from a tech dummy"
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