The intent of this FAQ is to provide current and future FAQ maintainers
with a simple description of a minimal format for FAQs.  This minimal
format is a simplification of RFC1153 digest format that is sufficient
to be compatible with common newsreader digest handling functionality,
current practise, and Thomas Fine's "FAQ digest format to HTML"
converter which allows more sophisticated viewing on HTML-aware systems
such as Mosaic or WWW.  There are other more sophisticated formats that
you can use, but this is the simplest one that is compatible with a wide
range of software that understands digest format.

This format is entirely optional.  But it is designed to give you the
biggest "bang per buck" in terms of existing software compatibility and
minimum effort.  If you believe that your FAQ can benefit from more
sophisticated formats, by all means use them.  As such, this FAQ can be
simply considered a guide on how to take advantage of some basic digest
capabilities in end-user viewing software.

Rather than confuse the issue by documenting all of the variation
allowed by existing practise and software, this documents a single
variant.  However, it can be extended by reviewing the documentation
for Thomas Fine's FAQ to HTML converter:

<http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/faq-format/top.html>

This FAQ is written entirely in the minimal digest format, and can be
used as an example.  You can skip from one section to the next
by pressing ^G in many newsreaders, such as rn, trn and strn.

This FAQ describes only how FAQ sections should be delimited, and
a couple of suggestions for meta-references to such things as FTP
or WWW repositories in formats that other tools support.

Note to reader software implementors: you should not take this format
as gospel, instead, use it as a guide to one minimal format of many
more sophisticated ones.  You should really be reading RFC1153,
Thomas Fine's material, and consulting news.answers for how FAQS
are formatted in real life.  See "Newsreader/Converter Specifics"
for descriptions of how some newsreaders work with digest-like documents.