frequently asked questions
Steven Grady
I have been USENET reader for about 3 years, and I notice
there are a large number of frequently asked questions,
considerably more than appear in the news.announce.newusers
document. Each newsgroup has its own questions, many of which
spark off exactly the same discussion every time the question
comes up. Also, there always follow the same old flames about
posting the same old questions. Not only is this annoying for
the people who've read it before, but it increases the noise to
signal ratio. Just as an example, it took me about 1 minute to
come up with these:
comp.emacs: Where can I get {GNU emacs, MicroEmacs, Jove}?
comp.os.minix: What is minix? Where can I get minix?
comp.unix.wizards: Isn't rm * terrible?
comp.windows.x: Where can I get X? How does X compare with NeWS?
rec.arts.startrek: "One to the fourth power"
rec.games.misc: How can I get the Babelfish in HHGttG? How do I solve
zork[1-3]?
rec.puzzles: about a hundred common puzzles
rec.humor: about a thousand common jokes
I think I could come up with a dozen more with a few minutes
thought.
One solution is to add more questions to the "frequently
asked questions" list in new.announce.newusers, but I suspect
that article would get too bulky far too quickly, to the point
where a new user would be intimidated by it. I propose instead
that some mechanism be devised for each newsgroup to have a list
of FAQs. I am not very familiar with the news software (except
inews, but that's another story), so I have no idea how it would
be implemented, but I suspect it might be worthwhile.
I do see some problems, such as how to prevent these lists
from getting too long ("Oh, but MY joke is funny - it should
DEFINITELY be included in the canonical list of frequently posted
lightbulb jokes"), but I believe they are not insurmountable.
I have some further thoughts on the matter, but first I want
to hear if other people agree with me, or if the idea has already
been considered.
Steven
gr...@postgres.berkeley.edu
...!ucbvax!grady
The Prime Minister
> I have been USENET reader for about 3 years, and I notice
>there are a large number of frequently asked questions,
>considerably more than appear in the news.announce.newusers
>document. Each newsgroup has its own questions, many of which
>spark off exactly the same discussion every time the question
> I propose instead
>that some mechanism be devised for each newsgroup to have a list
>of FAQs. I am not very familiar with the news software (except
>inews, but that's another story), so I have no idea how it would
>be implemented, but I suspect it might be worthwhile.
This has been done in rec.arts.drwho.
There was a group of frequently asked questions, such as "Can there
ever be a woman Doctor?". I took the most common answers, and now,
once per month, I post the frequently asked questions. I also post
a convention list and an explanation of the postings. This has been
going on since summer.
Originally, I also posted a series of files which could be bulky, but
which would be of interest to Doctor Who fans. These included a program
guide, an article on companions, Tom Baker's scarf patterns, etc.
Due to the volume, I dropped these from the monthly postings and
established an archive facility. Anyone can request one of these
files in a mail message, and it will be forwarded to them. (Assuming
either (a) my mailer can understand their address or (b) they provide
a good address via a "Send-To:" line in the message.) A list of this
archive is sent out with the monthly postings.
The scripts that I use are rather simple, the monthly posting is just
three lines long. The server is longer, but it has to handle the
addressing, etc. If anyone wants to see them, all the need do is ask.
In short, the idea of a "newsgroup archive" is not a bad idea, but it
does need someone willing to handle the work. Set up was time consuming;
but running it is now almost entirely automated...