[ On Thursday, September 14, 2000 at 17:55:20 (-0700), Craig Saunders wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: What is Cederqvist?
>
> If Greg thinks it would be a good idea and he (and others)
> would be willing to forward their answers of FAQ's, I would
> be willing to edit and compile the FAQ list, post it regularly and
> keep it on a publicly accessible web site. (I would also scan
> the mailing list for potential FAQ's and proactively update
> the FAQ list. And, with a little reluctance, reconcile when old-timers
> have different opinions on how to answer a question.)
I would much much sooner see someone, anyone, take note of questions
that frequently appear in this (and any other related) forum and to
(re)write the manual sections that have thus far been inadequate in
providing the information sought by those asking the questions
Hopefully that person would be given have commit access to at least the
documentation sub-directory of the shared repository once they've
provided one or two such fixes to the manual.
I'd suggest that this person take the time to query (offline) people who
ask FAQs to find out directly why they didn't find the answer they were
looking for in the manual. That way they can find out whether or not
the person even looked in the manual in the first place.....
IIRC it was Per Cederqvist who first decided that a FAQ was a bad form
of information presentation in this context and though I originally was
wary of losing the then gargantuan FAQ, I've since not missed it one
little bit. There were at least several people far more worried about
the disappearance of the FAQ at the time, but it's editor agreed with
Per and given the massive effort that would have been required to
continue to maintain the full FAQ nobody was willing to step up and take
it on.
Perhaps if the person editing the FAQ were also dedicated to updating
the manual and keeping it relevant to user needs then I wouldn't argue
against a general FAQ. However with very limited volunteer resources
I'm quite certain that maintenance of an FAQ should be the lowest
possible priority in the project.
BTW, this is a generic issue that applies to any software package which
has an active user forum such as info-cvs is.
--
Greg A. Woods
+1 416 218-0098 VE3TCP <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <robohack!woods>
Planix, Inc. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Secrets of the Weird <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
