Subject: Re: mailing lists, books, and FAQs
From: chuq von rospach (chuqui@plaidworks.com)
Date: Wed Apr 11 2001 - 13:00:22 MDT
On Wednesday, April 11, 2001, at 11:16 AM, Hollis R Blanchard wrote:
> and I don't mind answering "old" questions as long as the
> questioner has demonstrated sufficient effort in trying to find the
> answer
> themselves.
I've basically created a folder of clippings that I can quickly
cut/paste in boilerplate, so I can deal with this stuff without a lot of
time or thought. A lot of them start with:
Start by reading here in the FAQ <URL>
which is my way of nicely saying "if you'd done your research, you'd
have had the answer by now", but in a non-confrontrational way. I've
found getting in folks faces creates more problems than it solves, but
that doesn't mean you can't make the point quietly. And I get enough
feedback from folks to think this is a positive way to reinforce the
right behavior, much better than "it's in the FAQ" or similar
non-answers. And by choosing when to do it privately and when to do it
on the list, you can send occasional reminders to the entire list
without necessarily overwhelming it with lots of "read the FAQ" notes,
without necessarily picking on folks. How often is a judgement call, but
I prefer doing it in private most of the time.
> Emailing a question without prior research concentrates the load on a
> few,
> which is not a viable system.
People making an honest or naive mistake deserve some slack. You learn
quickly who the repeat offenders are, and once I figure out who they
are, I simply ignore theri requests completely...
> Massive FAQ's have been proposed and tried. It seems to have worked in
> the
> past for Usenet, but I haven't been part of a mailing list that's been
> able to
> pull it off.
Because FAQs on usenet tend to be group projects, while on the mail
list, I think the assumption is that the list admin is responsible (and
usually, the list admin makes it so), so it's harder to make and keep it
updated. On usenet, the FAQ maintainer is more editor than creator, but
that paradigm doesn't seem to cross over to lists for some reason.
IMHO, it'd be an interesting experiment to make a person the "FAQ" guy
as a volunteer job separate from running the list and see if that helps.
I haven't done it myself, but I've considered it. Good archives and a
good search engine really helps, and good archives allow you to shorten
the FAQ by pointing into the archives instead of rehashing the material
(unless it needs clarification. If you have resources, I'd say it's
better to have it all written into the FAQ, but it's better to have
short/crusty comments and links than nothing...)
-- Chuq Von Rospach, Internet Gnome <http://www.chuqui.com> [<chuqui@plaidworks.com> = <me@chuqui.com> = <chuq@apple.com>] Yes, yes, I've finally finished my home page. Lucky you.Q: Did God really create the world in seven days? A: He did it in six days and nights while living on cola and candy bars. On the seventh day he went home and found out his girlfriend had left him.
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