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Date:      Mon, 13 Nov 2000 20:12:39 -0600
From:      "Josh Paetzel" <jpaetzel@hutchtel.net>
To:        "Nik Clayton" <nik@freebsd.org>
Cc:        <jim@lust.geekhouse.net>, <doc@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: conspectus for FreeBSD-questions
Message-ID:  <000f01c04de0$5e5f70a0$0200000a@vladsempire.net>
References:  <000501c04996$46eaf820$0200000a@vladsempire.net> <20001108104523.A90012@envy.geekhouse.net> <003701c049bc$76e25e80$0200000a@vladsempire.net> <20001108152201.A522@envy.geekhouse.net> <012101c04a18$5ce117e0$0200000a@vladsempire.net> <20001109001032.B2961@envy.geekhouse.net> <00d901c04aac$9dd9c960$0200000a@vladsempire.net> <20001112152459.F1752@canyon.nothing-going-on.org>

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Nik Clayton" <nik@freebsd.org>
To: "Josh Paetzel" <jpaetzel@hutchtel.net>
Cc: <jim@lust.geekhouse.net>; <doc@freebsd.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 12, 2000 9:25 AM
Subject: Re: conspectus for FreeBSD-questions


> On Thu, Nov 09, 2000 at 06:24:39PM -0600, Josh Paetzel wrote:
> > I am thinking about a freebsd-questions FAQ, as in, please read before
you
> > post to freebsd-questions, not the general freebsd-FAQ.  I think this
would
> > help to keep some of the redundant questions down....it would also give
> > you/us another chance to put in the plea to please use a meaningful
topic
> > when you post and so on and so forth.
>
> Good idea.  Didn't Greg Lehey post something like this to -questions on a
> regular basis?
>

Greg usually sends a series of posts once a month with an update to The
Complete FreeBSD, and some hints about how to get the best results from
FreeBSD questions.  Of course, only people subscribed to the list get
this...

What I am thinking is this...a lot of the questions to the questions list
are repeated over and over...for instance, a while back the boot loader was
having trouble finding usb keyboards on some athlon motherboards, so there
were a bunch of "I can't get FreeBSD to install" sort of questions....or
another instance, when 3.4 was out and 4.0 was released there was a bunch of
confusion about what the largest IDE drive each version supported...and so
forth.

The sorts of things I am thinking of are transitory questions from the
mailing list....permanent sorts of issues should go into the main
FreeBSD-faq, but I think there could be a lot of benefit to having a
questions-faq that was linked right next to the comment that seems to be in
almost every FreeBSD documentation (whether in print or on-line) "send
questions to free-bsd questions."

Here's an example taken from the end of the handbook.

For questions about FreeBSD, e-mail <questions@FreeBSD.org>.

Now if that is all we tell people, why are we surprised when we get posts to
questions that have been asked a million times before, or posts that have no
subject...and so forth?  If we had a questions-faq that we could link right
next to that blurb in the handbook and elsewhere we could put in a little
blurb about how best to post to questions, how to search the archives,  and
so forth, and even take a crack at answering their question before they ask.



> > I pulled down the docproj port and all that....Are you thinking that I
would
> > modify the webpage that people use to access the conspectus?
>
> Ideally, yes.
>



> > If so I will
> > need to throw some more drives in my FreeBSD box....I don't think I have
the
> > 600 megs free that it takes to build the webpages.
>
> Huh?
>
> The complete www/ CVS repository is 20MB.  Checked out, it's less than
9.6MB.
> I don't know where you got the 600MB figure from.
>
http://www.freebsd.org/tutorials/docproj-primer/the-website.html

Josh




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