From owner-freebsd-doc Sat Jan 19 5:17:56 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Received: from blackhelicopters.org (geburah.blackhelicopters.org [209.69.178.18]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 435E337B417; Sat, 19 Jan 2002 05:17:52 -0800 (PST) Received: (from mwlucas@localhost) by blackhelicopters.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) id g0JDHpk44198; Sat, 19 Jan 2002 08:17:51 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from mwlucas) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 08:17:51 -0500 From: Michael Lucas To: Jim Mock Cc: Chris Costello , Murray Stokely , doc@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: splitting FAQ ch. 9 Message-ID: <20020119081751.A44161@blackhelicopters.org> References: <20020117110921.B32325@blackhelicopters.org> <20020118030554.GC17795@freebsdmall.com> <20020118211213.J2208@holly.calldei.com> <20020119045555.GA57083@helios.dub.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <20020119045555.GA57083@helios.dub.net>; from jim@FreeBSD.org on Fri, Jan 18, 2002 at 08:55:55PM -0800 Sender: owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Hmmm... why would we want to start over with the FAQ? It's really not that bad, for a document that covers 2.1.x, 2.2.x, 3.x, and 4.x. Much of that information is still quite useful for people who are running older releases. I would suggest that we start a new FAQ with the release of 5.x, and call it "The FreeBSD 5.x FAQ." We could pull relevant info from the old FAQ into that. It could even be started now. I'd also like to argue strongly in favor of very brief answers and pointers in the FAQ, rather than just a pointer to a chapter in the FAQ. Some of those chapters are very long, and as a reader/user I don't want to dig through the whole chapter to find a quick answer. 1-3 sentences per question in the FAQ aren't that bad. Or, at least, link to the answer in the chapter rather than the chapter itself. We need to remember that things that are asked frequently should be in the FAQ. If people cannot find the documentation they want, they'll keep asking. My goal, at least, is to shut them up. :) On Fri, Jan 18, 2002 at 08:55:55PM -0800, Jim Mock wrote: > > My personal opinion is that any relevant information should be > > mined from the FAQ and put into the Handbook, and the rest should > > be blown away in favor of a newly-compiled FAQ. > > I agree with Chris here. Much of the info in the FAQ can be shoved into > the handbook in either existing chapters or new chapters. I'll try to > make some time to go through the FAQ and see what can be split out > sometime this weekend (won't happen tonight since I'll be going out the > door shortly -- possibly tomorrow or Sunday). > > One thing we could do for history's sake is link stuff from the FAQ to > the handbook after it's moved. For example: > > Q: How do I do ? > A: This is covered in Chapter X of the handbook. > > Although that assumes we're not going to "start over" with the FAQ > (which I don't really think is a bad idea to begin with...). > > - jim > > -- > jim mock http://soupnazi.org/ | jim@FreeBSD.org -- Michael Lucas mwlucas@FreeBSD.org, mwlucas@BlackHelicopters.org my FreeBSD column: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/q/Big_Scary_Daemons http://www.blackhelicopters.org/~mwlucas/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message