Date: Wed, 29 Jan 1997 10:35:23 +0000 From: nik@blueberry.co.uk (Nik Clayton) To: jfieber@indiana.edu (John Fieber) Subject: Re: WWW 'Submit a FAQ'? / sendfaq? Message-ID: <Mutt.19970129103523.nik@blueberry.co.uk> Resent-Message-ID: <199701291038.KAA18011@coconut.blueberry.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSI.3.95.970128130856.8252K-100000@fallout.campusview.indiana.edu>; from John Fieber on Jan 28, 1997 13:10:52 -0500 References: <Mutt.19970127162225.nik@blueberry.co.uk> <Pine.BSI.3.95.970128130856.8252K-100000@fallout.campusview.indiana.edu>
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John Fieber writes: > On Mon, 27 Jan 1997, Nik Clayton wrote: > > A suggestion for the FAQ maintainers (and Web guys). Would it be useful > > to have a defined format for submitting FAQs (like, "How do I get a UFS > > fs on a ZIP disk") to the project? > > There is no shortage of questions. I know. > Just subscribe to > questions@freebsd.org for an endless supply. I am. And I keep seeing things like "How do I use a ZIP disk?" come up. And I kept thinking "Why doesn't someone put this in the FAQ?". And then I thought "Hell, I'll write it, and submit it to the FAQ guys." And then I thought "I want to make this as easy as possible for them, what format would make it simplest to import the information straight into the FAQ?" -- since, as we all know, the easier it is to do, the more likely it is to happen. Then it occured to me that what would be simplest would be something akin to send-pr, but for FAQs. A lot of the time I (and anyone else) could then see a well written reply to a question in -questions (or elsewhere), fire up an xterm with 'send-faq', fill out a template, pass on the answer (with appropriate attribution) and have it go straight to the people concerned, in a format that's simple to import into the main FAQ. Link it with GNATS and you could probably stick a web interface on it, both so that people could submit FAQ entries over the web, and, perhaps more importantly, they could view entries to the FAQ that had been submitted but that hadn't been added yet. So even if the FAQ maintainers get behind (no slur on their efforts intended, we all have lives in the real world, however well we try to hide it) the FAQ maintains it's usefulness. Given that the FreeBSD core already use send-pr and GNATS, I'm guessing this would be fairly trivial to implement. Unfortunately, I'm not in a position to implement it -- I don't know how the FAQs maintained (but I'm willing to learn) and I know next to nothing about the intricacies of GNATS). What I would do is use this service to submit FAQs and help ensure that gems of information posted to the mailing list are saved somewhere, and not lost in the mass of signal and noise. > What would be useful is to provide a mechanism for people who ask > such questions can easily summarize the *answers* they got and > submit them for review. That too. But this would be a spin off from the above. Thoughts? N -- --+=[ Blueberry Hill Blueberry New Media ]=+-- --+=[ http://www.blueberry.co.uk/ 1/9 Chelsea Harbour Design Centre, ]=+-- --+=[ WebMaster@blueberry.co.uk London, England, SW10 0XE ]=+-- --+=[ .out => Compiled program; .o => Object code; .c => Documentation ]ENTP
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