Maybe FAQs aren't very useful

[Ari Torhamo]

ti, 2005-04-19 kello 12:38 +1200, Matthew Thomas kirjoitti:
> Corey Burger wrote:
> >...
> > There are already pages for most of what you propose. What is really
> > needed is a "1st 20 minutes FAQ". Wikis being wikis, you can create
> > that page, so that all of us and the general public can make it most
> > useful.
> >...
> 
> Maybe it's time we went on an anti-"FAQ" jihad throughout the wiki. 
> Answering frequently asked questions seems like a great idea from the 
> writer's point of view (and I say this as a former FAQ author), but from 
> the point of view of someone looking for help, they probably have 
> *absolutely no idea* whether the question they want an answer to is one 
> that's frequently asked by other people or not. (They may not even know 
> what "FAQ" stands for.)
> 
> Instead we could sort documents by topic -- "Installation", "Hardware", 
> "Playing movies and music", "Specialty software and how to find it", and 
> so on. *Then* if wiki stats (or forum questions) show us that some pages 
> are wanted much more often than others, quick links to those pages can 
> be put at the top of category pages in addition to their places in the 
> appropriate subcategories.
> 
> -- 
> Matthew Thomas
> http://mpt.net.nz/




I too would like to get rid of the FAQs. When I look at documentation as
a process - something that evolves, it seems that FAQs typically
represent the most primitive stage of that evolution. 

According to my own observations typical properties of FAQs are:

-disorganization
-limited coverage
-varying quality of answers
-inconsistent style

Ofcourse there are reasons for this in how FAQs evolve, but I won't try
to analyze them here. More important in my opinion is to put the concept
of FAQ aside and start structuring the documentation from a different
starting point as you are suggesting. Task oriented approach seems most
natural to me when thinking documentation from the user's point of view.
There's no point in trying to make a hybrid that combines qualities of
an FAQ and task oriented documentation. The better the documentation
gets, the less it reminds an FAQ. At the end the only remaining thing
from an FAQ would be the titles/headers (wasn't sure of the right
english term here) in question form - and they would have to go too.
Why? because of this:

How do I play movies?
How do I listen to music?
How do I share my files with others?
How do I print documents?

Playing movies
Listening to music
Sharing files with others
Printing documents

Adding "How do I" and a question mark to every question gives no value
to the reader. The guide doesn't get more organized and you don't find
what you are looking for any faster or easier than without those
additions - the opposite might actually be true.

As you may already have guessed, I give my full support for the
"anti-FAQ jihad" (should we give it an other name? :)


Kindest regards

Ari Torhamo