CommonQuestions

[Francis Giannaros]

On Sunday 09 July 2006 16:00, Matthew East wrote:
> * Francis Giannaros:
> > Alrighty, well I'm going to be editing the page accordingly now, since
> > there were no objections.
>
> Well, as you can probably gather by the fact that I told you over irc
> that I objected and the fact that I made the change in the first place,
> I disagree with you.

I presumed you didn't have any after my post since several days have past 
since I sent that mail to the list, but nevermind.

> My view is that a table of contents with long questions is not helpful.
> Some headings even have TWO questions!

Sure, but that's a side-issue, not the central one. Your comment later about 
using plain sub-headings without questions is quite valid, and I agree.

> I can see that it may be more difficult for the reader to find their
> particular question in the page if they are not familiar with Ctrl+F

Yes, as most users are.

> so 
> I think the best thing would be to shorten the subheadings
> significantly, and use one subject per question. If you do this, a long
> table of contents might work well.

"Shortening the questions" is simply not possible in many cases, particularly 
if we want to remain at least remotely formal. And it's also a case of even 
small questions are quite long since the sub-headings are big.

Nevertheless, this misses the main point of *having to scroll down through the 
page* searching around for the sub-headings. This is simply cumbersome to the 
user trying to find his question and answer.

If *all* the questions in the FAQ are in a neat lines (with points), 
demarcated into their respective sections, then things are a lot clearer. A 
user can instantly see all the things each section contains.

> There is really no need to phrase headings in the form of questions, all
> that happens is that extra words are added which in fact make the text
> _less_ scannable.
>
> For example:
>
> Before - What is the numbering system of the releases about? What is the
> next release of Ubuntu?
>
> After - Ubuntu releases and version numbers

Totally agreed, but that's got nothing to do with this table of contents issue 
(of whether it should have the sub-headings in there or not). 

> Hope this helps.

I appreciate the input, indeed; thanks.

Regards,
apokryphos.
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