Mailing List FAQ - RFC

Brian McKee brian.mckee at gmail.com
Fri Mar 6 16:54:07 UTC 2009


On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 11:34 AM, Thorny <thorntreehome at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 06 Mar 2009 09:48:39 -0500, Brian McKee wrote:
>
>>[...]
>> It should be an index to the spot where the answers are with at most a
>> line or two of explanation.  Obviously the information is already out
>> there somewhere, but people aren't finding it or they wouldn't be asking
>> here.  It's a polite way of getting them on the road to self
>> enlightenment by introducing them to the wide range of info already out
>> there for them.

> One of the old time solutions was teaching people to use a search engine
> or read the manual before posting questions. However, many will still want
> to ask their question personally without having to do any reading or
> searching or learning first. I think that is part of the reason for a site
> like http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

And that's a perfect link to have in our FAQ :-)

>
> Of course, many experienced users translated that "teaching to search"
> kind of help into "google it, you moron" or "read the man page, idiot" and
> things weren't as community oriented or respectful as they often are now.
> Actually, that advice was good, if somewhat abrasive and often led to
> bruised egos.

Yep.  I'm teaching my 4 your old right now that the way you ask for
something is as important as what you are asking for.  Some people
won't ever get that...

> Having, at most, a line or two of explanation is what may turn out to be
> difficult to implement for any but simple questions.

Yeah, maybe that 's a pipe dream - I'll know better once I start doing
some of them.  Simple is the key though I think - just answer the
question and leave the justification for the links.

> In addition, I'm not
> sure that mailing list FAQs would be substantially different from the FAQs
> already listed at the Ubuntu FAQ Guide. [Well, maybe the top or bottom
> posting question, but I'm not sure how to get a simple answer to that. :)]

Well, for starters I'm thinking it'll be a heck of a lot shorter.  And
some of the questions I see here aren't there - or at least aren't
obvious.

> I'm not criticizing your intent, I know you make helpful posts and it's
> obvious that having links like you describe would have a use. I'm just not
> sure it would work as well as you expect. It doesn't seem to in other
> places where I have been which do have FAQs, the repeat questions still
> occur and many posters don't seem to learn to use the FAQs.

You're right, there will be those that can't be taught, but if it gets
even a few down the road a little farther, I think it'll be worth it.

Thanks for your comments!

Brian




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