From: eugene@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: [l/m 10/1/92] FAQ on FAQs			n.g.FAQ
Followup-To: poster
Organization: NAS Program, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 11:55:12 GMT
Reply-To: eugene@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)

This is a prototype.

FAQs are the first generation of community memory.
They began with the efforts of Mark Horton, Spaf, Chuq, myself and others.
They are called "Frequently Asked Questions" files, but I prefer
"Frequently Answered Questions" as you will note the new news.group
is called news.answers, not news.asked.

Not every person calls them FAQ.  "Periodic post" is another term, and some
posts (e.g., in news.announce.newusers) don't have special names or
designations.  You have to learn to wing it.

Design issues:

1) Keep them short.  200 lines or less is preferable.

2) They will come in three basic types:
	a) netiquette: how to use the net
		always refer to news.announce.newusers
		why? for procedure for new group creations, etc.
	b) answers to informational queries.
	c) Misc.

3) Provide support for version control and killfiles.

4) Break the FAQ up.  Chain them.  Link them.

5) FAQs don't stop flame wars.  They don't limit free speech.
They should not limit speech.

6) Posting charters appears useful but is ultimately silly.  Your call.
You can't limit speech in an unmoderated group.  No enforcement, so I consider
this wasted bandwidth (bigger wastes exist).  If you want low noise,
minimum flaming, to avoid mass cross-posts by broadcasting novices, make
the group MODERATED, just like editing a Journal.  See comments on
appropriateness below.

7) If you can provide anonymous FTP, do so, but remember that not every one
has this luxury.

8) You will have some interesting times maintaining them (my chuckle comes mine
on certain wilderness intestinal dysfunctions).

9) Develop them by consensus, BUT retain editorial control subject to
things like flames and liability.

10) FAQs have other useful functions like pulsing connectivity information
like a light house.

11) Frequency.  Good question, few good answers.  The naive use them once
a month.  Others post by hand.  Still others post weekly.  I would think that
the latter would be the flames and the former as too much noise.
The former have not discovered crontab yet.  A problem is that these things
grow (as memory does).  If they are not posted, they are not frequent
themselves.  They must have presence to have an affect.  Questions
revolve around maintenance and effect.  The current method under test
is the FAQ chain with sections posted once a day.
Others clump parts and post all at once, assuming that expiration is
minimized using news group fields (doesn't work, many systems need the disk
space).  Multiple FAQs with multiple maintainers exist.  Some FAQs are
posted biweekly or once a month and a shorter weekly outrigger or outlier gets
posted for those times the FAQ isn't posted.

12) An FAQ should have no or a minimal signature line, strictly for
purposes of bounced email.  Otherwise, cute things like ASCII graphics
don't have a real place (usually).


Known testable reader habits:

The typical reader merely reads sequentially thru a post.

They will learn to skip and page, but they will not learn to use
Killfiles or search (much less use regular expression search).

Most people will lurk (read, but not post).

Most people will skip news.announce.newusers.

Most people invoke readers on topic specific groups rather than wade thru
thousands of uninteresting newsgroups.

We need to face several facts.  CRTs are a poor way to read text.
They search easy (if you know how), but we ignore typos more and we scan more
than read.  Many people dump FAQs (and other posts to printers).
FAQs should offer references to things like hardcopy media (e.g., books)
rather than give unreadable dissertations.  It is difficult to follow a
logical argument on a computer in a strictly serial fashion.  Our reading
(mostly at work) will not allow it.

It takes work to maintain an FAQ.  It is advised that reader should NOT
archive copies.  FAQs change and FAQs should appear frequently enough that
new versions can appear to answer questions.  Readers always tend to want it
NOW.  Email to the maintainer or anonymous FTP are a far better way to get it
than daily posts of the FAQ (this will happen, mark my word, that's a joke).

Inevitability, you will have an FAQ, and some clueless newbie will post
an article which the FAQ answers but they haven't seen.  Don't worry.
Propagation is poorer than you think (maybe only 80% get thru).
Short queries aren't a problem.  Every one can post to the clueless (by
email) and say, "See the FAQ" [the FAQ-version of RTFM].

If the goal is to stop flame wars, and you wish to ignore point 5,
the best thing to do is an FAQ SUMMARY of all arguments,
challenge people to add more rational points on each side.
Then every one can point and say, "Arguments?  See the FAQ.  Let's move
on to other things."  We lack network history/memory.  The FAQ is not
perfect, but some of this works.  Cash incenitives are useful.
A new book by Johnson and Koop (ex-Surgeon General) is a good example of this.

Systems which use Killfiles typically only grab the first 24 characters
of a Subject: line.  Any additional use of Killfiles requires extensive
editing, and not all readers these days know how to text edit.

Indices and table of contents are helpful, but not always useful.
Because the ability to skip large regions of text is unknown by most readers.
This is why shorter files are more important than indexed files.

Most of our users have no idea the diversity (or lack of) in news interfaces.
The FAQ must work on the least common denominator.

Guidelines for moderation: proposing, accounting, etc.

Sci and the sci-oriented comp groups should probably mostly be moderated.
Separate open form groups can be created (name.d, d for discussion).
Talk groups should almost never be moderated.  If free speech is an issue,
then you should make it a talk group.  Rec and other groups can consider
moderation.  As one more option, you can proposed two groups: the primary one
moderated, the secondary one for discussion.  You will notice quite a
few groups with *.d endings (others do not: e.g., rec.arts.movies.reviews
& rec.arts.movies).  A bogus free speech argument would ask to list good
moderated groups (comp.risks: selections published hardcopy in CACM,
comp.compilers: 85% of the posts published in book form, comp.research.japan:
NSF funding for two years, rec.humor.funny is also published in hardcopy,
etc.).   They are out there, and they are good.

A real problem is that few people comprehend the number of news groups.
We have people who don't know how to propose a news.group, but also
propose groups which already exist.  There appears to be no way around this.

Copyright.
Face it, FAQs should not be copywritten.  Or they should be copywritten with
the greatest of copy permissions possible.  It's a public document (right?),
and if you are going to post it, you have to assume it's going to get every
where you would not want it, so ignore it.  Murphy's law will hold.
Credit can be due to authors, but it's a community document.

Usenet Self-Moderation Project

O.B.I.T.
Outer Band Individuated Teletracer

Grover: It *watches*, saps the very spirit.  And the worse thing of
all is *I* watch it.  I can't *not* look.  It's like a drug -- a horrible drug
You can't resist it.  It's an addiction.
...
Lomax: The machines are everywhere!  Oh, you'll find them all; you're a
zealous people.  And you'll make a great show out of smashing a few
of them, but for every one you destroy, hundreds of others will be built,
and they'll demoralize you, break your spirit, create such rifts and
tensions in your society that no one will be able to repair them!
You're a savage, despairing planet.  And when we come to live here, you 
friendless, demoralized flotsam will fall without even a single shot
being fired.  You're all of the same dark persuasion.  You demand, *insist*
on knowing every private thought and hunger in everyone -- your families,
your neighbors, *everyone* but *yourselves!*