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From: murray@sun13.scri.fsu.edu (John Murray)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Sci.electronics is deteriorating! Need FAQ!
Message-ID: <1561@sun13.scri.fsu.edu>
Date: 4 Dec 90 23:39:43 GMT
References: <14647@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> <1546@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> <660304633.26876@proa.sv.dg.com>
Organization: SCRI, Florida State University
Lines: 42

In article <660304633.26876@proa.sv.dg.com> gary@proa.sv.dg.com (Gary Bridgewater) writes:
>In article <1546@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> murray@sun13.scri.fsu.edu (John Murray) writes:
>>Is is time to add a FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions periodic posting to
>>this group?
>
>Yes. Please.
>
>>That's all I can think of off the bat. Should this be done? If yes, what
>>else should be included?
>
[...several good suggestions for things to include, but...]

..Hmm, good suggestions, but we can easily overdo the FAQ thing.  If
we give new readers a 3,000 line FAQ post to read, we'll just get the
same topics from people who didn't bother to read it, or read the first
1/4 of it and gave up.

My opinion is a single short FAQ would be a good start, with the later
addition of supplemental posts covering specific topics (VCR's and other
consumer electronics, LED's, EPROM programmers, etc.)

Your opinion?...

I don't think we'll be able to eliminate the noise in a high traffic
group like this with any amount of FAQ postings. In comp.graphics, for
example, I occasionally see questions answered with direct quotes from
the FAQ. And over there we still get "how do I do raytracing on my plain
vanilla IBM-PC" (answer - don't try it, you'll die of old age before it
completes :-)

We CAN do our best to reduce the noise to a tolerable level, though...

>-- 
>Gary Bridgewater, Data General Corporation, Sunnyvale California
>gary@sv.dg.com or {amdahl,aeras,amdcad}!dgcad!gary
>C++ - it's the right thing to do.

-- 
Disclaimer: Yeah, right, like you really believe I run this place.
John R. Murray              |        "Never code anything
murray@vsjrm.scri.fsu.edu   |          bigger than your head.."
Supercomputer Research Inst.|               - Me


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