Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!rutgers!sri-spam!ames!ucbcad!pasteur!postgres!grady
From: grady@postgres (Steven Grady)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: frequently asked questions
Message-ID: <25@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu>
Date: 28 Dec 87 22:18:42 GMT
Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu
Reply-To: grady@postgres.Berkeley.EDU (Steven Grady)
Organization: Postgres Research Group, UC Berkeley
Lines: 46


     I have been USENET  reader for about 3  years, and I  notice
there  are  a  large   number  of  frequently  asked   questions,
considerably  more  than  appear  in  the  news.announce.newusers
document.  Each newsgroup  has its own  questions, many of  which
spark off exactly  the same  discussion every  time the  question
comes up.  Also,  there always follow the  same old flames  about
posting the same old  questions.  Not only  is this annoying  for
the people who've read it before,  but it increases the noise  to
signal ratio.  Just as an example,  it took me about 1 minute  to
come up with these:

comp.emacs: Where can I get {GNU emacs, MicroEmacs, Jove}?
comp.os.minix: What is minix?  Where can I get minix?
comp.unix.wizards: Isn't rm * terrible?
comp.windows.x: Where can I get X?  How does X compare with NeWS?
rec.arts.startrek: "One to the fourth power"
rec.games.misc: How can I get the Babelfish in HHGttG? How do I solve 
		zork[1-3]?
rec.puzzles: about a hundred common puzzles
rec.humor: about a thousand common jokes

     I think I could come up with a dozen more with a few minutes
thought.

     One solution is  to add  more questions  to the  "frequently
asked questions"  list in  new.announce.newusers, but  I  suspect
that article would get  too bulky far too  quickly, to the  point
where a new user would be  intimidated by it.  I propose  instead
that some mechanism be devised for each newsgroup to have a  list
of FAQs.  I am not  very familiar with the news software  (except
inews, but that's another story), so I have no idea how it  would
be implemented, but I suspect it might be worthwhile.

     I do see some problems, such  as how to prevent these  lists
from getting too  long ("Oh,  but MY joke  is funny  - it  should
DEFINITELY be included in the canonical list of frequently posted
lightbulb jokes"), but I believe they are not insurmountable.

     I have some further thoughts on the matter, but first I want
to hear if other people agree with me, or if the idea has already
been considered.

	Steven
	grady@postgres.berkeley.edu
	...!ucbvax!grady