Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!hao!oddjob!gargoyle!ihnp4!homxb!mhuxt!mhuxm!mhuxo!ulysses!terminus!nyssa
From: nyssa@terminus.UUCP (The Prime Minister)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: frequently asked questions
Message-ID: <2289@terminus.UUCP>
Date: 29 Dec 87 16:09:27 GMT
References: <25@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu>
Reply-To: nyssa@terminus.UUCP (The Brickyard)
Organization: Terminus
Lines: 39

In article <25@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu> grady@postgres.Berkeley.EDU (Steven Grady) writes:
>     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. ...
>                                               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.

This has been done in rec.arts.drwho.

There was a group of frequently asked questions, such as "Can there
ever be a woman Doctor?".  I took the most common answers, and now,
once per month, I post the frequently asked questions.  I also post
a convention list and an explanation of the postings.  This has been
going on since summer.

Originally, I also posted a series of files which could be bulky, but
which would be of interest to Doctor Who fans.  These included a program
guide, an article on companions, Tom Baker's scarf patterns, etc.
Due to the volume, I dropped these from the monthly postings and
established an archive facility.  Anyone can request one of these
files in a mail message, and it will be forwarded to them.  (Assuming
either (a) my mailer can understand their address or (b) they provide
a good address via a "Send-To:" line in the message.)  A list of this
archive is sent out with the monthly postings.

The scripts that I use are rather simple, the monthly posting is just
three lines long.  The server is longer, but it has to handle the
addressing, etc.  If anyone wants to see them, all the need do is ask.



In short, the idea of a "newsgroup archive" is not a bad idea, but it
does need someone willing to handle the work.  Set up was time consuming;
but running it is now almost entirely automated...