Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!apctrc!zjat02 From: zjat02@apctrc.trc.amoco.com (Jon A. Tankersley) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: Frequently asked questions in these groups deserve a monthly posting Message-ID: <910@apctrc.UUCP> Date: 10 Jun 89 05:04:45 GMT References: <21089@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> <810059@hpsemc.HP.COM> Sender: news@apctrc.UUCP Reply-To: zjat02@apctrc.UUCP (Jon A. Tankersley) Organization: Amoco Production Company, Tulsa Research Center Lines: 27 I think that there are a couple of 'solutions' available here. 1) Modify existing readers to make a 'first-time-use' check like rn does. Tell the first time readers about the more common FAQ's and ask them to read them. (Won't work. People never read signs :-(). Also recommend they read the Usenet News intro documents. 2) Set up an easy set of 'aliases' or commands for the old-timers to email to a neophyte +/- flames, their choice. 3) With the posting, post an update kill file for the old-timers, or if the FAQ questions are delimited in some 'specific' fashion, we can craft a tool to generate the kill file from the FAQ. 1) could be accomplished by a fairly simple front end shell script. 2) could be done in a shell script also, run from within the reply. 3) would be real nice and would trim the chaff out. Might require some extra smarts though. /[Rr]ecursive/ && / ls[$ ]/ Kill would get the "How do you do a recursive ls" and leave "recursive panels". An established format for the FAQ questions would enable us to modify the kill file easily. Since the FAQ is just text, something like "###QUESTION###" delimiting each one would make it real easy to hack something together to generalize a kill file. Or even "###QUESTION###keyword keyword keyword.........$ would enable the smarter kill request to be formed. Comments? -tank- #include /* nobody knows the trouble I .... */ tank@apctrc.trc.amoco.com ..!uunet!apctrc!tank