strathspey Archive: FAQ or Newsgroup ?

Hallo !

I have just heard about the mailing-list.
So maybe you can tell me:
- is there something like a FAQ somewhere?
- is there also a newsgroup ?

Thanks, Anja M. Girards

Anja Girards <gir%grsmbh@mhsgw.grs.de> writes:

> - is there something like a FAQ somewhere?

Not yet. Feel free to write one :^)

Seriously, I've made a first stab at this when I had an evening off some
time last spring. I never got around to finishing it. Any takers?

> - is there also a newsgroup ?

Not yet, either. With currently around 300 subscribers and a message
volume of 5-10 per day, it's probably quite comfortable as a mailing list.
The machine I run the mail software on also seems to be able to cope.
If it gets a lot bigger than this (say, 500 people and double the
traffic) we could start the ball rolling for rec.dancing.scottish or
whatever -- but even then we'd want to keep the mailing list around
for those who can't or don't read Usenet.

Anselm
--
Anselm Lingnau ......................... lingnau@tm.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de
VMS is great. We run VMS on all of our workstations. The great thing about it
is that no one else in the department ever wants to use them. --- Ryan Reed

------- =_aaaaaaaaaa0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

> VMS is great. We run VMS on all of our workstations. The great thing abo=
ut it
> is that no one else in the department ever wants to use them. --- Ry=
an Re
ed
> =

Das gef=E4llt mir!!!

------- =_aaaaaaaaaa0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Description: The Signature

Christoph Trautwein email trautw@fzi.de
X-URI: http://www.fzi.de/sim/people/trautw/index.html
FZI Forschungszentrum Informatik phone +49-721-9654-414
FZI,Haid-und-Neu-Str. 10-14, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany fax +49-721-9654-474
X400: C=de; A=d400-gw; P=fzi; S=trautw
* PLEASE USE PGP TO ENCRYPT EMAILS! Please use MIME formatted EMails. *

------- =_aaaaaaaaaa0--

Out of ignorance. Because I suspect LOTS of people in the group don't
know and I've never been afraid to ask a question out of my own ignorance:

What's a FAQ?

Thanks.
paul

------- =_aaaaaaaaaa0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

> Out of ignorance. Because I suspect LOTS of people in the group don't
> know and I've never been afraid to ask a question out of my own ignorance:
>
> What's a FAQ?

This is the most FAQ (frequently asked question) of the world! ;-)

There is an archive of FAQs at rtfm.mit.edu
Btw: rtfm means: Read The F***ing Manual

------- =_aaaaaaaaaa0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Description: The Signature

Christoph Trautwein email trautw@fzi.de
X-URI: http://www.fzi.de/sim/people/trautw/index.html
FZI Forschungszentrum Informatik phone +49-721-9654-414
FZI,Haid-und-Neu-Str. 10-14, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany fax +49-721-9654-474
X400: C=de; A=d400-gw; P=fzi; S=trautw
* PLEASE USE PGP TO ENCRYPT EMAILS! Please use MIME formatted EMails. *

------- =_aaaaaaaaaa0--

Hi Paul,

A FAQ is a list of Frequently Asked Questions together with answers. The idea
comes from newsgroups and is to stop people who have just come to the group from
annoying the group by asking the questions that everyone asks when they join -
they can just pick up a copy of the FAQ and get the answers from there.

Cheers,

Ian

PS (for the sake of the original poster) A trawl through the past postings may
give you some idea of what has been asked and discussed. They are on the Web at
off the strathspey home page at
http://www.tm.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de/strathspey/

>What's a FAQ?

The acronym stands for Frequently Asked Questions. When a mailing
list/newsgroup/whatever
maintains one of these, it's an attempt to avoid the same question
reappearing often. It can
answer such questions as lists of vendors, lists of events, and just
exactly where Madonna
lives.

John

John W. McCain, RCDD
Lansing, MI, USA

Thanks, John.

paul

To Everyone Who Answered my FAQ (even in the future):

Thanks.

paul

Fac is the sound that intelligent ducks make when they are at a convention.
Sylvia

paul@skye.as.utexas.edu (Paul Hemenway) writes:

> What's a FAQ?

On many newsgroups, the same questions get asked over and over again
and usually elicit wrong answers. In order to counter this, many newsgroups
collect these questions (and answers) and publish them pre-cooked. The
document that contains these questions (and answers) is normally called
FAQ, as in `Frequently Asked (and Answered) Questions'.

Needless to say, this doesn't really work. It turns out that, once people
do ask questions that are in the FAQ, there are lots of replies and
followups along the lines of `Can't you read, dumbo? It's in the FAQ,
question 314, and the answer is ...' in addition to all the usual
(wrong) answers that are still being posted by people who haven't read
the FAQ themselves (or can't remember any of it).

That doesn't mean that an FAQ isn't useful for the people who *do* pay
attention. I could imagine sending out an FAQ posting (or, at least,
an FAQ table of contents) to everybody when they first subscribe to
the mailing list. This could serve as a supplement to the usual
introductory post most of you should have seen, and give more detail
on the Strathspey server, for example. Sigh. If only there were 48 hours
in a day...

Anselm