I have lurked for many weeks, watching the numerous threads about 1) what to do with the newbies frequently asking questions, 2) the illegal music-traders posting ISOs for taper-unfriendly artists, and 3) the flamers flaming each other and anyone who dares to raise their head above the lip of the trench... but I have a thought (or perhaps a part of one).
Surely some of us have visited the alt.binaries.sounds.*.mp3 newsgroups on the Usenet. They have an interesting way of dealing with FAQs and newbies: THEY POST THE FAQ TO THE LIST. They post it in little bits, with subject lines indicating the topic, and the message limited to a discussion of a single topic. It seems like they have a good idea, regardless of whatever other misguided practices they may be engaged in. I would suggest that such a simple and easily-maintained solution be implemented for this list. I write end-user software documentation for a living, and one of my mottoes is, "I'd rather be right than original." The problem we face has been faced and solved before. Rather than wracking our brains for the perfect solution, why don't we just adopt someone else's? The present effort to consolidate the FAQ seems like a good opportunity to make it happen. I am a digester, so I care not a whit whether I receive frequent or infrequent postings from the list moderator. Those of you who get each posting as a separate email may find this practice irritating, but a filter can easily be set up (in most email clients) that would dump all messages containing, say, "ETREE FAQ:" in the subject line. I would not mind seeing an occasional message posted to this list like "ETREE FAQ: What do all those acronyms mean?" with a discussion of the subject and links at the bottom to the main FAQ page and the Etree Help email address, etc. The entire set of FAQs could be posted on a rotating basis, over a period of time, taking maybe 4 weeks to post the whole set. (Are there 28 different topics? More? Less?). I must have too much time on my hands. I will now duck back into the trench, where the food is bad and the water foul, but where the flame lights my way, rather than burning off both my ears. Thanks for listening. DKR<end> Yahoo! Sports - Coverage of the 2002 Olympic Games http://sports.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ etree.org etree mailing list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://mail.etree.org/mailman/listinfo/etree Need help? Ask <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
