BKFAQMOS.RVW 961017 "The FAQ Manual of Style", Russell Shaw, 1996, 1-55828-498-2, U$24.94/C$34.95 %A Russell Shaw %C 115 West 18th Street, New York, NY 10011-4195 %D 1996 %G 1-55828-498-2 %I MIS Press %O U$24.94/C$34.95 +1-212-886-9378 fax: +1-212-633-0748, +1-212-807-6654 %O 76712.2644@compuserve.com http://www.mispress.com fburke@fsb.superlink.net %P 287 %T "The FAQ Manual of Style" The net is doubling in population every year. That means every second person on the net has been there less than a year. Some newcomers aren't too thrilled with the net, but most are enthralled with the ability to find, and interact with, groups of people discussing a common interest, however arcane your interests may be. Given the wealth of "newbies" entering the Internet all the time, existing discussion groups get flooded with questions. The *same* questions. Time after time after time. Questions, in other words, that get asked frequently. Hence FAQs, or lists of Frequently Asked Questions, with the attendant answers. The original FAQs were spawned in an attempt to reduce the bandwidth consumed (and annoyance generated) by these endless questions. FAQs quickly became reference materials in and of themselves, as well as fulfilling their initial role of educating novices. The writing and maintenance of a FAQ can be a significant chore. I participate in one FAQ maintained by committee, contribute to a few others, and maintain one of my own. Recently, however, the FAQ format has been used to produce different types of documents. These newer FAQs tend to be more commercially oriented, being used to introduce a company or product, or to serve in place of technical documentation. It is these pseudo-FAQs that Shaw is primarily interested in. The book does provide some common sense advice that those not long familiar with the net could easily miss. There are suggestions on advertising, marketing, and the restriction of documents to a "user-friendly" size. Shaw does touch on the more traditional documents (which he refers to as "Newsgroup" FAQs). His advice there, however, is quite limited. As an example, the biggest problem facing a FAQ maintainer is deciding what to include. Shaw's answer? This is "a judgement call based almost entirely on instinct and experience." copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKFAQMOS.RVW 961017 ====================== roberts@decus.ca rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@vanisl.decus.ca I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use - Galileo Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" 0-387-94663-2 (800-SPRINGER)
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