Re: New comp.sys.apple2 groups!

[ddkilzer@iastate.edu (David D Kilzer)]

taob@r-node.hub.org (Brian Tao) writes:

>    Maintaining a FAQ is hard work if you want to do a good job at it. 
>I think the once-monthly posting tradition has evolved so that the
>maintainer doesn't have to worry about when to post what.  You just
>upload the whole shot all at once.

Yes.  People still manage to miss it, even then, so it's good to post it
on a regular basis.

>    Now's a good time to rethink the FAQ format.  I haven't looked at
>the csa2 FAQ recently, but I think recomposing it in news-digest format
>would be a good idea.  This makes it easier to search for pertinent
>information and some news reader software can break down a digest into
>individual "articles" for easy browsing.  Each mini-article has its own
>set of headers.  For example:

>------------------------------
>Subject: [2.1.1] Transferring files from Apple II to Macintosh
>From: taob@r-node.hub.org (Brian Tao)
>Date: Fri Jun 11 00:50:01 1993 EST
>Keywords: apple file exchange, hfs fst, macintosh, file transfers

><Text goes here...>

>------------------------------
>Subject: [2.1.2] Transferring files from Apple II to MS-DOS
><etc.>

>    The "Subject" header will contain the section number in square
>brackets and a descriptive title which matches its entry in the table of
>contents.  The "From" header will contain the address of whoever
>contributed the article (not necessarily the maintainer).  The "Date"
>header shows the last time the article was updated, and the optional
>"Keywords" field will help in text searches.

>    There is a specific news-digest format outlined in one of the RFC's.
>Anyone using software that recognizes news-digest format (e.g., nn) will
>get a nice list of subjects and authors and can choose any article as if
>they were in separate messages.  Most of the csa2 FAQ is already
>compartmentalized, so converting it to news-digest form shouldn't be too
>difficult.  Comments?

YES! YES! YES!  This is what I was thinking about, but I didn't know
what it was called.  This would be the perfect format for a FAQ.

The comp.sys.apple2 FAQ also needs to be cleaned up just a bit...it's a
little hard to read now (no offense to Dan DeMaggio,
dmag@caen.engin.umich.edu, who's done a superb job keeping it up to
date).

Dave
-- 
David D. Kilzer               \                ST:TNG _Relics_
Computer Engineer 3           /       Capt. Montgomery Scott ("Scotty")
ddkilzer@iastate.edu          \   "I may be a captain by rank, but I never
Iowa State University, Ames   /    wanted to be anything but an engineer."