Re: 3.5 A9M0106 use

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) writes...

>spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector) wrote:
>
>>>A new FAQ keeper has been registered with news.announce.
>>>
>>>The new FAQs have just been posted and showed up on AOL's
>>>news server.  Look for them.
>>
>>    Just the same, anyone looking for the old official FAQ's (written
>>by Nathan Mates) can still find them at: http://www.apple2.org/faq
>
>Or http://www.dejanews.com/ DejaNews via a search for
>posts using a search of comp.sys.apple2, the word FAQ,
>and Nathan's email address.

    Yep, but they're easier to access and view through Tony Diaz's
Apple II web page. His page is also Lynx friendly and _all_ the
FAQ's are grouped there together, so no need to do searches.

>>    I still recommend those to new and old users as they're much more
>>accurate and error-free, in addition to being better organized and
>>straight forward. I'm not trying to discredit Rubywand's FAQ's, but
>>as they currently stand (made up mostly of post clippings from this
>>group) they're better suited as supplimentary reading material than
>>an outright replacement to Nathan's FAQ(s). That's just my opinion.
>
>I disagree.  Rubywand's FAQ (now the official FAQ as far as
>usenet's news.answers is concerned) is overall more accurate.

    Well I, and several other people for that matter, disagree.

>So what if it is made up of clippings from us.  We give good
>answers.

    That is the problem. It's made up of post clipping without
asking the author's permission (although that is another issue)
and without checking to see if the information is correct. A
lot of the time people post misinformation or errors here--in
fact I even do myself from time to time, no one is perfect.
I don't like seeing what I post made into a FAQ until I can
verify what I said contains no errors.

    Why not just go research topics in Dejanews for that matter?
It'd be the same thing, although you get to see follow-ups where
other opinions or corrections were made to the original author's
posting.

>If something is wrong Mitch, then speak up and Rubywand corrects it.

    There are dozens of errors and inaccuraries, it'd be easier
to just rewrite the FAQ from scratch than correct all the errors.
Come to think of it, one of the reasons I started my IIgs FAQ was
Nathan's FAQ lacked any _really_ detailed IIgs information, so I
decided to do my own (I just have to find the time to get back to
work on it ;)

>I just caught some problems with the info on the Laser in the FAQ
>and Rubywand acted to correct the problem right away.  By the way,
>that entry existed from the pre-Nathan FAQ, so it existed in Nathan's
>as well as Rubywand's FAQ.  Now that it is fixed, this is one more
>area where Rubywand's FAQ is more accurate.

    Well I've sent in corrections before, but as a collection of
post clippings, it is constantly growing and more and more errors
keep popping up. So for every 1 error corrected, another 20 pop
up. I think more work needs to be done on correcting errors than
expanding the FAQ.

>And how about the accelerator FAQ?  Notice that Tony
>isn't using Nathan's accelerator FAQ anymore?  That's
>because Nathan's accelerator info is out of date and dead
>wrong.  As time goes by, more and more of Nathan's FAQ
>will be inaccurate.  Best to use Rubywand's.

    Nathan never wrote that FAQ, he just took over as maintainer
and did little or nothing to update it (or the Music and Sound
FAQ for that matter). I'm talking about his comp.sys.apple2 FAQ,
of which great chunks were totally rewritten from the ground up
and new sections added.

>If you think a FAQ can't be made of clippings from usenet,
>check out the SCSI FAQ.  That FAQ keeper did the same
>thing.  There is nothing wrong with the practice.

    I didn't say they can't be made that way, but when they are,
I would think you need to get permission to use each post *and*
have the common sense to check and double check that information
is accurate before adding it. I feel there is too much importance
being placed on volume of information than accuracy, they're just
growing too fast.

    In any case, both sets of FAQ's are available online, people
can look at both and choose which ever they prefer (or use both,
which gives you the best of both worlds--facts layed out like a
reference manual and individual user experiences).

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca