FAQ Updates

[Mark Linimon]

On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 09:50:47AM -0400, Jordan Sissel wrote:
> The handbook would be an excellent place for such information! Great way
> to consolidate most of the "how to use FreeBSD" information even better
> into one location. Etc, etc. Preaching to the choir, eh?

Yeah, really this has been discussed several times in the past and there
are several people who want things to head in this direction, but each
of them has other higher-priority items.  (read: I personally am way to
overcommitted to do this ...)

> Would the FAQ work like this, then?

> Q: How do I do *foo*?
> A: Check out *this* (with a happy link) entry in the handbook!

Well, my own view (which may be a minority one) is that the FAQ should
be more like:

Q: What are (the goals|the development process|<xyz>) of the FreeBSD
   Project?
A: <answer from existing FAQ here>

Q: How do I find out information about how *foo*?
A: Check out *this* (with a happy link) entry in the handbook!

And not have very many entries of the latter form.

This would reduce the size of the FAQ about 80% (and in the process make
it readable again).

> If so, then how should the new entries into the handbook be organized?
> The handbook thus far seems to be a very neatly organized set of articles
> relating to a large number of topics. Most articles being at least a page
> long. With FAQ entries being usually 2-5 sentence answers, typically not
> meriting a whole article for dedication.

Well no one has come to a consensus on that yet.  Larger chunks of text
should possibly be their own section.  One suggestion was that perhaps
a mini-FAQ at the end of each section.

But again, since I don't have a prototype for where the information
_ought_ to go (I do have an older prototype* of what the FAQ would look
like with the information _removed_), basically you shouldn't listen
to me until I do so :-)

It's just what I would like to see happen.

mcl

(* very, very, very, rough draft:
 http://people.freebsd.org/~linimon/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/ )