The FAQ (was Re: Creating an Admin Handbook)

[Tom Rhodes]

On Tue, 20 Jul 2004 14:47:25 +0000
Murray Stokely <murray at freebsd.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 20, 2004 at 04:07:59PM +0200, Marc Fonvieille wrote:
> > Why FAQ is not really used/read?  It's difficult to answer to that
> > question but I assume cause it's less "famous" and cause the human being
> > is lazy, it's an effort to go read the Handbook, so switching to the FAQ
> > is too much :) and since the FAQ is not linked (and not detailled) from
> > the Handbook, people ignore it.  It's not wrong to tell that a lot of
> > people ignore the FAQ exists. (I know there is an old project to
> > link/merge the FAQ in a dynamic way with the Handbook)
> > The more you split a document the more you will fell in a such
> > situation.
> 
> I don't think it's a fair comparison since the FAQ is written in a
> much less formal style than the rest of our documentation.  It is also
> HUGE for a 'FAQ' and people just aren't used to wading through such a
> huge list of boring error messages that don't apply to them, and
> information about pieces of hardware they've never heard of before
> they get to something that is relevant for them.

Most user *I* have conversations with have stated that they
avoid the FAQ completely in favor of the more thorough
instruction provided by the handbook.  Only after double
checking their steps with the handbook will they check the
FAQ, google, lists, etc.

-- 
Tom Rhodes