The FAQ (was Re: Creating an Admin Handbook)

[Marc Fonvieille]

On Tue, Jul 20, 2004 at 01:26:04PM -0400, Tom Rhodes wrote:
> 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.
>

I was not clear in my message: of course the FAQ is not a detailled
documentation to set up your system etc. it's a FAQ.  On this point you
cannot compare it with the Handbook.  I was talking about the fact
people hardly use/read it.  A lot of questions asked on the various
mailing lists, newsgroups, etc.  around the world are still the same
and are documented in the FAQ: for example allowing ordinary users to
mount a disk, booting with the win2k/xp/etc. loader, recovering a
forgotten root password, etc...  As I said it "seems" people, when they
read a doc, only read the Handbook.  I was just "afraid" of the fact
splits could give birth of docs too much different, I mean with a
an important separation between each book, the reader spending his time
switching between books or reading one book only.  It's why I think
having a general table of contents may be a good idea.

Marc

Marc