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From: cfbd@southern.co.nz (Colin Douthwaite)
Subject: Re: Time for a new FAQ?
Date: 1997/11/04
Message-ID: <63nm0e$18p$1@mnementh.southern.co.nz>#1/1
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References: <345C0907.165F@spamfree.land> <345D943E.421B@mpq.mpg.de>
Organization: Southern InterNet Services
Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art


Andreas Freise (adf@mpq.mpg.de) wrote:

> I only insist on adding Alan Muller's Link List  
> http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/2695/links.htm and (why not for 
> heaven's sake) Joan Stark's site http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7373/ 
> to the URL list. 

> (Colin? Do you read this?) 

Yes. 

Being lazy I have always preferred mainly just to repost existing 
FAQ material...that's easier and all work on the Net is purely voluntary. 

The problem with URLs and Archive Sites is that they are constantly
changing and disappearing so putting them in FAQs means that the
FAQ maintainer has to be relied on to keep the URLs up to date -
a thankless and often impossible task.

I was never prepared to attempt to do FAQ maintenance so I added 
disclaimers to the old FAQs stating that the existence and 
correctness of Archives and Archive sites could not be guaranteed.

Personally I prefer Site Archivists and Homepage Owners to make 
their own announcements rather than having a list of site references
in FAQs.

Also FAQ authors and maintainers frequently disappear so that the 
FAQs become old and historical. Like everyone else these people 
volunteer their work and have no obligation to continue it.

There are many FAQs automatically posted monthly to the "news.answers" 
newsgroup which have not been revised in years.

Bob Allison used to post his FAQ to "news.answers" but it disappeared
once he had resigned as moderator of rec.arts.ascii. Bob Allison ( 
Scarecrow ) was perceived to be immortal but burnt out after only
2 years or so.

3 years is like an Era on the Net and anything that survives longer 
than that is somewhat unusual...nothing lasts forever in this medium.

Bye,