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How To Build And Maintain A Good FAQ
comforteagle writes "FAQs have been around since the beginning of the web & most of them still suck. Most of us who build FAQs rely on handcrafting them, but this really isn't necessary anymore. Sean Kerner has written The FAQs on FAQs as an introduction to getting up to speed fast with a FAQ, letting opensource software do the majority of the work, and allowing the author to concentrate on providing good answers. He shortly reviews a few apps, but settles on phpMyFAQ."
Oh, FAQ off.
Base the FAQ on actual questions that have been asked, don't make it a propaganda document that leaves more questions than it answers.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
All we need now is The FAQs on FAQs on FAQs.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
FAQs have been around since the beginning of the web & most of them still suck
That's because most smart people on the net do not include the really Frequently Asked Questions in the FAQS
FAQs have been around since the beginning of the web & most of them still suck
While I agree with the second part of this statement, FAQs significantly pre-date the web. They were certainly common back in the pre-Web Internet days of Usenet newsgroups - I contributed to several back in the late 80s. Did they start with Usenet, or do they predate that too? Perhaps we need a FAQ FAQ?
Now I feel old.
Sailing over the event horizon
But how do we know that this FAQ is a good FAQ on how to make an FAQ? I guess I should read the FAQ which is something that is coded into me not to do.
a FAQ on FAQs... this PA strip comes to mind.
A great supplement to the HOWTO-FAQ and Readme-FAQ documents...
FAQs have existed for a long time before the web (eg, the FAQs for the various newsgroups), and they worked well before becoming fancy.
The comp.lang.c FAQ is probably the best example. It is rather big, and has always been so as long as I can remember. It is also pretty usable, even when it is viewed as a single flat document. You just need something to search it, whether it is more, emacs, or a browser.
(S(SKK)(SKK))(S(SKK)(SKK))
One thing which should be obvious: do not change the URL of your FAQ over the years, or if really you must do so at least put a redirect.
People love to bookmark stuff and it is no good when one finds out that his few-year-old bookmarks are dead or 404.
The FAQ should be written by your tech support people, not the marketing people. In fact the marketing guys shouldn't be allowed to look at it. There's nothing worse than having some problem with a product and going to the FAQ and seeing stuff like:
Q: Is this product fully buzzword compliant?
A: Yes! We have integrated full buzzward compliance into this product.
Q: How fast is this product?
A: The product is the fastest in the industry!
GRR! All I want is some help trying to figure out how to set some option with your horrible interface.
Many times you can search the web and find a _real_ FAQ, written by users, that gives you actual information. Unfortunatly, those FAQs are the ones that get taken down by the same corporate douchebags that wrote the useless FAQ.
I read the internet for the articles.
They'd have to go into a FUQ
ever want to slap someone for saying it Eff Ay Queue, rather than fack?
When will people learn?
The best FAQs predate the "web" and originated on usenet. They were extremely useful documents probably because they were not designed to be useful, they were designed to prevent the asking of stupid (I mean frequently asked) questions.
This means the best FAQs are not made up of questions that someone thinks will be useful, they are made up of questions that are actually frequently asked. Also, the best answers are not the answers that some marketer or geek would like to give, they are the answers that will make the question go away.
Put another way, good FAQs are not just another way to organize informations, the honestly are Frequently Asked Questions...plus answers that frequently satisfy those questioners.
How to maintain them? They same way one compiles them--by surveying the questions that get asked.
Make it as long as you possibly can. Do not include silly things like examples, common usage etc. Never, ever talk in plain english and include as much technical jargon as possible. Force people to use the internet for solutions, because there, people use people language.
:P
J/K I love man pages.
Would this be useful for an online store maybe?
I might add it to my store I guess if it's good.
Side note:
Take my survey (http://www.clickycart.com/survey/) if you would like to help us decide what to sell and what payment methods to accept.
contrary to its title, the article is not in the traditional form of an FAQ.
It's honestly not as hard as people make it out to be. I usually come across 3 types of FAQ: 1) The funny one. The guy thinks he's the most hilarious person on the planet, and asks questions (of himself) like "Are you a devil-worshipper?". Pointless waste of time. 2) The honest one. The guy probably hasn't been asked many questions, so the FAQ is sparse and useless. 3) The "substitution for a manual" one. The guy either thinks his software (or website) is so incredibly complex that NOBODY will ever figure ANYTHING out... or they don't think the user will read a manual. The bottom line is - you get a couple of people to use (whatever it is) for an hour or so. Anything there, you put in. The rest, you let run. Stop annoying us with 50 page FAQs for some stupid blog website, ok?!
When you use a FAQ with a search facility, and it comes up with some answer to your question, followed by a question asking "Was that answer useful? [Yes] [No]", you can bet without reading the answer that:
1) The answer is invariably completely bad and off-topic
2) You can click on "No" all you want, no-one gives a shit about your end-user experience at the other end, since the FAQ never improves
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Most "decent" and frequent software questions from most "smart" users have to do with bugs of ambiguity or other problems that come from either poor documentation, poor software, or both.
I expect the same can be said of the FAQs of many products and interest areas. So the real problem facing an FAQ maintainer is - when they have such control at least - the correction of the problems the FAQ(s) bring to light. In this case, a database makes sense when it links in to the database of acknolwledged bugs or defects with the product or area of interest.
In the case of interest-area FAQs, like rec.woodworking or rec.scuba or rec.your.car, a traditional database makes more sense; you often have no way of fixing something that isn't yours to fix, so you offer advice. But even here, the "current" top-rated FAQ may not always be the most helpful. So one needs to allow a knob or two to keep some FAQs at the top of the list, or otherwise locate them in an obvious place where they are easy to find.
Ultimately I find Google to be my current search-for-the-FAQ-of-the-moment tool, and I sift through the results for what will help me get what I need done.
This is what pisses me off about the way the current computing works - it's been, what, 20 years that computing has been commoditized and we are still fscking around with things like these.
/etc/somefile.conf" at least once a day.
:-)
And of course it's not only this (actually I'm very interested in this because I'm currently using announcement-type postings and a PHP-based forum software instead of dedicated FAQ pages).
What has been annoying me since 1992 is that back then I used to screw around with Windows 3.1 config files (remember WinSock/dial-up?) and today's software is not much different - yeah, we have Apt and Yum, but even so I still have to "vi
So I ask: what is going on? And I answer: something is very wrong!
Will we ever move to the next level?
Will we ever have self-documenting software?
And look at these geniuses - http://www.phpmyfaq.de/ - they have no link to their own FAQ on their front page..
I was wondering if anyone else caught the irony. That did not pose any frequently asked questions or pretend to present any answers to any questions. I think he wrote it just to piss us off.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
What is your name? What is your granma's middlename? Where can I get potato burrito are not the questions to answer in FAQ.
Put only "What is the $product/$process?", "Where can I get $product/$product doc/$process doc?". Remaining should be "How do I..." and "Why is $this happening?" questions.
All too often FAQs (and for that matter User Manuals) are simply reminders to those who already know how to use a particular product, rather than aiming for the beginning user.
... though it could have been handled in about two paragraphs (including file names and likely URLs). It does nothing toward encouraging writing useful reference material, nor toward steering manual updates to include information requested in the FAQs. If the material is "already in the manual", perhaps it's lost in the noise.
/. the ONLY folks on the web getting things right for a change ... that'll fix 'em).
... code is cool, code is sexy; documentation on the other hand is for those beneath the coder's horizion. I know ... transfer ALL the tech support calls directly to the programmer.
... much to the embarassment of the programmer).
By their very nature, FAQs (and manuals) are written by the programmer (only in your dreams!) or by someone who already has hands on experience with the product.
The very best FAQs (and manuals) come when people comfortable communicating with others write the manual WITH THE ASSISTANCE of someone technical (to get the details straight). Sadly, these times are few and far between.
Adding to this problem is the problem of (almost) nobody reading the manual (for which the acronym RTFM has entered the lexicon). Who wants to put all that effort into a reference document that will (for the most part) be ignored?
The article was a nice breeze-thru review of tools to help generate FAQs
A more useful article would be on what makes a great FAQ, with examples (yes,
Alas
*****
And yes, I HAVE done my tour on the help desk, I have beta tested software releases (including following the release notice instructions
I agree with previous comments that if you keep the marketing droids out of the FAQ, it will be a better document ... and would suggest you should have a tie-in to the tech support folks so that (as the "F" part suggests) when you get a lot of similar questions, you just pop a good/correct/complete answer in there - this is exactly the approach I've used with my BBQ Grill FAQ
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
While an FAQ may be part of a KB, I think that many here are in fact using FAQ in reference to something more like "help files."
Awhile back I built a support or "knowledgebase" (kb) web-based tool. It allows articles to be searched based on topic, keyword, body contents, etc.
While it could include a basic FAQ section, the KB is generally more useful. For example, a question like:
"How do I change my firefox start page", could be referenced with keywords "firefox" "browser" "start page" "home"
Provided the user enters 1-2 of the above in search, the results will probably display the revelant FAQ article in regards to what he/she was looking for.
We inform you that those reponsible for the sacking those who where responsible for sacking those responible of the FAQ on the FAQs on the FAQs have been sacked.
(Python rocks! no, not the language...)
Add a database and some level of interactivity and you should be able to improve on the old list of questions.
#1. Some way to add a question. This serves two functions:
#1a. The most obvious. It gets new questions on the FAQ.
#1b. Even if you know it is exactly like another question already covered. Different people ask the same question in different fashions. Having multiple questions link to the same answer helps people who don't think in the same terms that you do.
#2. A method of classifying "questions" as:
a. A real question that I had.
b. Information that I found useful but would not have thought to ask.
c. Self-indulgent crap.
(add more categories that you think of)
#3. A method of ranking whether the "answer" really answers the question (this can get back to #1b where everyone doesn't think in the same terms you do).
a. +5 perfect answer - no improvement
b. good answer
c. okay answer, parts unclear
d. bad answer, much unclear or partially wrong
e. you suck! the option you mention isn't even available
#4. A method of searching the database and presenting a list for the end user based upon the end user's selections. Suppose I have some time available and I want to look at all of the "useful information" items with +5 answers.
Most developers agree that it's a PITA to maintain a FAQ... responsible developers should, but who among us is perfect? :-)
Other users usually know the answers to frequently asked questions... or have more time to feel out an answer, etc. etc. It sounds like a good application for a wiki.
Having now skimmed the article, it looks like he gives wikis a mention, but not enough face time to merit weighing the positives and negatives.
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
Seeing no screenshots of the program in action, I was hoping on seeing it working in a live environment of a FAQ of itself?
I am missing something?
I maintain(ed) a Usenet FAQ for about six years or so for Eudora/Mac
It takes effort. Since the application I was writing for was still being released, information would change with every new version. Of course, you had to keep questions specific to a certain beta version as long as they remained "frequently asked".
It also requires following the newsgroup on a very regular basis, and watching for the trends (and the questions that are getting asked a bit).
For a while I looked at things to turn the flat text file I was posting to the group into a nice HTML version. I ended up doing what I think that 90% of Usenet FAQ-writers did - did most of by hand. I just wrote the FAQ in HTML and then exported to plain-text to post and email.
Some suggestions tp anyone thinking about maintaining a Usenet FAQ:
1) Do not list your email address anywhere in it unless you want people contacting you with every question imaginable.
1a) Refer everyone who emails you to the newsgroup, even if it is an easy question. If you answer the quick question, then they email you back with a more complicated one.
2) Be honest and succinct.
3) Find a program or script to regularly post the FAQ to the newsgroup.
4) Get it set up so that you can post the FAQ to *.answers This will help with propagation and will automatically get several copies up on the web.
5) Realize it is largely a thankless job.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
Nice, an article about FAQ's, but I found it rather lacking like most FAQ's. He only mentioned liking one application, but what about a comparison of the ones he tried? Or explaining why that one instead of the other.
I found it all a bit too short to give me an idea about what he tested and concluded. Now I still have to figure out for myself what is best. (Yes, I know I would have to anyway, but most articles can be a good guide and list the strenghts and weaknesses of every application)
home
AUTO FAQ SOFTWARE OUTPUT. (Please fill in the answers as relevant to your software.)
1a Does it run on Linux?
1b Can you imagine a bewulf cluster of these?
Sounds like what our buzzword department would call a Meta FAQ.
I find it really funny that a website dedicated to the creation of FAQ's, doesn't have an FAQ page!
I'm still chuckling about that...
Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix
It's slowing down, so here's the text:
Maintaining and deploying useful FAQs can be a very tedious process. Luckily there are a number of open source FAQ generation and management tools out there that exist to try and make it a bit easier.
FAQs. No matter how you slice 'em up and package them, at the end of the day are all about content. That's where it gets a bit interesting to try and see what tool (if any) you should consider for your FAQ as there are obviously a number of different type of tools that exist to help manage content. Many of the popular open source content management will have rudimentary FAQ capabilities. That is, they'll have a module/block/content unit that is allocated in its structure for the admin to populate with content. On the other end of the spectrum are Wikis that are usually more general purpose and not specifically geared for FAQs, though often are used for that purpose.
Then of course there are the tools that supposedly have been specifically developed for FAQs, remarkably enough, these tend to have the word FAQ in their title. Projects, like FAQ-IT, Faq-O-Matic, piFAQ, makefaq and phpMyFaq populate the landscape.
For the most part though many of them are only simple page based content management tools that allow the admin to post their own list of questions and answers. Makefaq, for example, is a Python based tool that takes a text file and generates a nicely formatted FAQ page. PiFaq allows users a basic login functionality to update the FAQ remotely but it's still quite simple and basic.
FAQ-O-Matic is a bit more sophisticated in that it has a 'slicker' UI and a very usability-friendly default template, but still it's essentially a glorified text editor. Simple enough though I suppose it's still easier than manually coding pages and uploading, but who does that anymore anyway?
FAQs are of course, Frequently Asked Questions, so wouldn't it make sense for a FAQ application to be a collection of questions, user submitted or admin driven, with a top 5 listing of the most recently asked questions and a top 10 listing of the most actively viewed list of questions. That's where the "frequently" comes in.
PhpMyFAQ
That's the general idea behind phpMyFAQ which, in my opinion, stands out from the rest of the tools that claim to be FAQ focused. The version that I'm using at the time of writing this article is 1.4.1 and is licensed under the Mozilla Public License. phpMyFAQ runs on either Apache 1.3.x or 2.x, IIS, PHP 4.3.8 or greater (including PHP 5) and utilizes a MySQL database of 3.23.x or higher. Installation of phpMyFAQ is relatively straight forward, unpack the archive, set up the MySQL database and then run the included install script. It's that easy.
Setting up a FAQ in phpMyFAQ is a bit different than just a simple text file with a question and answer. This application is all about FAQ's and is, for lack of a better term, a content management system for question management. You'll notice this from the very first interface, the default template homepage, that literally shows visitors the most frequently asked and viewed questions on the site.
Users can add content, ask a question, and view open questions, as well as, search through the FAQ. Basic bread and butter stuff right? Don't worry it gets better, for the actual FAQ detail users can send the FAQ detail to a friend, view/save as a PDF, view a printer friendly version, export as XML, rate the FAQ detail and, based partially on the permission set-up by the admin, provide inline comments.
The admin interface is also jammed packed with features including user administration and tracking, database backup, export of your top 5 latest records and top 10 viewed entries to
If FAQ is 'frequently asked questions', is FAQs
1. frequently asked questionsses (like bus/busses)
2. frequentlies asked questions (like mother-in-law/mothers-in-law)
3. frequently asked questions (like sheep/sheep)
I have some suggestions for Mr. Kerner on how he could substantially improve his FAQ. I'll be crafting a FAQ later this afternoon - check here this evening for the URL.
Q What does 500 Internal Server Error An internal server error occurred. Please try again later mean?
A Your website is feeling the slashdot effect, enjoy!
---
Those who can, do
Those who can't, teach
Those who don't know how, supervise
Thats not a very fair statement. Considering how few people used/know about/even remember usenet, you're talking about a very small minority. In you were to try writing a FAQ for say, how Slashdot is run, how easy do you think it'd be to write a FAQ to avoid stupid questions? People who used to use usenet were either do-it-yourself'ers or ask a more knowledgeable friend considering the lack of support at the same.
..to RTFF?
Read the fucking FUQ?
...if I could only get past the unfortunate acronym
Wrong on 2 counts. FAQs have been around twice as long as the web. They have been around at least since the early days of Usenet.
The ones that are actually what they claim to be - a list of the most-frequently asked questions, with answers - are very useful. The purpose of a FAQ is not to answer every possible question, it is not to be an introductory guide, it is not to replace "Howto" documents... it is to collect the most frequently-asked questions about the subject, with answers that are useful to the people likely to ask those questions.
A majority of FAQs, and nearly all the ones that originated in Usenet newsgroups, still do that. And are useful.
Is it just my imagination, or are /. editors selecting more and more trollish/flamebait articles for publication, and rejecting more and more interesting/timely ones?
Some people read acronyms on the net and use their own personal pronunciation until they are corrected. However, like your friend (I had some hotshot 22 y/o *ADMIN* here say to me, "You're running Be 'Ahs' on there?") they don't know if you're saying it right either when you say "O. S." "faq" or "lihn-uks". How can you be trusted when youre the first person they've heard pronounce it, and they don't know you from beans?
Thank you.
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
FAQ?
Why does the FAQ app have no FAQ? Irony
...and it's called a 'forum'. No matter how esoteric your equipment or software there's almost certainly a forum somewhere dedicated to answering the technical questions of folks just like yourself. Unlike the FAQs of old you aren't limited to whatever's in the document; you can ask *any* question and most likely will get a half-dozen or more answers. They may not be the RIGHT answers, but then we've all run into FAQs that gave out bad information, so this isn't anything new.
And if you're a truly adventurous newbie geek you can jump into that big internet cesspool known as the Usenet and partake in even a greater number of forums covering a wide range of topics, filled with members eager to answer your questions. These people aren't any more likely to be right than the ones you find on the web forums, but they're more likely to wear their arrogance on their sleeves even when they're wrong, which makes the Usenet an inherently funnier place to ask your questions. Even the simplest of questions can spark a flamewar between several complete idiots, and there are few thing funnier than watching a bunch of egomaniacal fools argue with one other.
FAQs have a hard time competing with this sort of flexibility, and don't have the same entertainment value.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
The FAQ is a literary form, like the sonnet or the mathematics textbook. Every literary form has rules: a sonnet has a rhyme scheme; a mathematics textbook has problem sets and the phrase "left as an exercise for the reader". A sonnet is a particular form of poetry, and a person who writes one is a poet. An FAQ is a particular form of technical writing, and a person who writes one is a technical writer.
FAQs differ from other styles of technical writing in many respects. Foremost, however, is that they are written as a dialogue between novice and expert. The novice, or a collection of (imaginary or real) novices pose questions, and an expert (or aggregate of experts) responds.
Some FAQs are just that -- simple catenations of question and answer on a subject, with no particular connection between one and the next. Others group questions into broad categories, or have one question lead into another, sometimes in a long chain of increasing detail.
One difference among FAQs is how much background understanding they try to convey. Some writers presume that readers merely want shallow, rote answers to their problems: the question "I'm getting a 0x0F00 error" gets the answer "Run the reset_foo command" without further insight. Others use the FAQ form to present deeper facts about the system being documented -- using the question-and-answer format to lead the novice into deeper understanding.
One of the common misunderstandings of FAQs is to treat them as if they should be only a collection of actual questions which have been frequently asked: that the author should not "waste" the reader's time on questions which should be asked (because their answers provide insight) but are not asked (because people do not seek insight as much as they should).
This misunderstanding is an outgrowth of the peculiar form of ideological hatred which many people hold towards those who know more. Consider the computer user who proudly claims to be "computer illiterate", who believes that learning about the system he must use is beneath him. What he wants from documentation -- on the rare occasion that he deigns to read it! -- is only a rote answer to his precise question. Anything else is "wasting his time".
Why does he resent it so when anyone tries to teach him the principles upon which his system operates, so that he can solve his next problem himself? Because for the expert (or FAQ writer) to teach him principles is to tell him that the expert will not be at his beck and call to answer his next trivial question. (If you teach a man to fish, you thereby tell him that you will not hand him a fish every day.)
Teaching the underlying principles is ultimately egalitarian. It says that I, who today am the expert, will not be your servant and will not be your master. I will instead place you on the same level as myself; I will teach you what I know so that you can solve your problem as I would solve it if it were my own. This is why it is unacceptable to people who believe knowledge to be beneath them.
And this is why it is a benefit -- not a problem -- when FAQs include unasked (but worthy) questions as well as those that have been actually posed. It is a benefit, that is, to those who are actually interested in learning; and it hurts and offends those who are interested instead in the degradation of knowledge. That is a good thing.
Too many websites have FAQs that list questions the company wished users would ask. No good. FAQs have a simplistic information design that does not scale well. They must be reserved for frequently asked questions, since that's the only thing that makes a FAQ a useful website feature. Infrequently asked questions undermine users' trust in the website and damage their understanding of its navigation.
That comment comes with an appropriate cartoon.
One thing I've learned about FAQs is that the writes give F*** on what the F stands for. A FAQ should answer frequently asked questions.
Not what the authors think is frequently asked questions.
Put in what users ask about, have trouble with etc. not some lame questions invented as you deciede "we should have a FAQ".
In my day we called it a newsgroup, and FAQs were created to reduce the number of repetetive Q&A of basic, simple, and common questions.
IMHO web based forums suck because most of them have primitive search capabilities, so unless you find the correct answer on the first hit from google, you may be just as lost as search groups.google.com. They also lack indexes, and usefuliness. Too many forums are many questions and few people answering them. There is little or no reward for the person who takes time to answer questions, i.e. no reputation or quality indicator only a "member since
Why doesn't te phpMyFaq page have a FAQ?
When a question about how to do s.th. with a software is asked frequently, then this clearly shows that the user interface has not been made obvious enough, and you should f**ing fix the UI instead of putting an explanation in the FAQ. An application with a perfect GUI should never leave the user with a question, and a well-made one would at least avoid the frequently asked questions.
To prove my point, I decided to google for "FAQ mozilla" and got to the Thunderbird FAQ, and it wonderfully proves my point. After some questions about what Thunderbird/Mozilla is, etc., the first technical question is: How do I start the profile manager?. And the answer has to explain how to run "C:\Program Files\Thunderbird\Thunderbird.exe" -p... Lots of other questions in that FAQ show issues where it is simply not obvious enough how to do s.th. within Thunderbird.
After this seven-year ban on FAQs, I may reconsider the situation, and possibly reallow FAQs, but the only questions allowed would be those clearing up general confusion about what a certain software can do/cannot do, i.e. the sort of question you would want to have answered before downloading/installing the software. But I would only do so if I no longer have to run "Thunderbird.exe -p" to start the profile manager of thunderbird...
Well, I do have some previous military/government experience. In most cases those "obfuscated" names are technical descriptors to keep everyone from becoming extremely long-winded.
... when their eyes glaze over and they start gnawing on their arm you're hanging onto just so they can escape ... it's a pretty good indication you've lapsed into your own version of technical shorthand and have overcome their ability to follow what you are trying to communicate (that also explains the collection of gnawed-off arms in your closet ... I think).
... step away from it for a couple of years, and you're on the outside looking in. In that case, I'd just say "um, want to clue me in on what you're talking about please". Once you rebuild your index, you're in the flow. Just like the non-government, non-military environment.
Precise language is important in many areas. Acronyms are a quick way to get the highly detailed language across quickly without sounding like a walking Thesaurus.
Trust me, it is NOT the intent (in most cases) to befuddle the listener.
Try talking computers or any other technical area you are familiar with, to someone who is not. Hint
Mind you, the acronym-filled language is a living language
The second rule of FAQ Club is you do not talk about FAQ CLUB!
Reviews with a twist! http://www.sardonicbastard.com
it's all about Wiki's these days. they're easier to keep up to date b/c more are looking at them, they're a perfect place for ppl to dump newbie 'gotchas' into, thus being more relevant.
FAQs are so...1999.
CB@#$
free ipod and free gmail!
OFFICIAL LINUX FAQ - Updated September 2004
1.0 WHAT IS LINUX?
Linux is a fine DOS-like operating system with many uses, the number one of which is compiling the Linux kernel itself.
Compiling the kernel is an activity that must be accomplished time and time over again, sometimes several times per day. It is recommended that the Linux kernel be recompiled at least once per day on the most critical systems. Doing otherwise would likely result in system instability.
Since compiling the kernel is such an important activity, Linux users often benchmark and compare machines solely based on kernel compile times. Most distributions provide the source code of the kernel to the users in an effort to ease the learning curve of the unfriendly environment.
There are many reasons to compile the Linux kernel. Here are a few:
-Installation of new hardware such as a USB mouse
-Application of daily security patches
-Training towards RedHat Certified Systems Engineer certification
-Impressing friends, mates and family
-Avoiding SCO lawsuits
-Etc
Please be careful when compiling your Linux kernel. You could hose your system.
2.0 IS LINUX MORE RELIABLE THAN WINDOWS?
One of the major goals of the Linux operating system is to reach the level of reliability enjoyed by Windows, which is also known to be a fortress of stability and security.
However, one of the current problems with Linux is the requirement to reboot every 49.7 days. This issue has yet to be addressed properly (present still in release 2.6) since it is caused by a deep design issue and is not a simple bug. It is expected that proper for-profit commercial contributions from SUN Microsystems to the kernel development will increase the competence and professionalism of the developer base.
In general, the lack of proper testing and general QA procedures is an impediment to Linux reaching high levels of reliability.
Additionally, since most distributions install a large number of insecure services that are started automatically when the computer boots, it is quite normal to see Linux computers compromised daily.
3.0 IS LINUX A FAMILY ORIENTED OPERATING SYSTEM?
Simply put, no. As a hobbyist operating system, Linux requires much administration and configuration. A large amount of time must be invested in reading nearly useless documentation for every task (installing printer, configuring network, etc). For example, it is not uncommon that Gentoo installations take several weeks to complete, although in a way, it's never really finished.
Since Linux is so time consuming, spouses are often left to their own devices. Fortunately, since Linux users tend to be sexually self-relying, their social impact stays rather low. Unlike the situation of AIDS percentage in the US population, which tends to fluctuate with Apple's market share.
4.0 I GET A STRANGE MESSAGE WHEN I USE MY MOUSE
Congratulations for having successfully installed a mouse on the Lunix operating system. But, if you see the following message, please consult 1.0:
"Your mouse has moved. Linux kernel must be recompiled for the change to take effect. [OK]"
5.0 SINCE LINUX IS OPEN SOURCE, HOW CAN DEVELOPERS AFFORD NO REVENUE?
"Farmers by day, programmers by night," is the GNU way of life. Please note that most open source software is never really good.
DOCUMENT VERSION
linux.faq@@/main/release/3 ***
*** Note: Moved to Clearcase from CVS when branching support became a requirement.
And I've seen it too.
:)
Maybe there should be a FAQ on business website basics.
Okay, maybe I'm in over my head, but most FAQ SHOULD be used as guides to the "documentation department" as areas that need revisions, obviously it's not clear IN THE FIRST PLACE! BOYCOTTTT!!! FAQ's!!!!!??????
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
I'm now the maintainer of this project, I picked it up from Bekman Stas, the original author. It is distributed under the Perl Artistic License, I know of one other company that makes use of it. It is very simple, and makes effective use of javascript to help in managing entries. I have extended it to support emailing admins on new contributions. I've made only modest changes since hosting it on Source Forge, but would certainly welcome any contributions or anyone wanting to continue and extend the project.
I don't see this project in the review, but it is very easy to set up and has met our needs very well.
I absolutely hate it when I have a user who says, when asking a question, "This should be a FAQ"; usually, they're the first user to ask the question. (They might mean, "This should be documented", and it often already is.)
My responses usually are "No, it's not a Frequently Asked Question; I haven't heard anybody ask that question in the three years since the program was released." (Common followups include things like, "This is specific to your workstation's particularly uncommon configuration", or the like.)
I've had one time when I said something like, "Yes, that should be frequently asked: the fact that the question was asked means that the user is thinking about the system, and the answer gives a good deal of insight into how it works and how to use it more effectively. Unfortunately, nobody else has asked it." (I proceeded to add the topic to the documentation after that.)
But when I hear somebody tell me, "This should be a FAQ", I perceive it as, "My question is one that you should have anticipated me asking, and the fact that you didn't means that your documentation is inadequate." Perhaps my documentation is indeed inadequate, and I'm fine with acknowledging that, but it takes a lot of gall to say that I should have anticipated the user's question.
Don't get me wrong: I respect the users' need for documentation. But for some reason, being told "this should be a FAQ" really gets my hackles up.
Is the F650 FAQ. It is amazingly detailed, in fact it's grown beyond FAQ status. It describes pretty much every detail you'd need to know to perform mechanical work on a BMW F650 bike.
http://faq.f650.com/
The problem with it is that it's basically Frontpaged into place and the maintainers are now buckling under the strain of keeping it up to date and looking for volunteers. Unfortunately they seem to be unwilling to investigate tools like those mentioned in the article which could take the load off and improve productivity.
Deleted
Somehow what I was thinking in my head wasn't as hilarious as it sounded when I actually said it - we were discussing a FAQ for our users and I sarcastically said we should call it a "F U Q".
I was so embarrassed, but the other techs loved it.
Well this submission made me read the /. FAQ for the 1st time :)
Its a EVLFAQ,Extremly Very Long FAQ..
have a look and tell us what you think
The lunatic is in my head
..., please no acronyms, use the R.eal N.ame O.f S.omething with appropriate periods to *indicate* the acronym,or Italics or Bold for the first letter, AND if you are _obscure new and improved_ distro, please have all relevant answers about how to get online INCLUDED in the documents section of your distribution. Thank you very much and stuff.
It is beyond annoying to boot up with new and shiny,and THEN encounter a glitch where you need better and more complete information, and the F.requently A.sked Q.uestions gives you a WEBSITE ADDRESS to go get this information. Please assume that new users, non coders and non gurus might be using your distribution or (application as it were), and that just perhaps your new shiny whatever might have a bug or three.
And no, these things called "man" pages are not a total solution. They frequently give you just enough obscure and arcane information to not only fail to fix your problem, but to actually compound it (along with confounding it).
thankyou
(signed) (respectfully)
the 99.999999% of the population who are not Linux and command line gurus
#include "/dev/tty"
There are two things that bug me about this article.
Firstly, it claims to be about FAQ writing and then contains nothing but a lightweight software review. There's a lot more to writing a useful FAQ than just installing phpMyFaq, thank you very much. (And yes, I realize that whoever wrote that headline deserves most of the blame here, but still.)
In my opinion, using phpMyFaq is entirely the wrong thing to do. A FAQ should be concise and relevant. If it's long enough that you can't manage it on flat files with a text editor, it's too long. If it isn't written by someone who keeps fielding questions from new users, it won't contain the right questions and answers. If it's maintained by more than one person (and they aren't well coordinated), then the FAQ will bloat and you'll get duplicate entries with slightly different wordings.
Too many developers these days think that if they set up a Wiki or a FAQ server, the documentation will just magically appear. Then, they expect me to use their software.
Answer only frequently-asked questions.
This is not the same thing as archiving common knowledge, which is the first and best way to make a FAQ totally unreadable for the newbie and therefore useless to a discussion group.
It is most certainly not the same thing as archiving the FAQ-writer's knowledge, which is the product of an overactive ego and generally results in frequently-argued FAQ entries.
Almost all FAQs seem to lack the most important question: "Where is the FAQ?"
You'd be surprised how many people ask that question, even if you put it directly there in the FAQ, they still keep asking it. Crazy stuff.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
May I be the first to use the soon-to-be-popular acronym Write The Fucking Manual. (Yes I put acronym in Google to see if I spelt it right.)
phpMyFAQ is a nice package, but after installing it and playing with it, it's just not the solution I need.
The biggest thing I didn't like was that I couldn't turn off user submissions nor that user help links. I'm looking to create a FAQ system, not have users send in tons of requests for help, or to add content.
I guess I'll have to look for other scripts.
eTrade SUCKS
A FAQ on FAQs on FAQs, or a FAQ on FAQs on FAQs on FAQs, or ...
My head hurts.
You said "wee" ;-)
:-) Sorry, could not resist.