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."

Comments

A short history FAQ...

[gwernol]

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.

Video Game FAQs

[Servo5678]

<begin rant>

Video game FAQs can be the worst. After scrolling through screens worth of useless ASCII renditions of the game's logo, there's a long table of contents, an introduction about why the author loves the game so much, a nearly word-for-word copy of the game's manual, then a little bit of useful game info followed by another screen or two worth of worthless contributions, copyrights, and accolades such as "Thanks to my buds Mudskipper92@aol.com and Bowserfearsme@wuzup.net! Nobody had better steal the information in this FAQ or I'll sue you! You hear me biggamesite.com? I'm watching you!" As if knowing how to beat the boss of Level 4 is some protected trade secret.

</end rant>

*sigh* It feels good to get all that out.

My experience...

[singularity]

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.