RE: Assume everything on this list is ignored

From: Jill.Ramonsky@Aculab.com
Date: Tue Aug 12 2003 - 05:36:59 EDT

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    Isn't the very notion of "submit[ting] a FAQ question" a contradiction in
    terms? Surely, one merely ASKS a question. If enough people ask the same
    question, we may then classify it as "frequently asked".

    It's like this. Newbies want to find things out. So they read books, and
    look around on the web. Eventually, they'll encounter some point of
    confusion they can't resolve by their own research (or don't have time to
    thoroughly research), so they will then find some forum to join in the hope
    of finding somebody there who will know the answer.

    This forum -- indeed, ANY forum -- will have questions asked on it. Some of
    them may be asked frequently. These are, by definition, Frequently Asked
    Questions _of the forum_. Forum FAQs are generally put together by long-term
    members of forums who are sick of having to answer the same question over
    and over again to all these damn newbies, or by other long-term members who
    simply wish to cut down the traffic on the list.

    Now this is, in fact, rather curious. Because the web page
    http://www.unicode.org/consortium/distlist.html implies that _this_ list
    (described as the "Unicode Public E-mail List") is _the_ place for the
    public to go to "pose questions to the community of Unicode users". In THE
    SAME PARAGRAPH that web page says "as a courtesy to others on the list,
    please check the ... Frequently Asked Questions [at
    http://www.unicode.org/faq/]". (Which I did).

    Now, if it is true, as Mark Davis suggests, that the Frequently Asked
    Questions list at "http://www.unicode.org/faq/" is unrelated to this list,
    then:

    (1) This should be made clear on the consortium's web page
    (http://www.unicode.org/consortium/distlist.html), which currently implies
    that the stated FAQ is the FAQ _of this list_, and

    (2) This list should have a FAQ of its own, independent of the consortium's
    FAQ, and maintained by long-term members of this list (i.e. by those who are
    in a position to know which questions are, in fact, frequently asked).

    ...and for what it's worth, the consortium's submission form at
    http://www.unicode.org/reporting.html seems (a) difficult to find without
    knowing the URL (I couldn't find it anyway, at least not by starting at
    www.unicode.org and clicking on links from there), and (b) intimidating --
    it is not worded to encourage the "I don't understand feature XYZ" type of
    question from the public. I am therefore forced to wonder who actually
    _asks_ these frequently asked questions of theirs.

    Just my thoughts. Please don't take of this too seriously.

    Jill

    -----Original Message-----
    From: John Cowan [mailto:cowan@mercury.ccil.org]
    Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 1:35 AM
    To: Mark Davis
    Cc: unicode@unicode.org
    Subject: Re: Assume everything on this list is ignored (was Re: Newbie
    Question - what are all those duplicated characters FO R?)

    Mark Davis scripsit:

    > If you want to submit a FAQ question



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