Talk: Who reads FAQs anyway

Matt Messina wrote:
>
>Bob Allison wrote:
>>   Unfortunately, many people (including myself at times) don't want to 
>>bother reading a FAQ.  It's too bad 'cause a lot of folks supplied info 
>>to make the ASCII ART FAQ fairly solid.  You can learn an awful lot from 
>>the FAQ (especially the longer versions).
>
>This might be because many FAQs are *huge* (e.g. the ASCII Art FAQ). 

   Well taken.  Size does have it's down side too.  The upside is that's 
it's all in one place.  One doc to handle, and only fifty some K too!

>Also, there seem to be many questions that are not about ASCII Art, but
>are about using computers and the net.  These are legitimate questions,
>but they are answered in other FAQs. 
>
>Yeah, yeah, yeah, these questions are asked in inappropriate groups (e.g.,
>this one), but people who do that don't read FAQs anyway.

   I don't count the ASCII groups among the inappropriate groups for 
technical info.  ASCII art is, in the way we use it, a computer art.  It 
is technical.

   We talk about font formats, ANSI, compression formats, GIF 
converters, Figlet servers, how make ASCII art appear correctly in a Web 
page, aspect ratios, how best to view it, how to use the archives, the 
need for uuencoding, and how to do it, emacs macros for drawing with a 
mouse, how to untar a copy of Figlet, animation and 3-D technicalities  ... 

>How about splitting the FAQ into 3 articles when you post it?  There 
>could be a "Questions about ASCII Art" section, a "Where to find ASCII 
>Art" section, and a "How to make a .plan, use FTP, etc." section.

   Leave it to Matt to think of what I'm thinking.  I just haven't done 
it.

>Any comments?

   Yeah, where the obascii art?

>Matt Messina
>mes...@umich.edu
>
>ObAscii: .plan by Randy Ransom <ran...@scf.usc.edu>
>
>           . -- .                  Randy's Plan is brought to you today by
>          (      )                 the letters L, N, and by the number 10.
>         ( (/oo\) )
>          ( \''/ )                               WW
>           ( \/ )      wwwwww                   /__\
>          (      )   w"ww  ww"w                | oo |   _WWWWW_
>         (        ) W   o""o   W    (o)(o)    (|_()_|) /  o o  \   (+)(+)
>   oo   (          )W  ______  W  w"      "w    \__/ (|  __O__  |)/      \
> w"()"w  (        ) "w \_\/_/ w" W  -====-  W  /|\/|\  \ \___/ /  \ -==- /
>W -==- W   ' -- '  ww""wwwwww""ww "w      w"  |||||||| /-------\   \    /
> "wwww"     =  =    |||||||||||| w""""""""""w |||||||||=========| <\/\/\/>
>w"    "w    =  =    ||||||||||||W            W|||||||||=========| /      \
>  Elmo    Big Bird     Oscar    Cookie Monster  Bert     Ernie     Kermit


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*||||||*|||****||||||||*||||||***|||||**|||****||||||***|||**|||*|||**|||**|||
====!!!=!!!====!!!==!!!=!!!=!!!==!!!====!!!====!!!=!!!==!!!==!!!=!!!==!!!==!!!
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