Re: Sorry for the FAQ posting

.----- On Sun, 21 Mar 1999 14:56:54 +1200, Matthew Thomas posted:
|Martin Atkins wrote:
|> 
|> Sorry to post the FAQ messages again so soon, but I was just testing
|> the new version of my posting automator that now allows me to select
|> which FAQs I post and which I don't each week.
|
|Well, it's not working. The subjects are different, but the body for
|each message is my FAQ in each case -- the tutorials, the mini-FAQ, the
|old FAQ, they all turn out to be my FAQ. (Which is no bad thing, IMNSHO
|... :-)
'---------------------------------
Hehehe... Sorry for posting the same document many times --- I just looked
at the listing in my Outbox and saw the subject lines were OK :o/

.---------------------------------
|> How often shall I post each one?
|> At the moment, I've got the documents list, the MiniFAQ, the Not
|> Looking Right guide and the Big FAQ for weekly posting and all the
|> olde FAQ files along with Colin's control codes, animations and that
|> Make a start tutorial by Daniel Au posting monthly. Is this OK by
|> everyone?
|
|IMNSHO, there actually isn't anything in the other docs which isn't
|covered in the main FAQ. The only drawback to the main FAQ is that it is
|(still) rather long, but I'm working on that.
|
|The old FAQs are an exception to my previous statement, as they cover an
|eclectic mix of topics, many of which are now outdated, so some of their
|contents aren't duplicated in the current FAQ. But OTOH, they're perhaps
|of historic value only now. Perhaps it would be better to stick them on
|the Web somewhere and link to them from the main FAQ for anyone who's interested?
'---------------------------------
That is an excellent idea. I will upload them to my hypermart site when I
get a chance... will be at http://martweb.hypermart.net/aaafaq/

What about if I just post Matthew's FAQ and my 'All you need for ASCII Art'
document? Which fonts people should use and which programs are good are (or
were) very frequently asked questions which I think warrants the separate
posting. Anyone else with opinions?

.---------------------------------
|> I was also wondering something else... a long time ago I remember
|> someone saying something about posting the FAQ files with the same
|> somethingorother so that you only see them once until you delete them
|> from your newsreader when they come back again. I think that this
|> would be a better way of posting these, so that everyone doesn't have
|> to re-download it each week/month... what do you all think, and how is
|> it done?
|
|You're probably talking of posting articles with the same message-id --
|the unique number which an NNTP server uses to identify messages (e.g.
|this post of yours I'm replying to has the message-id
|<36f...@news.vossnet.net>).
|
|Posting the FAQ with the same message-id each time is a nice idea in
|theory, but in practice there'd be two problems: (1) you'd confuse the
|hell out of Usenet readers which said `what the hey, there's two
|messages here with the same message-id! that's impossible!', and (2) you
|would need to be deeply, intimately, involved with the internal workings
|of your NNTP server in order to override the normal consecutive
|message-id numbering.
|
|Far better, I think, to allow each `regular' in the group to set their
|filters/killfiles/whatever to mark the FAQ as read whenever it appears,
|based on its subject line.
|
|Of course, if there was only one FAQ posted each week (hint hint :-)
|there wouldn't be nearly so much of a problem with reading the same
|messages over and over again. a.a-a is a fairly small group, and I
|really don't think a great wad of regularly posted documentation is necessary.
|
\
 > See Ilmari's reply too!
/
'------------------------

Telnetting into my news server each week would be a bit of a chore... but I
assume with an appropriate Perl script (or anything else for that matter)
the process could be automated much more nicely than my current approach (An
ikky Visual Basic program that 'types' the FAQs into Free Agent for me, and
then 'presses' the Send Later button.

If this would cause problems, however, it's probably not worth it. (I'm only
just getting the hang of Perl, anyway <g>)

I'll fix the posting thing before next week.

-Martin
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