FAQ maintainers

Internet FAQ Archives

rtfm archive at MIT

faq-maintainers mailing list

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The following text is from the e-mail sent in response to subscribing to the list in 2007. It is quoted here to give you some idea about what the faq-maintainers list is all about. To get the current edition, subscribe to the mailing list.

'''''''''''' What are these mailing lists?

[Last updated on: Fri Oct  6 11:28:40 GB 2006]
Subject: Policies for faq-maintainers/faq-maintainers-announce
X-Version: $Id: mailing-lists-policy,v 1.39 2006/10/06 11:28:45 ngb Exp ngb $

Welcome to the faq-maintainers or faq-maintainers-announce mailing
list.  This document explains the purpose of the lists and some
administrative details.  In addition to being sent to all new
subscribers, it is sent to faq-maintainers monthly and to
faq-maintainers-announce approximately every ninety days to refresh
people's memories.

[A recent copy of this document can be obtained via anonymous
FTP as rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/faq-maintainers/mailing-lists-policy
If you do not have access to anonymous FTP, you can retrieve it by
sending email to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with the command "send
faq-maintainers/mailing-lists-policy" in the message.]

'''''''''''' How to unsubscribe

To unsubscribe from the faq-maintainers mailing list, send email to
majordomo@durham.ac.uk with the subject "unsubscribe faq-maintainers"
(without the quotes), from the address you wish to be unsubscribed.
Do NOT send email to the list itself asking to be unsubscribed.  If
you have problems with the list server software, email
<owner-faq-maintainers@durham.ac.uk> for help from a human (be sure to
mention the list name, faq-maintainers).

The faq-maintainers list is no longer run by the *.answers moderators
directly.  Many thanks to the University of Durham for their assistance.

To unsubscribe from the faq-maintainers-announce mailing list, send
email to faq-maintainers-announce-request@mit.edu; it will be read by
humans.

'''''''''''' What are these mailing lists?

The faq-maintainers and faq-maintainers-announce lists are primarily
intended for discussion among (faq-maintainers), or announcements for
(faq-maintainers-announce), people on the net who maintain FAQ
(Frequently Asked Questions) lists or other kinds of periodic
informational postings.  However, subscribers are not required to
maintain FAQs; anyone interested in issues related to maintaining FAQs
is welcome to subscribe.

Issues discussed on the faq-maintainers list in the past have included:
formatting FAQs; how to handle comments about specific commercial
products in FAQs; and using software to assist in the posting and
maintenance of FAQ postings.  Although a wide variety of topics are
discussed, using the list for discussions which do not specifically
pertain to FAQ maintenance is discouraged.  The maintainers of the list
may occasionally request that a discussion be moved elsewhere, when they
feel that it has strayed too far from the theme of the list.

The faq-maintainers-announce list is for announcements only.  For
example, announcements which would be appropriate include the creation
of a new mirror site from which archived *.answers FAQs can be
obtained, or the release of a software tool which is particularly
useful for FAQ maintainers.  The faq-maintainers-announce mailing list
has been moderated since April 1994, to prevent unnecessary traffic
which doesn't qualify as announcements.  Anything sent to the
faq-maintainers-announce list also goes to faq-maintainers, so it is
not necessary to subscribe to both.

'''''''''''' How busy and how large are these lists?

The faq-maintainers list has several hundred subscribers.  Traffic
tends to come in bursts -- it averages 3-4 messages per day, but
during a burst there may be as many as several dozen messages within a
few hours, and in between such bursts, there may be a week of no
messages at all.

The faq-maintainers-announce list also has several hundred of its own
subscribers, and anything approved for it will by default be sent to
the faq-maintainers list as well.  Traffic on it is very, very low; it
is not unheard-of for six months to pass with no messages sent to the
list except for a periodic copy of this document.

'''''' Archives

Mailing lists are not currently archived. We are working on this.

'''''''''''' Where to find help with maintaining a posting

This section doesn't really "belong" here, but since the question
keeps coming up, perhaps this will help.

If you want to ask questions specifically of the moderators of
*.answers, please send the question to news-answers-request@mit.edu
and not to these mailing lists.

Two World Wide Web sites which maintain lists of FAQ maintenance tools
and information resources are David A. Lamb's page of FAQ Maintenance
Aids, at
    http://www.qucis.queensu.ca/FAQs/FAQaid/
    http://www.qucis.queensu.ca/FAQs/FAQaid/
and Infinite Ink's Writing FAQs and Periodic Postings, at
    (primary)  http://www.ii.com/ii/internet/faqs/writing/
    (mirror)   http://www.best.com/~ii/internet/faqs/writing/

More information about submitting postings to *.answers, and about
auto-faq, post_faq, and the mail-to-news server run by the *.answers
moderators, can be found in the "*.answers submission guidelines" at
rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/news.answers/news-answers/guidelines

Yahoo FAQ-Maintainers

A Yahoo discussion group on the same topic.