1.2.2 What are FAQs?
Description
This article is from the Nordic countries FAQ, by Antti Lahelma and Johan Olofsson, with numerous contributions by others.
1.2.2 What are FAQs?
"FAQ" is an acronym for "Frequently Answered Questions". (Or
Frequently Asked Questions, some would say.) These are documents on
various topics, forming a veritable library of free information,
usually put together by voluntary enthusiasts in order to answer
certain questions that constantly come up in some newsgroup (hence the
name). They are periodically posted to their home newsgroups and
(usually) to news.answers, and archived at numerous sites, some of
which were listed above.
There is no guarantee of the accuracy of the information, but usually
they are reasonably reliable because of the "social control" of the
newsgroup(s) in question. For more information on FAQs, where they are
kept, why they are written, how to write one yourself, etc., see the
"FAQ About FAQs" at
<ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/faqs/>.
This FAQ, like many other soc.culture.*-FAQs, isn't really a proper
list of frequently asked questions and their answers; it's more of a
fact-file or an introduction brochure than a traditional Usenet FAQ,
although some Q&A:s are included and hopefully more will be added in
future.
In some cases an author is noted for a portion of this FAQ. In other
cases the text is compiled from several authors' contributions in the
group. Intermediate forms occur. This has some detrimental
consequences for the coherency of the faq - the good thing is that
different Nordic opinions often get represented.
The language in these articles is without doubt colored by the fact
that almost all writers have other mother tongues than English - and
so it will remain. Nevertheless: proposals for more idiomatic wordings
are always cordially welcomed.
Of course, since unlike most soc.culture.*-FAQs it -- instead of a
single country & culture -- attempts to cover five, the articles can't
go very deep or it's size will get simply too overwhelming. The
self-evident exception is topics which has been very thoroughly
discussed in the newsgroup.
The s.c.nordic FAQ is still young (started by Antti Lahelma 24th of
May 1994, the compilation was continued spring 1996 by
Johan Olofsson), pretty much just a skeleton despite its size. It
lacks much information that should be there, some of the more
irrelevant parts may get deleted, corrections will be made, etc. It's
not a finished product; FAQs aren't static. It'll get better with
time, but your (yes, your) help is required; if you have anything in
mind that could be added to the FAQ don't be shy to contact us
(Antti Lahelma & Johan Olofsson), you don't have to be a pro or expert
to write something. This is addressed especially to all you Norskies
out there. :-)
(A major part of the work to maintain the FAQ consists of tracking
changed addresses to referred www-documents. Links to "personal"
pages, i.e. to pages with a "~" in their url, have proved to be
particularly prone to stop working after some time, why such links
only exceptionally will be made.)
All contributions, corrections and suggestions are warmly welcomed.
Flames aren't.
The latest version of the FAQ can be obtained at the world wide web at
URL: <http://www.lysator.liu.se/nordic/index.html>.
Other sites where the files can be obtained (however maybe not the
very newest version - and without the few illustrations and extra
tables of the www-version above - and maybe slightly distorted due to
the conversion back and forth between html and normal text format?)
are:
in Europe:
<http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/internet/news/faq/soc.culture.nordic.html>
<http://www.cs.ruu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/nordic-faq/.html>
<ftp://ftp.cs.ruu.nl/pub/NEWS.ANSWERS/nordic-faq/>
<ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/usenet/rtfm.mit.edu/usenet-by-hierarchy/soc/culture/nor
dic/>
in North America:
<http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/nordic-faq/top.html>
<http://www.landfield.com/faqs/nordic-faq/>
<ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/news.answers/nordic-faq>
<ftp://ftp.seas.gwu.edu/pub/rtfm/soc/culture/nordic/>
<ftp://mirrors.aol.com/pub/rtfm/usenet/soc.culture.nordic/>
in Asia:
<ftp://ftp.hk.super.net/mirror/faqs/nordic-faq/>
<ftp://hwarang.postech.ac.kr/pub/usenet/news.answers/nordic-faq/>
...or by sending an e-mail request to your nearest mail-ftp service.
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