Re: So Many New KateFans

[Ulrich Grepel <uli@zoodle.robin.de>]

Hi!

woj quoted Karen:
> >Since there are obviously many dozens of
> >newly found Kate Fans who are finding gaffa
> >in increasing numbers if not downright droves,
> > I wonder if it is worth posting how to get the
> >FAQ once every other week, or weekly,
> >rather than once a month?
>
> reasonable idea. uli posts the "human readable diffs" whenever he makes
> changes (maybe once a month, i can't remember), but a weekly post with
> simple direction on how to get the faq makes perfect sense.  heck, it
> could even be posted monthly provided that 1) the expiry on the post is
> at least a month long so new gaffa readers will see said post at the
> top if their article list and 2) our humble pseudo-moderator includes
> the faq-finding info with subscription confirmations for the new
> love-hounds. i'll be happy to write the note and post it if no one
> objects.

Well, the FAQ situation here is as following:

- I maintain the FAQ whenever there's something to do (and I've got some time).
  [look for the last letter in the version count - I increase it whenever I
  do something on the FAQ.]
- I post the diff together with the FAQ itself
- the FAQ itself only gets to rec.music.gaffa, not to love-hounds
- the diff goes to both
- new subscribers to love-hounds get a copy of the FAQ itself provided by
  Bill Wisner
- new subscribers to rec.music.gaffa should see a not-yet-expired (~6 weeks)
  FAQ.

also:

- I don't like to post the FAQ when I've got unread email in my mailbox.
  (There might be something in there that somehow has to go into the FAQ)
- Usually, I'm way behind my email (right now 5.7 MBytes in 1024 messages)
- Once a month (just before FAQ-posting-time) I try to be up-to-date with
  my mail (which sometimes is quite hard and means too few hours of sleep ;-).)
- sometimes a change is redone, changed again, deleted, whatever, before
  it's FAQ time again. 'diff'ing this each time would be quite time consuming
  and - quite often - just repeat the postings done by others as new information
  gets into the FAQ
- posting a weekly pointer to the FAQ would be an option, though I already
  try to answer 'where's the FAQ?' questions as fast as I can (and it's just
  one keystroke and two mouse clicks for me) during 'sneak previews' of my
  incoming mailbox.
- I wasn't even able to keep up posting the FAQ once a month in the past
  three months. I posted it on March 27, April 25, June 11, July 26.

and also:

Karen wrote:
> Let's give them a break and let them know
> where to get the basic info on a more frequent basis.
> I'm sure at some point this rush will level off and
> monthly FAQs will again be sufficient.

I doubt that this will level off soon. Right now there are 30-35 million
people on the net. Most of these from the USA (let's say 25 million).
Now it would certainly level off when all 250+ million US citicens have
seen rec.music.gaffa and understood what it's for. But then there's the
rest of the world, as usually hanging behind the US for about 3-5 or
even more years.

If the FAQ-pointer would be posted once a week (or every other week,
doesn't matter), it'll either have to be restricted to r.m.gaffa plus
eventually r.m.info and a.m.ecto, or it'll have to be kind of an
official FAQ. This - for archival purposes [the real one shouldn't
be replaced by the short ones] - had to be a 'different' FAQ (like
being another part or so). This is possible, but even more work
and would need a long while (the *.answers [= FAQ-groups] moderators
team is *overloaded* with work - see the time the a.m.ecto addition
needed).

Also:

- most newbies nowadays (or at least in the future) will arrive on the
  net via WWW.
- if you're looking around WWW, and if you're interested in Kate, and
  if you don't know where to look, you'll probably find your way along
  the following pages:

    - yahoo or similar to search for 'music'
    - ultimate band list
    - kate page

  At this stage you'll already be able to find the FAQ, as well as gaffa and l-h.

Also:

- the FAQ already has a ~6-week expiration time. If your site doesn't honor
  it I cannot do anything about it (except posting more often).
- the diff posting doesn't have any special expiration time. This shouldn't
  really matter, since you either need a new copy of the full FAQ, or an
  old one with all diffs posted inbetween. The diff posting is meant for
  the 'oldbies' (i.e. those who already know the FAQ from before) to keep
  them up to date without having them to poll/read everything in there
  looking for changes.

Bye,

Uli

P.S.: the FAQ is findable: I just got an email by someone who was obviously
looking for Living In A Box and found the reference for the video tape that
contains the LIAB video plus the rockflix version of Wuthering Heights...


--
"Ein 32-Bit-Betriebssystem fuer uns?" - "Wozu? Wir haben doch zwei mit 16."
[IBM ad promoting OS/2] "Bah, ich habe 4 mit 8!" [comment from Sven Wachter]