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Go FAQ on SL
Every month (or so) a Frequently Asked Questions is posted to the newsgroup rec.games.go (and news.answers and rec.answers) Originally started by Adrian Moriano (in 1990+), Morten has been the current maintainer since 1999. This page discusses whether or not the FAQ could be made into an SL page and whether or not it would be possible to automate the updates made to the SL pages to the posted version on the newsgroup. Morten: Although I have received various comments from readers and contributors to RGG regarding updates, I have become slow in updating the FAQ. Although I could improve in this aspect, I no longer follow RGG like I used to do, and having comments go through me also means that the FAQ can not be as 'alive' as it could be if updates and additions were made more interactive. I have considered putting the FAQ up on SL, letting people add and edit the text, add links etc. A script could then go through the SL page once in a while and update the version posted to Usenet (the actual posting is currently done by an entity at the MIT called the 'faqserver'. Updating the posting means updating the copy of the FAQ held in the faqserver archives.) The downside to this approach is that I feel that the USENET posted version should be better controlled than what we can guarantee here on SL. I have some thoughts on how to get around this, but I'd like to hear what other Sl'ers think about this first. Jan: The point you make about the FAQ needing to be more correct than the usual SL quality (*cough*, *cough*) is a good one! A way around this would be to use SL as a place to collect possible updates and changes to the FAQ and have a trusted librarian update the FAQ once in a while... Or maybe SL could hold the stuff that could be in the FAQ but isn't. Or just stick a big disclaimer ('everything here is possibly incorrect') on the FAQ... Just thinking out loud here. TakeNGive: I think updating the FAQ through SL is a great idea. It's not fair for only one person to have the responsibility for years on end -- thanks for your good work, Morten. And SL has enough RGG junkies to spot any new frequent questions and add them. As for quality control... the SL quality is overall ok, i think; and if a wrong answer gets into the FAQ, it should be easy to correct it in time for the next release. Probably it's enough to have a page of proposed FAQ changes, which one or two deshi or librarians would use to make the update every 2 or 3 months.
DaveSigaty: It seems to me that we would like to have something in between the 'edit anything' style of SL and a static page. One alternative would be something like the User Contributed Notes in the Within SL could we create a new page type? I can imagine loading an uneditable static element at the top of the page (e.g. one individual faq question like "2.1 How can I play in real life?" with its current text) and a standard SL editable region below that for discussions. Designated faq maintainers would have the ability to update the static text (based on the extremely insightful input from SL contributors of course :-) to periodically produce an update of the official faq. This is a copy of the living page "Go FAQ on SL" at Sensei's Library. (C) the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0. |