Should we have a FAQ?

[allsorts]

• The FAQ should only be on system blue, because that's where most questions of a general nature will come up.
  
• Only relative simple things should be included in the list (see below), specialized technical question will still need to go to the normal forum.
  
• The list should be short, otherwise people won't read it anyway. I think it should completely fit onto the screen, say less than 25 lines.
  
• The whole effort should be limited and we should gather feedback from readers before considering going on
  

All sensible, though I assume that the 25 line limit is per question/answer rather than the whole thing! And getting feedback from readers may well be next to impossible.

This list is an example of what could be in such a FAQ:

1. What do I have to know to be able to assemble and run such a system?
   
2. How do I get one of these system blue?
   
3. How do I check where I am on the waiting list?
   
4. I received the kit, how do I solder the stuff together?
   

That's the sort of stuff but IMHO 4. would be covered by 1. as that would say you need to be able to solder through hole components to a PCB or know a man who can...  B-)

So we want an FAQ, we have an outline of what it should contain. great but:

Who has access to maintain it?
Open access will have it vandalised within hours....

What software do we use to generate it?
Most CMS systems aren't really suited to this task. I have Perl script I used to make the HTML of an FAQ I wrote/maintained about 15 years ago. Single scrollable file, logically laid out so if read from start to finish told you everything you needed to know. The source is a simple custom tagged plain text file. It's offline but I could put in online for a while, it's plain, it's simple, as it follows "content over form" rather than "form over content" that many sites do these days. The style can be updated of course.

I'm not a fan of a page based systems, you can't search the whole FAQ with your browser for a start and clicking next/back/index buttons that move about the screen depending on answer length is a PITA. Scrolling is so much easier...

And a biggie, where do we host it?