Ron Parker <par### [at] my-dejanewscom> wrote in article
<364b0069.0@news.povray.org>...
> The posts we should be upset about are the people asking about
> programming issues in .windows, or the people asking about scripting
> issues in .programming.  Perhaps a periodic post reminding people 
> what the purpose of each newsgroup is wouldn't hurt in that regard.
> Ideally, it would have a subject line that includes the last revision 
> date so we can score it low (or killfile it) once we've read it once, 
> and only see it again when it changes.
> 
> If this is generally adjudged to be a good idea, I'd be happy to 
> help out in any way I can, including writing and maintaining a FAQ 
> for any of the groups I subscribe to (especially povray.programming!)

	I agree with you too a point, but I'd have to say that regular FAQ or
'group purpose' postings can be annoying to some, particularly those that
don't have a new reader with a 'score' or killfile facility (such as my
self - find me a FREE newsreader that has such a clean, simple and
efficient interface as MS Internet News and a Killfile option and I'll
happily change)
	I'd like to suggest that at most such postings should be no more frequent
than once a month and a copy of the FAQ and group purpose reminders should
be on the web, in fact I'd go as far to say that the regular posting should
be no more than a link to the web site, and we should have a self-policing
policy whereby we're all responsible for informing new users of each groups
purpose, should they get it wrong. Also, I think there should be some
tolerance of thread drift, some of the groups overlap and as such it's easy
for threads to start out on topic but then drift towards, if not go
completely, off topic. Obviously, if an off topic spur of a thread is
getting particularly long then it's a candidate for migration to a group
where it would be on topic, but there needs to be a balance - be too harsh
and you lose the dynamism that keeps a group alive and interesting, too
soft and you risk drowning the signal in noise.

> Yes, I know I once said a periodic FAQ is useless on a server where
> posts are kept forever, but I failed to realize how very few people
> actually bother to look at older posts.
> 

	Isn't there some kind of 'updates' flag that allows a posting to replace
and older version of the posting ? Does the povray news server support this
?

-- 
Scott Hill
Sco### [at] DDLinkscouk
Software Engineer (and all round nice guy)
Author of Pandora's Box
Company homepage : http://www.ddlinks.demon.co.uk

"The best trick the devil ever pulled was convincing people he didn't
exist..."
								- Verbal Kint.

"the Internet is here so we can waste time talking about nothing in 
 particular when we should be working" - Marcus Hill.

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