Luhan said:
It may be best to target it at the basics group. There is no real
dividing line. If we cover the most basic stuff first, that is quite a
project in itself. Maybe break it down into catagories: audio, video,
powersupply, logic, micro, etc.
Then we could expand into more advanced stuff once we have some kind of
structure to put things in.
Then it sounds like you are wanting to write a book. Sam has done a wonderful
job in that form for sci.electronics repair but it does not hold that
every FAQ has to have every answer.
The purpose of a FAQ is to clear out some of the clutter, not answer
everything anyone could ask. Yes, in some newsgroups the FAQ is pretty
extensive, but I'd argue that in those cases it is a field where there
is limited information, and the participants are writing the details.
With electronics, pretty much everything has already been written down.
If people are asking common and simple questions, it's not because they
have nowhere to look, it's that they aren't looking. That includes not
doing websearches, but it also means not looking in (or even buying) books.
So really, the FAQ should be about the newsgroup, what's on topic and maybe
pointers to the other newsgroups in the hierarchy, a bit about not posting
binaries (and how to handle the problem, be it to a binary newsgroup or
stashing the file somewhere on the web), maybe some history of the newsgroup,
and some general pointers to where to find basic information.
When Michael Covington was doing the Q&A column in Electronics Now,
he dedicated space every month to what amounted to a FAQ. It was not
detail, it was pointers to some useful sources. He was right, it was
worth expending a fair percentage of the column each month to repeating
the information, since there was no way he could deal with all the questions.
And a significant portion of the repeated information was a list of important
books.
If someone is asking how large a resistor they need for lighting an
LED, they haven't bothered with the basics. They should be looking in
books to learn some of that, rather than forcing people to answer once
again their question. People's time is better spent trying to fill in
a bit of information that a poster is having problems grasping (ie they've
already tried to understand, but need help) instead of typing in stuff
that has already been typed in, in books or even in previous questions.
If you start creating a massive file, then it won't get posted here, and
the people who most need it won't see it. If you come up with something
that is enough to cover most things, but still small, then it can be posted
here on a weekly basis and everyone can see it.
Michael