[HP4GU-FAQ] Message Summaries and Good Files To Repost

[Penny Linsenmayer]

Hi all --

Elkins asked:

<<<A question about the old message summaries (which go up to
message 8000) in the files.  Did people decide in the end
that this wasn't a particularly useful resource, or did it
simply prove far too much trouble to maintain?  I know that
Gwen has talked about sifting through messages herself, and
about delegating this task to others for the Snape FAQ.  How
have other writers been handling this part of the project?>>>

When the FAQs were first conceived after we switched over to egroups in Aug 
2000, we divided up the Yahoo Club posts (messages 1-7500 (approx.)).  
People took groups of 300 & sorted them into the categories for the FAQ 
topics.  There were about 15 or so folks involved with this aspect of the 
project, but the intent was really just to do this for the old Yahoo Club 
messages, because there was no search facility at all with Yahoo Clubs.  So, 
we only categorized those 7500 or so posts.  The egroups posts started over 
again at #1 btw.  So, while our current group shows some 36000 posts, in 
reality the group has generated 42500 posts to date.

We decided that the FAQ writer should bear responsibility for watching out 
for messages of interest relating to all his/her FAQs starting with the 
egroups messages.  At that time, of course, I'm sure no one anticipated that 
we would be looking at 35000+ messages & FAQs still not completed.  The 
original goal for uploading the FAQs was Oct 2000!  We didn't get any of 
them uploaded until July 2001.

The other variable is that people agreed to help with categorizing the 
original 7500 Yahoo Club posts & then reneged on their commitment.  I know I 
did probably 4-5 batches of 300 messages, instead of just the one batch I 
was originally set to do.  I can't imagine how many volunteers it would take 
or how long it would take or how it would all work to do something similar 
for the 36000+ (growing daily) Yahoogroups message archives.  It's an 
ambitious project.  I'm not saying "Don't do it" but you should know that 
it's a mammoth project.

<<<It strikes me that while the message summaries might not prove
useful for this particular round of FAQ maintenance -- they'd
likely not be done on time, for one thing -- it might be nice
to have them on file.  Not only are they Just Plain Cool (I
*really* enjoyed looking through the ones Penny worked up for
messages 1-8000), they also would be, I think, a great resource
for newbies who actually want to do their homework and read
up before opening their virtual mouths, but who don't have the
time or the patience to slog their way through 40,000 some-odd
old posts.>>>>

Well, that's actually the goal of the FAQs themselves really.  Of course, 
the message summaries would be nice to have too in an ideal world I suppose. 
  But, the FAQs were always intended to be a summary of known facts and all 
questions, discussions, commentary, analysis, etc. expressed by the group to 
date on a given topic.

<<<<Another question: in the Mods files somewhere, there's a
collection someone started of thought-provoking messages
that might be reposted when inspiration seems to be flagging
on the main list.  I thought this was a great idea: unfortunately
there only seem to be four (4!) messages in the file.  Surely
we've had more conversation-starter posts than that!  Again,
was this idea abandoned for a reason, or did it just kind of
fall by the wayside?>>>

It fell by the wayside.  I think it's a fabulous idea, and I hope to 
eventually contribute some fabulous posts to the database.  But, alas, the 
time to comb through the archives searching is probably not in my future 
anytime soon.  :--)

Penny

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