Lots and Lots of FAQ List Issues

[Cindy C.]

Hi, FAQ team,

With the CoS movie less than two months away and with OoP just 
around the corner, it might be time to make a final push to complete 
as many FAQs as we possibly can.  Mike, Elkins and I are going to 
try to move things along as much as we can, so I thought I'd kick 
off some discussion of where we go from here. 

Here are some ideas.  They are just ideas.  Be sure to speak up if 
anything is flatly wrong or inadvisable, or if you have any views or 
suggestions about how best to proceed.  Please, don't be shy.

LOCATION OF FAQs

In the past, the FAQs have been hosted on Steve's Lexicon server.  
In recent discussions, it was decided that the FAQs should be moved 
to Fiction Alley's server.  Steve advised that he would upload all 
of the FAQs on his server to the FAQ list files section so that 
we'll be moving the correct files to our new location.

Paul has already set up a new URL:

http://www.hpfgu.org.uk/faq/  

I think that Heidi is in the process of giving the necessary 
privileges to the people who will perform the tech work of moving 
the FAQs.  People who have expressed interest in helping with tech 
issues are Jen, Joy, Dicey and Porphyria.  The tech team will 
perform the necessary work to transition us to our new digs, which I 
understand might involve some formatting or coding or such.  

Did I get all of that right, tech folks?

Tech team, do you have everything you need to get started with the 
move?  Is there anyone else interested in helping with the move?  

I assume we will perform the name change from FAQ to Fantastic Posts 
and Where To Find Them in conjunction with the move.  When 
everything is up and running, I think the plan is to announce the 
move to the lists and delete the FAQs from Steve's server.

Is there anyone who feels up to designing a cover page that works 
for the new Fiction Alley address and name?  Or can we just use the 
current FAQ page style?  Thoughts?

Also, I notice that some of the existing FAQs cite message numbers 
but do not include links.  Should we add some links to those FAQs 
now, should we add them later, or should we not bother with this?

Next, perhaps we should think about deleting from our new FAQ page 
any FAQs that aren't uploaded.  As it stands, we have about equal 
numbers of finished FAQs compared to unfinished FAQs with dead 
links.  I suppose there's no sense advertising that we're only half-
way along on the project.  Let's let that be our little secret.  ;-)

STATUS

Right now, the following FAQs are completed and uploaded:

JKR
Geography
Hogwarts School
Mysteries
Potential Romance
Predictions
Government
Magical Devices
Wands

Animal Characters
Dursleys
Hermione
Neville
McGonagall
James and Lily
Ron
Voldemort

Universal Appeal
Book Banning & Controversy
Lawsuits
Religion 

Fanfic
Merchandise
Recommended Reading


The following FAQs are drafted and ready to upload:

Weasley Family
Pettigrew
Black

The following FAQs are in various stages of completion:

Snape FAQ – Gwen and Porphyria.  I understand from Gwen that all of 
the message review has been completed and the Snape FAQ is in the 
drafting stages.  Gwen and Porphyria have done a tremendous amount 
of work on the Snape FAQ so far, and Porphyria is continuing to move 
forward with the drafting.

Mysteries – Cindy and Pippin.  The update is complete and all the 
links are in the document.  Dicey formatted it in HTML today, in 
fact.  The introduction is just in the draft stage and could 
probably be improved quite a lot, and I'm hoping to recruit someone 
to punch up the introduction a bit.  Any volunteers for that?

Lupin – Amy and Elkins.  I understand from Amy and Elkins that they 
are reviewing messages at this stage and drafting bits of the FAQ as 
they go.

Quiddich FAQ – Neil made a great deal of progress on the Quiddich 
FAQ, but it may well be a casualty of his computer crash.  Neil is 
checking his old computer to see if he has anything worth 
salvaging.  

STRATEGY

In the past, FAQ preparation was handled by assigning FAQ topics to 
one person (or a very small group of people).  This worked quite 
well when the list was small, and most of our existing FAQs were 
written or edited by one person.  

Last time I checked, however, there were over 44,000 messages in the 
main list archives.   The list is so large now that it takes a 
superhuman effort and quite a lot of time for a single person to be 
able to draft a FAQ, search the archives for pertinent messages, and 
link the best messages into the FAQ.  

For that reason, I suggest that we revisit the question of how we 
handle FAQ preparation.  I think it might be best for all of us as a 
team to focus on knocking out FAQs one or two at a time, depending 
on how many volunteers we have with time to help out.  That way, if 
one person is sidelined by RL, the project can continue moving 
forward.  Not to mention the benefits of each of us having others to 
nudge our efforts along.  Synergy, they call it.  ;-)

Therefore, I suggest that we focus for now only on completing the 
FAQs that are well underway (Snape, Lupin, Mysteries).  When those 
FAQs and the already-completed FAQs are up, we might then consider 
which FAQ to focus on next.  

We should probably plan for the very real possibility that we won't 
finish all of the FAQs by the release of OoP.  That means we might 
need to prioritize our efforts to get as many FAQs completed and 
uploaded as possible.  My personal view is that we should pick FAQs 
to work on based on the importance of the FAQ subject itself and the 
extent to which there has been scintillating discussion of the 
subject on the list.  For instance, we might want to turn to the 
Harry Potter FAQ next because, well, this is Harry Potter for 
GrownUps, so we probably ought to have a Harry Potter FAQ.

For that reason, my preliminary view would be that we could take up 
new FAQs in the following order:

Harry Potter – Ron and Hermione have a FAQ, so Harry is overdue.  

Hagrid – Many people think Hagrid could die in OoP, and there will 
be a great deal of interest in his FAQ if this happens.  Also, there 
has been quite a lot of discussion of Hagrid in the past – his 
irresponsibility, his alcohol use, his teaching methods, his father-
figure relationship with Harry, his past and so forth.

Malfoy Family  -- There is a lot of interest in Draco on the list 
(especially Redeemable!Draco), and Lucius will probably see some 
action in OoP.  

Dumbledore – Dumbledore is also a candidate for death in OoP, 
although there seems to be less scintillating debate about him on 
the list.

War, Law and Justice – This is not currently a FAQ subject, but it 
might work well as one.  It could touch on Moody (who will 
undoubtedly be in OoP), Aurors, the Wizarding Justice System, Crouch 
Sr., and the first rein of Voldemort.

Any thoughts about this sort of approach?

Finally, I set up two databases here on the FAQ board to track where 
we are on FAQ preparation.  The first of the two databases is for 
FAQs that are complete or almost complete.  The second is for FAQs 
that have not been started, so far as I could tell from reviewing 
the messages on the FAQ list.  The second database is mostly just a 
reference; we'll still need to decide which FAQ we should turn to 
next and how we will staff it.

FAQ STYLE

I noticed that we have a great deal of individuality in the styles 
of the various FAQs.  Some cite many message numbers; some cite 
hardly any.  Some have an extensive narrative; others are more like 
outlines.  Some have links; some don't.

Do we have any views on whether future FAQs should aim for one style 
over another?  Personally, I'd be happy to allow the team working on 
a FAQ to decide how best to present it, but this is probably 
something we should discuss.

Also, I think we probably should think about not including TBAY 
theories, as this would cause the FAQs to overlap with Hypothetic 
Alley.  Cross-referencing to Hypothetic Alley might work just fine, 
though.

UPDATING

Many of the FAQs were written quite some time ago and could use some 
updating.  Nevertheless, I was thinking that we make some headway on 
preparing the most important new FAQs before we begin the process of 
updating.   But if anyone has some spare time and would like to 
update a particular FAQ, please feel free to volunteer and have a 
go.  

Thoughts, reactions, objections, ideas?

Cindy