[Rhodes22-list] FAQ

[Bill Effros]

A little more background:

We discussed FAQ endlessly before Tom joined the list, and got almost
nowhere with it.  Then one day Tom simply grabbed the bull by the horns and
did it all himself.  It was an incredible piece of work, and neither the
people on the list before he arrived nor the people who have joined after he
compiled the FAQ can possibly thank him enough.

Anyone who has contemplated this project understands how much work is
involved.  That's why we have all been so happy to say "Let Tom do it!"

I think Michael, who has tried time and again to come up with methodology
for sharing the FAQ burden, has found some interesting software that will
take the entire responsibility off one person's shoulders and distribute it
a little more evenly, for the benefit of the list and everyone on it.

I would be happy to help, and I've saved a lot of stuff.  I know many others
are in the same ... boat.

There is no question in my mind that Tom has functioned very well as the top
level administrator, and that if he is willing to continue in that function
there couldn't be a better person.

Others can slot in behind him.

Who "owns" the FAQ, and who hosts it are of little concern to me as long as
it is always available to everyone.  If the person who has done the
overwhelming majority of the work derives some sort of benefit beyond the
satisfaction of the accomplishment,I, for one, have no problem with that.

Bill Effros


----- Original Message -----
From: <LogicUnltd@aol.com>
To: <rhodes22-list@rhodes22.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2002 11:32 PM
Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] FAQ


Hello Everyone.

Well, I guess I need to jump in and shoot my mouth off.

For those that may not be aware of how the "old" FAQ pages came about,
please
allow me to provide a brief history. 2+ years ago I began on the
Rhodes-list,
I enjoyed reading all the emails and I collected several because they were
topics I was particularly interested in. There was a thread about starting a
FAQ site. I really wasn't aware of all the prior discussion; I was
interested
in web development, so I just jumped in. Put together a few ideas and edited
my collected emails into several FAQ topics. I then solicited the list for
people to send their collected emails, only a couple of people responded
most
notably - Doug. He did a lot of work organizing emails. See the problem is,
people tend to ignore the subject line when they change topics. So someone
needs to cull through the emails to group them into topics. Doug did a great
job.

After the first few months, I gave up soliciting for questions and/or
answers. So I set upon the task by myself of collecting emails by topic and
periodically formatting them into an html page and posting them. After a
couple of years my "excitement" for the task has faded a bit. Recently, 2
events have overwhelmed me and I frankly haven't done much. First, I've
gotten very busy at work, really too busy, but that should be changing in a
few weeks (normal business cycle). Second, I believe there has been an
explosion of off topic emails on the list. If I don't check my mailbox
regularly there are hundreds of emails, with all sorts of stuff. Which is
great socially, but just for piece of mind and saving time I sometimes just
delete without really reading and deciding if this could, maybe, hopefully
be
something for the FAQ site.

As for MJM remarks about my not responding to his back channel emails about
the FAQ site. Yes, I ignored him. I was reluctant to give up something that
I
had worked many hours on and the second reason is a bit hard to explain. My
company blocks access to sites it deems non-business, but it doesn't block
sites hosted by yahoo (I really don't know why) So I can get to the "OLD"
site from my work but I can not access www.rhodes22.org from work. So again
I
was reluctant to give up access. I actually do look at stuff all the time on
the "OLD" site. Yeah I can do it from home. So I probably need to just
relax.
Another reason for not wanting to give up the site was that I simply enjoyed
working on it and felt that I was contributing to the group. I don't feel I
have much in the way of sailing expertise to offer so I was offering what I
could which was my web skills.

Anyway, what's my bottom line on the "NEW" FAQ page? I can see the great
potential in it. It would be great if everyone participated and worked at
contributing by offering thoughtful questions and/or answers. I challenge
everyone to do that. I hope we can realize that potential. I do think
someone
has to edit for content and appropriateness for the topic so I have my
doubts
about "self-managing".

I look at other sailing groups web sites, I'm sure you all have, I believe
all the other site's FAQ have been administrated by a single person. Almost
all of them have pictures included within the text. So we can be the first
to
be "interactive" and self-administered. It will only succeed, if we all make
an effort to contribute. I will do what I can.

I will still keep my "old" site, which I will update, I guess, for my
personal needs but everyone is always welcome.

Thank you for listening and visiting the site in the past.

I need a beer

Best Regards

Tom Evans
S/V Tom's Foolery

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