🚀 go-pugleaf

No, this isn't the FAQ file for this group (yet).  This article is a
progress report on setting up the FAQ file.  Not much has been done yet,
but a few important decisions need to be made.  If you are not interested
in such trivia, skip this posting.

I have been reading the FAQ-maintainer's mailing list for a few months, and
propose the following scheme for this newsgroup:

1.  There will be a volunteer committee of FAQ maintainers who prepare the
FAQ document.  People who wish to submit information to the FAQ will e-mail
it to a committee address.  A machine will probably be available next month
to set this up.  Using a committee address makes it clear that no one
person "owns" the FAQ, and also, makes it clear that e-mail to the
committee address is not private.

In the mean time, if you post something which you think ought to be on the
FAQ, put "FAQ Answer:" in the subject line.

2.  At least two people have been archiving this newsgroup, although I
haven't heard that their archives are public yet.  Thus, the volunteers
will be able to scan expired articles.

3.  I think that the FAQ should carry a copyright notice, in order to
secure the moral rights of authors for the various authors:  the right to
credit for their work, the right to remove their name from work which has
been edited without their consent, etc.  Others might argue that these
rights go without saying, but actually, they don't.  

I don't know who should own the copyright.  If someone would set up a
nonprofit corporation for the purpose of holding the copyright, that might
be ideal, depending on who controls that coproration.  Does anyone know of
a better way?  Otherwise, just let the individual authors hold the
copyright on each by-lined section.  It ought to be possible to write a
single copyright notice at the end of the article which covers this.

4.  Each section should carry a by-line.

5.  The FAQ will be cross-posted to news.answers, listed on the list of
periodic postings, and archived with the other periodic postings.  This is
not difficult to arrange, see "welcome to news.answers."

6. Revisions:  the FAQ must be kept up-to-date.  The introduction will
explain how to mail corrections to the committee address, and urge readers
to do so.  Occasionally, individual sections will be posted with a "call
for updates" subject line.

7.  Size of the FAQ file(s):  If the file exceeds 32k bytes, it will be
broken into parts.  Arguments about bandwidth are generally bogus: files of
this size are completely negligible on the internet, and posted monthly,
even on UUCP telephone connections, they are not a serious load.  The
introduction will solicit comments about file size from news administrators
and only news administrators.

Why not keep such (hypothetical) large files on an FTP site rather than at
all Usenet sites that carry sci.image.processing?  Because if the
information is easily available in the newsgroup, then there will be fewer
repetitive questions from new users.

--
Edward J. Huff   huff@mcclb0.med.nyu.edu   (212)998-8465
Keck Laboratory for Biomolecular Imaging
NYU Chemistry Deptartment, 31 Washington Place, New York NY 10003
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