Subject:
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Re: FAQ data format possibilities
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.faq
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Date:
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Fri, 23 Apr 1999 22:46:57 GMT
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Viewed:
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2137 times
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In lugnet.faq, jsproat@geocities.com (Sproaticus) writes:
> Todd Lehman wrote:
> > In lugnet.faq, jsproat@geocities.com (Sproaticus) writes:
> > BTW, something like this would be nice for a file structure:
> > .../faq/lugnet/market/auction/awareness/1.en.faq
> > .../faq/lugnet/market/auction/awareness/2.en.faq
>
> 'Kay, I hadn't thought of that. I like it; the only real drawback I can see
> to this is how to phrase the category titles; e.g. translating:
>
> /faq/lugnet/market/auction/awareness/1.en.faq
>
> to:
>
> FAQ -> LUGNET -> The Market -> Auctions -> Awareness ->
> You mean I can get money for my old LEGO®?
>
> or even to:
>
> LUGNET FAQ
> Document 7: The Market
> Chapter 7.2: Auctions
> Section 7.2.1: Awareness
> Question 7.2.1.1: You mean I can get money for my old LEGO®?
I've got a mechanism for this for the ng names so that, for example, "sf" is
displayed as "San Francisco" -- but it isn't internationalized yet. Not
sure how to handle subcategory names in the FAQ for virtual subcategories
that don't yet exist, but I'll figure something out.
> I suppose an extra file would need to exist in the directory, with the
> directory's title.
That would work. That's what I do now for all the ng webpages -- there's an
index file for each category, giving its charter, its subcategories, and the
long and short forms of its name.
> > Advantages of this file structure:
>
> Good points. I am convinced. Hey, the search engine could have a
> Yahoo!-style feel to it.
That's the idea. :)
> Which raises the question: Where does the FAQ end and the rest of LUGNET
> begin?
The FAQ will be as integrated into the website as the ng's themselves are
soon to be -- that is, virtually indistinguishable from the whole. But
you'll be able to browse the FAQ as its own thing too. It's like you're
driving down the freeway and you get to choose whether to drive in the FAQ
lane or the newsgroup lane, and you can switch lanes at any time as you pass
by cities and towns named CAD, Robotics, Market, Local, etc. (I don't mean
that as a literal metaphor, just that there are many interrelated graphs.)
> > It may be
> > useful to be able to limit the hierarchical range of Q&A pairs.
> > [...]
> > Newsgroups: lugnet.loc.us.ma.bos,lugnet.loc.us.ma
> > [specifies levels 5 and 4 only]
>
> Well, yeah. I'm likening it unto the Bindery Context on an NDS server. I
> guess a search path would also follow the paradigm. Essentially, we're
> mapping portions of a heirarchy into a flat directory.
Where can I read about Bindery Contexts of an NDS server? Sounds like good
background material to know.
> > Alternatively, the URI of the ng/resource could be used instead of an ng
> > name, i.e.:
> > Locations: /loc/us/ma/bos/, /loc/us/ma/
>
> This really depends upon what direction you'll take with the ng organization
> in the future. Do these items point to newsgroups, or to category pages on
> LUGNET? Perhaps to both, e.g.
>
> Locations: lugnet.market.auction,/market/auction/,/market/
They point to both, but since every newsgroup (no exceptions) gets its own
associated URI/URL, the URI/URL notation is a superset of the ng-name
notation. So it's not necessary to allow ng names per se.
> > A bonus with the URI approach is that subcategories can be encoded directly
> > into the location! :)
> > [...]
> > If the subcategory actually exists as a defined webpage subsection, then the
> > Q&A pair would appear there on that page as well as higher pages.
>
> This would solve the naming problem I described above.
>
> > The FAQ Q&A pairs then also help plan and organize substructures of areas.
> > Wherever lots of information goes, substructures arise. Wherever
> > substructures arise, subcategories can be considered and planned.
>
> Hmmm... Are you actually *looking* for more work, Todd? :-,
My hope is not to be doing much of the actual ongoing work, other than
seeing it onto its feet. The whole idea of LUGNET long-term is to have
areas that people can specialize in, where the most expert person or persons
(if they wanted to) would be the ones having the most say in what goes on in
that area and how it's organized, along with the other participants of those
areas.
> > If HTML is allowed in the core content, then I think it ought to be highly
> > restrictive HTML, with strict usage rules.
> > [...]
> > Just the
> > basic necessities: paragraphs, italics (for names/citations), boldface (so
> > long as it's not abused), preformatted text, and of course hyperlinks.
> > I have routines to convert HTML entities like ü and ® to ISO-8859-1
> > ASCII and back, and a routine to line-wrap arbitrary paragraphs of text, so
> > handling <P>, <I>, <B>, <PRE>, and <A> would be pretty straightforward.
>
> Sounds okay. Should these be escaped, or would your parser watch out for
> them?
Should what be escaped? The entities or the tags? It should look just like
HTML -- no need for escapements since the tags can be filtered out (or acted
upon) by the HTML->plaintext conversion tool.
> > I suppose that each ng or each Q&A pair will need its own "default" or
> > "home" language -- that is, something stating in which language the "master
> > copy" of the Q&A pair is originally written, and from which all other-
> > language translations are derived (for that Q&A pair).
>
> This could make compiling the FAQ items more difficult. As elitist as it
> sounds, I think I would prefer the FAQ items -- even items specific to
> non-U.S. localities -- to begin with English. At least for the start.
Me too. At least from the start. But I'm thinking more in terms here of
loc-specific items that'll pop up later -- like, you wouldn't want to have
something that naturally popped up in German first, translated to English
and then to Danish and then to French and then back to German. Since
English can't be the master language for every single item (maybe 98%
though) there ought to be a "originating language for this item" designator.
> > We wouldn't want to
> > see circular results like what happened to Mark Twain's
> > _The_Jumping_Frog_[1].
>
> You realize, of course, I have to go read the story again now. Good thing
> you referred to Twain instead of, oh say, Danielle Steele. :-,
:-)
--Todd
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: FAQ data format possibilities
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| (...) Please see my comment regarding an index file title.en.faq : (URL) actual name of the file is unimportant.) You could then have title.fr.faq , title.es.faq , etc. (I think I now prefer "index" over "title" in the filename.) (...) It's funny (...) (26 years ago, 23-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: FAQ data format possibilities
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| Todd, I read your post just after I put up my own. Ships in the night. :-P (...) 'Kay, I hadn't thought of that. I like it; the only real drawback I can see to this is how to phrase the category titles; e.g. translating: (...) (26 years ago, 23-Apr-99, to lugnet.faq)
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