jack

Q: Aah! The sky is falling! All of my friends are going away and nobody loves me.
A: Please phrase your question in the form of a question.
Q: Aah! The sky is falling! All of my friends are going away and nobody loves me?
A: Hmph.
Q: OK, OK. What should I do?
A: Don't panic.
Q: But that's what I shouldn't do. What should I do?
A: Be calm. Ask for specific and relevant information.
Q: OK, OK. What's Dreamwidth?
A: It's a copy of LJ, with a bunch of new features people have been clamouring for for ages.
Q: Do you have a girlfriend who made a post explaining in simple terms why that should matter to me, someone who doesn't want to invest any headspace thinking about it?
A: http://livredor.livejournal.com/283649.html
Q: And why I should believe Dreamwidth will actually work, when sites that simply copied the LJ code wholesale, hoping that whole communities would migrate to them en mass, and that their servers would stand up to the entire LJ user base invading at once didn't?
A: See above.
Q: You mean, see my question, or the link to livredor's post?
A: Both.
Q: OK, so are you moving?
A: Eventually, assuming things all go well. Lots of other people being excited about it, a company that's actually making massive strides in improving functionality, and no ads were my selling point.
Q: And for the moment?
A: I'm posting via dreamwidth, and using the cross-post feature to post to LJ. Hopefully this has been entirely transparent to anyone who's read any of my posts in the last week?
Q: And friends pages and so on?
A: I'm still reading friends via LJ, since reading friends-locked posts from another site is inherently problematic. I'm posting from dreamwidth, and if all goes well I'll be able to disable comments on LJ and direct people to posting on the dreamwidth with their LJ id, which ought to be pretty transparent to everyone, but enable a gradual shift to Dreamwidth.
Q: So will I be left behind?
A: Not by me, not unless we reach a tipping point where *most* people I care about have switched. (Although that seems quite possible -- an awful lot of people already have. However, I expect some people won't until it's trivial to do so, and you're guaranteed benefits with no losses. We're already getting close.)
Q: And if Dreamwidth doesn't work out?
A: All my posts are still on LJ, so I can simply switch back.

The concept of FAQ has grown too large. How do you distinguish between a FAQ for: "What is this damn thing anyway?" and "OK, I've got it. What do I do now?"; and a FAQ for "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if [it did this implausible idea]" and "I was wondering. You write software. Will you go on a date with me?"?

I think the second is more *really* a FAQ, as in a section which wouldn't have a name if FAQ didn't exist. The first could be called a tutorial, or introduction, or manual. But the FAQ has made the first it's own, in a useful way. Should they have different names?

(Of course, some people extrapolate this trend to questions that *ought* to be asked, or they wish they would ask. But that's still morally the user guide. They're generally funny too.)