[OS X TeX] FAQ or Archive

[Joseph C. Slater]

On Jul 15, 2004, at 3:29 PM, Alain Schremmer wrote:

> I don't think it is a "small point" but I don't think it is a matter 
> of "laziness" but, rather, one of inhibition.
> Lacking familiarity with the medium, I have no suggestion as to what 
> is to be done.

... and that's where I agree. If somebody doesn't know where the web 
page is, or where the FAQ is, the best one can do is explicitly tell 
them to read the footer. Saying that the footer needs to explicitly 
mention that information means ( well what word should I put here?) is 
an exercise in futility. They obviously didn't read the footer. Doing a 
better job with words won't help. Stephan's idea of trying to draw 
attention to it might, but people tend to become numb to repetitive 
presentations and ignore them once they know what they say, or even if 
they've never read them, but just noted that there is some gibberish 
there.

Does anybody know a reasonable way to force an individual to read their 
obligations when signing up for this list? Probably not. Can anybody 
recall 10% of the words in the Warranty given by Gerben for i-Installer 
or what license it is released under? Heck no. But, I know that there 
probably is one, and I can look for it by running it and checking 
"help", "about", etc. If a person won't look a little bit, you can't 
blame Gerben for not making them more obvious. It is necessary for a 
user to take some responsibility, including reading files named 
'Readme', 'License', as well as reading rules for signing up on a 
mailing list.

I think people who ignored that information when signing up, and would 
ignore the footer, would just as likely ignore a monthly email on a 
topic they care nothing about. I doubt I would read it. It would be the 
same boring stuff, of which nothing would pertain to me at that 
instant.

If somebody wants to send out a monthly reminder, I wouldn't object. 
However, I think we've got things covered in terms of telling people 
that there is a web site.

Joe

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